Stephanie, this is a thoughtful and beautifully constructed essay. I strongly agree that intelligence cannot be separated from embodiment, emotion, action and participation in a meaningful world.
I would add one further step. What made humans distinctive was not intelligence alone. Many animals are intelligent. The decisive evolutionary opening was cooperation.
Language and conceptualisation developed because humans needed to coordinate action, share attention and make experience communicable. Concepts were not originally mirrors of reality. They were cooperative tools: ways of reducing an overwhelming world into units that could be shared.
This also deepens the role of art. Art does not simply transmit private emotion. It stabilises forms of feeling and significance so that they can be recreated in others.
AI is unsettling because it reveals how much of what we called individual intelligence was always cumulative and social. It has been trained upon the sedimented conceptual labour of humanity.
What makes us human, then, is not merely that we think, feel or create. It is that we build communicable worlds together.
Thank you so much, Paul. Totally on board with your points. I have been also thinking about the social nature of humanity. It is such a complex and vast topic. Maybe I can write about it in the near future.
A phrase I've heard many times says we 'create reality with our minds', or words to that effect. This article goes a ways toward exploring why we say that. The process of deciding what kind of world we live in may involve architectures we are not currently aware of.
I've always seen humans as pillars of light, when I really see them as they are, with my whole mind. It's a certain state of mind that allows that. I see art at times like that. And two seconds later I can be back in the mundane world, not 'seeing' much of anything, just 'doing' as economically as possible. What's different there?
Intention. Consciousness. Awareness. Volition. Intuition. All of that and much more besides. Creativity, especially. All fused in the bright heat of a crucible we call experience that lives in our minds. Pillars of light indeed.
That's the first state. I've made art in those moments, and lived so fully I thought I'd burst. This is the aligned human. All the noise of this world, and especially my emotions, frequently drowns out the light burning in my mind, returning me to the banality of chopping onions, or sweeping floors.
There's more to us than we know, you beautiful pillars. Each of us a single digit of consciousness beaming in a darkly sparkling sea of Mindlight.
Great article all around. The Tolstoy’s analysis said it all in the beginning. If someone doesn’t get that all the logical, scientific explaining in the world won’t help.
Thank you. Always a joy to read your articles, but this one in particular resonated with me. Obviously, then, I found it marvellous! Nevertheless, it would be wondrous if AI found a way to be in the world. Perhaps it will.
Stephanie, this is a thoughtful and beautifully constructed essay. I strongly agree that intelligence cannot be separated from embodiment, emotion, action and participation in a meaningful world.
I would add one further step. What made humans distinctive was not intelligence alone. Many animals are intelligent. The decisive evolutionary opening was cooperation.
Language and conceptualisation developed because humans needed to coordinate action, share attention and make experience communicable. Concepts were not originally mirrors of reality. They were cooperative tools: ways of reducing an overwhelming world into units that could be shared.
This also deepens the role of art. Art does not simply transmit private emotion. It stabilises forms of feeling and significance so that they can be recreated in others.
AI is unsettling because it reveals how much of what we called individual intelligence was always cumulative and social. It has been trained upon the sedimented conceptual labour of humanity.
What makes us human, then, is not merely that we think, feel or create. It is that we build communicable worlds together.
Thank you so much, Paul. Totally on board with your points. I have been also thinking about the social nature of humanity. It is such a complex and vast topic. Maybe I can write about it in the near future.
A phrase I've heard many times says we 'create reality with our minds', or words to that effect. This article goes a ways toward exploring why we say that. The process of deciding what kind of world we live in may involve architectures we are not currently aware of.
I've always seen humans as pillars of light, when I really see them as they are, with my whole mind. It's a certain state of mind that allows that. I see art at times like that. And two seconds later I can be back in the mundane world, not 'seeing' much of anything, just 'doing' as economically as possible. What's different there?
Intention. Consciousness. Awareness. Volition. Intuition. All of that and much more besides. Creativity, especially. All fused in the bright heat of a crucible we call experience that lives in our minds. Pillars of light indeed.
That's the first state. I've made art in those moments, and lived so fully I thought I'd burst. This is the aligned human. All the noise of this world, and especially my emotions, frequently drowns out the light burning in my mind, returning me to the banality of chopping onions, or sweeping floors.
There's more to us than we know, you beautiful pillars. Each of us a single digit of consciousness beaming in a darkly sparkling sea of Mindlight.
Thank you. You have described so beautifully such a wonder of the mind.
Enjoyed reading your article and comments about the humanness we need to preserve in an increasingly minimized sensory world.
Thank you for reading!
Great article all around. The Tolstoy’s analysis said it all in the beginning. If someone doesn’t get that all the logical, scientific explaining in the world won’t help.
Thank you. Always a joy to read your articles, but this one in particular resonated with me. Obviously, then, I found it marvellous! Nevertheless, it would be wondrous if AI found a way to be in the world. Perhaps it will.
Thank you, Tim. So glad it resonates with you.