Classical dilemmas in ethics classes invoke choices in contrived situations, in which one must decide, for example, whether to sacrifice one life to preserve many. The behavior of people in concentration camps and repressive political regimes has been studied, where people are forced to make morally difficult choices. Our natural situation also involves difficult choices and is not humanly contrived. Like other creatures, we routinely sacrifice the lives of other creatures to maintain our own, to become ultimately our own substance. We have mouths that exist for the horror of devouring flesh, and hands for capturing and killing it. This is the way of nature, whose cruel dictates may seem arbitrary to reason. But, unlike other creatures, our mouths exist also for talking (and kissing), which enables reflection and a relationship to the Other besides digestion. Our hands have come to exist also for creating and caressing as well as for harming. And so, just by existing, we are faced with a moral dilemma. Quite apart from the suffering and poor quality of life we might inflict on fellow creatures, we ourselves suffer the indignity of being carnal and carnivorous.

To have a benevolent stance toward another person or creature depends on not needing to use them for one’s own well-being. I can look fondly on the deer and birds that frequent my homestead when I am in a state of self-sufficiency. Let me be in a state of starvation, however, and I would be confronted with a choice at once moral and existential. The moral difficulty is rooted in biological dependency itself. Yet different cultures have responded to this predicament in different ways. There is a perennial movement for animal rights and “humane” meat processing within modern society. There are sound ecological arguments against our industrial dependency on animal protein. Yet relatively few people in the West are willing to consider carnivorism itself to be a moral dilemma.

The ignominious circumstance we have in common with all animal life is that we do depend on other creatures and the material world for our very existence and literally as food. Modern factory farming simply puts the issue out of sight and mind. It does not confront us, literally face to face, with a moral dilemma in the person of the creature we are hoping to eat—a dilemma which amounts to choosing between a stance of fellowship and a stance of exploitation. Traditional Indigenous hunters face this dilemma directly each time they kill for food and for the use of animal parts such as skins and sinews. Having automated these processes, modern society has simply evaded consciousness of the choice by making the subject-object relationship of exploitation our default stance in regard to all things, even each other. One reading of the Indigenous approach to hunting is that this dilemma has been thoughtfully considered. The taking of life is at least compensated—as much as it can be—by doing so with due respect for the prey. Respect is marked by the way the corpse is treated, but also putatively in obtaining the creature’s assent to be hunted in the first place.

Indigenous societies are organized around the collective obligations of kinship. The Indigenous notion of kinship with all life involves a subject-subject relationship, in contrast to the subject-object relationship of exploitation that dominates modern society. “All my relations” implies “we together in the world,” rather than I disposing of it (or you) for my own benefit. This is in contrast to the modern state, which is organized around coercion of the individual by centralized, hierarchical power and the exploitation of natural “resources” for human purposes. These are two essentially different relationships to the world. The difference is reflected in how food is obtained and our attitudes toward it. The hunter-gatherer obtains food directly from living things and has a personal relationship to them. The supermarket shopper buys an industrial product; the “personal” relationship is with the intermediary of money.

Is the Indigenous hunter’s relation to killing prey for food morally superior to that of the modern meat industry? From a scientific point of view, it may appear delusional to believe that ritual entreaties and magical procedures can secure the consent of the creature to its own demise. The paradoxical ritual apology of the hunter to the prey may seem hypocritical from a modern point of view, betraying the fickleness of “kinship”: today you are my relative but tomorrow I will eat you! To a skeptical scientific mind, the idea that hunted creatures give themselves willingly to the hunter—as part of an unwritten contract—is a self-serving wishful thought, perhaps to assuage guilt. It simply rationalizes the dependency on wildlife as a primary food source in the hunter-gatherer context, by exploiting the notion that animals are folks with whom we can communicate as humans do with each other. Yet, by evading this dilemma altogether, modern society forfeits any right to speak of hypocrisy. The moral essential is the attitude of respect in the context of biological dependency on taking life. It may be the best arrangement the hunter-gatherer can hope for, but perhaps not the best that humanity can hope for.

