I am in a sesshin, a 2.5-day short form of intensive Zen meditation. Thoughts and images about the artificial general intelligence (AGI) that we are currently creating keep coming to me. More and more people from the fields of humanities, psychology, or team organization are showing themselves to be impressed, surprised, or anxious regarding AGI's capabilities. It seems the Turing test was passed some time ago, and we are now watching an intelligence develop that seems superior to us. This intelligence...
Recently, I stumbled upon David Hume again. I remember how intense studying his writings was in Heidelberg. We really delved deep into the text there, very meticulously and systematically. It was the opposite of those Anglo-American intellectual history lectures. So, I came across Hume's concept of taste as the core of his ‚aesthetic’ theory. I thought of Rasa and began a conversation with the AI. Larger contexts became clear to me, lines I had never seen before. However, I was a bit...
The series of conversations with the AI is unedited; it is the machine (ChatGPT4.0) that is speaking... Translation from DeepL Prompt: Please write a conversation between David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Abhinavagupta, Bharata Muni, Zeami Motokiyo, Gilles Deleuze and a Brahmin priest. Start with the question: What is taste? ChatGPT Scene: A serene garden with a round table in the center. The philosophers and the Brahmin priest are seated there, each representing a different epoch and culture, yet the timeless question of...
Our brain is not the seat of our mind, but the medium through which we can reach the spiritual. When I first heard this many years ago at a conference on media theory, I was astonished. Did they really mean it? Is that crazy or brilliant? There is this beautiful old-fashioned word, ‚subtle.‘ Our body is a medium through which we can reach this. Our media theories are generally conceived in a technological way. There is...
During meditation, I often observe my thinking, letting thoughts come and go, and try to slow down the thinking process. Thoughts come and go, and I often don't understand where they come from, or why they are eventually replaced by a completely different thought. What chain of association is at work there? These chains of thought seem random, triggered by experiences that are still resonating and being processed. This reminds me of a philosophical idea. It begins with an observation by Henri Bergson…
When the internet became publicly accessible, meaning in the mid-90s, there was the phenomenon of people putting their deepest secrets online. The anonymity, the simplicity, and the speed were alluring. The confession was quickly made, anonymity largely preserved, and perhaps there was even that little thrill that someone one knows might be reading the secrets without knowing who was behind them. These tele-confessions were cathartic. Today, it has reversed: everyone is supposed to see what you're doing, without noticing...
I grew up in the country where cars were invented. The roads and cars here seem safe, at least everything is done to ensure you are safe. Accidents are anticipated, risks calculated, potential collisions computed, and damage minimized through modular construction, or so they say. We want to be prepared for everything, here. This logic of safeguarding, risk calculation, and prevention is why I want to leave this country again. There is no room for the unexpected, this…
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