To understand why such different attitudes emerged, however, we must look to the broader forms of social organization that shape human relationships with the world. The modern metaphor is the machine, in contrast to the extended family. The modern worldview is a product of agriculture and urbanism, which are effects of scale and population density, as well as technology. These affect the degree of removal from nature into man-made environments—literally consisting of other people and their creations. Being smaller and more dispersed, Indigenous populations remained more immersed in the non-human world.

Large-scale grain agriculture made larger, concentrated populations possible, which in turn increased dependency on agriculture. It also established a different relation to the land: property ownership and “use” rather than coexistence. The domestication of animals—whether in farming or herding—established a different relationship to fellow creatures than hunting in the wild. The land and its inhabitants, animal and human alike, were thenceforth managed, as people themselves became domesticated and managed by an elite. Such divergent paths depend on scale. It may not be feasible for modern society to literally adopt Indigenous practices literally. Eight billion people could not subsist on hunting or on backyard horticulture, especially when they do not even have backyards! If humanity cannot return to a hunter-gatherer mode of life, the question becomes whether modern technology can move us toward ethical food sufficiency instead of merely deepening the logic of exploitation.

The present world population—now largely urban—relies precariously on a global food production system that depends on petrochemical fertilizers, shipping, and automated agriculture and meat production. Farming methods better suited to preserving soils and waterways could and must be developed if global civilization is to endure. More importantly, our genetic relatives—especially cows, pigs, and chickens—could be replaced as a food source by artificial protein. It is conceivable to manufacture our needed nutrition without taking the lives of other creatures—even of plants. Indeed, this is what plants themselves do, in contrast to animals, which must feed either on plants or on other animals. At present, artificial photosynthesis for food production is a theoretical possibility and not scalable. It is hardly at the forefront of human concerns. Rather, artificial photosynthesis is mainly considered a supplement to fossil fuels—to feed our machines instead of our bodies—a reflection of the modern world’s distorted priorities. Ironically, one application going by the name of artificial photosynthesis produces energy in the dark, whereas by definition photosynthesis is the transformation of light directly into food.

Natural photosynthesis evolved for survival, not efficiency. Natural plants convert sunlight to biomass with low efficiency—scarcely more than one percent. Artificial systems could eventually exceed plants in converting solar energy into edible calories, bypassing the need to eat even plants. From both a moral and a food-security perspective, artificial food should have priority over artificial intelligence. Apart from research and funding, what ethical food production lacks to become reality is the moral and political determination that would come with embracing the attitude of kinship with all life. That means renouncing the attitude of exploitation that not only taints us morally but is destroying both the natural and the human worlds. “We all together” extends to all of the material world, not just the biosphere. It includes mountains, oceans, clouds and rivers—even “the economy”—everything that works together to make life possible on this blue marble floating in space. Such an attitude could be dismissed as pre-scientific “animism.” But to be conscious of choice in how to relate to every aspect of the material world, moment to moment, is not animism but humility. We do not have to believe that atoms are sentient to shift our own stance from usury to kinship. It is not a question of what the world is truly like—which metaphor we choose—but of what we truly wish to be.

While language does not strictly determine what can be perceived and thought, it significantly shapes both. Words affect perception, serving as a kind of filter. For instance, words like ‘blue’ and ‘green’ arbitrarily sharpen finer gradations of perceived colour in the visible spectrum. In the Inuktitut language, there are more than fifty terms for ‘snow.’ In many Indigenous languages, there is no word for ‘death’—indeed, hardly any nouns at all. In English, seventy percent of words are nouns, demonstrating an obsession with objects more than relationships. The structure of a language itself can affect how events are remembered. For example, the ‘imperfect case’ in French suggests ongoing action over time, perhaps including the present, while the passé simple indicates distance from a definite event long ago. While language extends cognition, it also constrains it. While it enables us to share meaning, it often leads to misunderstanding or failure to communicate.

As opposed to a strictly continuous flow of sound, speech is chunked into discrete phonemes (syllables) forming words. Writing makes this even more explicit with definite visual symbols, which may represent the discrete spoken sounds (alphabet) or may directly represent concepts (hieroglyph or Chinese character). Either way, except in the case of proper names, symbols represent categories rather than specific examples. The symbol consisting of the letters d-o-g refers to a range of creatures and possible experiences, not to a specific animal or encounter. On the other hand, it will elicit a different image, association, or memory for each person, depending on their personal history. While English speaking people may understand that dog represents a concept (a zoological genus), their individual understanding of that concept will be flavored by their personal experience. The past experience the word refers to, and evokes in the present, will differ. A domain of meanings—which are implicit, private, and unique to individuals—must be distinguished from the domain of explicit symbols (such as words) that we publicly share and trade.

The domain of meanings can be thought of as a dense continuous “space” with many dimensions. It encodes structure extracted from the world by means of sensorimotor interaction (experience). Similar experiences, or notions derived from them, may occupy common regions in meaning space, so that gradations of color, for example, would cluster together—with blues quite near greens—while varieties of canine would be located somewhere else. In contrast, the domain of symbols is discontinuous and sparse, consisting of discrete symbols; it can only partially map to the domain of meanings. Since words represent concepts or categories (not individual things), they inevitably collapse many possible distinctions within the domain of meaning into one concept or category, represented by the word or symbol. Categories impose sharp distinctions in meaning space where there were none (is it blue or green?). In effect, the implicit domain of meanings is quantized and compartmentalized in the explicit domain of symbols. Words are vague because they are handles on regions of meaning space rather than mapping to specific points. Because each person has their own quite specific personal referents in the domain of meaning (memories or associations), these may not correspond to another’s referents in that same region. This means that each person unconsciously treats the category as a though it were a single point, rather than a region, in the domain of meaning. What is assumed to be a common understanding of a general notion is actually personal, specific, and highly idiosyncratic.

Things similar in the domain of meaning may be covered by several different words, even within one language, while things grouped linguistically may be perceptually far apart. Boundaries are arbitrarily imposed in the domain of meaning, so that natural gradients become binary categories: either/or instead of shades between. While these effects shape individual thought processes, they can also cause problems in communication between individuals or groups. If we are trying to agree on a municipal policy in regard to management of dogs, for example, our opinions may be strongly influenced by direct personal experiences or memories in regard to specific dogs. We may think we are talking about a neutral category—an abstraction—when in fact we are talking about individual charged points in meaning space. Dog lovers and dog haters may literally not be talking about the same dogs. We can each point to the same word, but not to the same animal it refers to. This problem arises all the more for ill-defined abstractions such as ‘intelligence’, ‘democracy’, or ‘freedom’, which occupy nebulous regions of meaning space. The words are tangible symbols we can mutually acknowledge. And this may obscure the fact that they don’t point to the same meaning for each of us, while giving the false impression that they do.

On the other hand, language does not just involve loss of information through its selective mapping. It also generates new information—for example, in the imaginative possibilities of story-telling and fiction writing. Words have a life of their own; they can represent a thing that doesn’t actually exist, but seems to simply because there is a word for it. By the same token, language offers the possibility of deception: lying, or manipulating opinion through the ambiguity of words. Even the internal reasoning we know as logic must have originated in efforts to convince others.

Words (and other symbols, such as in math) are objects of attention in their own right. They can be manipulated to create novel points or regions in meaning space. Making new distinctions alters perceptual discrimination. While loose language can lead to misunderstanding, precise language can lead to intersubjective agreement. Precise definitions we agree upon (in terms that themselves can be made precise) allow us to create formal systems in which to manipulate new abstractions with no previous referents in meaning space. (For example: ‘quantum state vector’, ‘optimization function’, or ‘futures market’.) However, while formalization is empowering in that way, the idealization involved also excludes information that can turn out to be relevant, even crucial. The price paid for precision is a narrowing of the domain of meaning to a tight region, from which whatever is not well-defined is excluded. The concept may not correspond to anything real, even if (as in science) it is supposed to. But because we can express it, it seems to have its own substance. This creates the misleading impression that everything can be expressed in algorithms and that reality is what we can successfully talk about.

The challenge of communication is to know that we are “on the same page”—that is, actually referring to the same meanings with the words we use in common. It’s possible to approach that state of alignment through ongoing dialogue—when that is the intention. On the other hand, like the intention to deceive, the intention to dispute or to be “right” keeps us on separate pages or in separate regions of meaning space. There are some practical strategies to align meaning when the will is there, largely by asking key questions. In good faith, we can try to locate each other’s referents in meaning space by asking for clear cases of what to include and what to exclude. For example: ‘When do you consider a dog “stray” or “running loose” and when not?’ Or: ‘At what wavelength does blue seem green for you?’

When discussing abstractions—for example, intelligence—we can try to establish each other’s referents or paradigms. (For example: is intelligence mastery at chess, problem solving ability, social skills, cleverness, thinking outside the box?) What are the dimensions of intelligence and how might they be measured? (For example: creativity, IQ score, leadership, financial or social success?) How does ‘intelligence’ compare to nearby regions of meaning space indicated by ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’? What are borderline cases—such as someone who seems smart but uses poor judgment? This sort of mutual query can establish the “page,” at least roughly.

Even politically polarized views can be brought closer to a common ground with intention and discipline. Partisan conflict often reflects different weightings along dimensions in meaning space. Terms like ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ compress multiple dimensions into a single label. But that conflation can be unpacked by respectful mutual interrogation. Liberals and conservatives may understand terms quite differently. But they also may find some common ground through a process of spelling out where they stand in regard to specific dimensions, trade-offs, and thresholds. ‘Democracy’, for example, might be resolved into distinct issues, with varying agreement: fair elections, voter access, majority rule versus minority rights, role of the judiciary, etc. ‘Freedom’ could mean economic opportunity, property rights, security, freedom of speech, freedom from government interference or from control by corporations. These aspects can be considered separately, so that debate about a question is considered in terms of each dimension, point by point. This provides a basis for at least partial agreement, with the possibility to reach a practical compromise even in the face of unresolved philosophical differences.

The possibility of agreement rests on understanding the properties of language, especially the divergence in meaning space that confounds the use of words. More importantly, it depends on the shared intention to find common ground, to converge. Like any tool, the proper use of language to convey meaning requires the intention to understand and to be understood, which can only be achieved by trying earnestly to get to know the mentality of the other. It presumes not only the literal truth, but above all the intention to grasp the spirit behind it.

For example, white settlers may have assumed that the treaties they signed with Natives on this continent were effectively between two human political groups as they conceived them. The Natives, on the other hand, were implicitly signing on behalf of the land they occupied, representing all its creatures into the far future, their “relations.” The settlers hardly grasped the full of extent of what they were being assumed to agree to. The Natives didn’t grasp that the settlers had a completely different understanding of “the land” and their obligations toward it, not to mention a different understanding of time, of the natural world, and of good faith in respecting the spirit of an agreement as opposed to the letter. That misunderstanding had tragic consequences because the colonial settlers made no effort to understand the Native worldview. If they had truly understood and embraced it, the world might already be blessed with an attitude toward the Earth that permits our long-term survival. Unfortunately, the same lethal mistake continues to be repeated every time one nation, one ethnic group, or one individual fails to understand another because little effort was made to go beyond the superficial level of words to find common ground in meaning space.

Hype about AI generates both hope and hysteria. We are presented with a vision—both glowing and fearful—of the Age of AI, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or an AI takeover sometimes called the Singularity. Much of the research (and hype) concerns the quest for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which means human-level capability and beyond: trying to create an agent that replaces the human being and could be vastly superior to it. This is presented as an inevitable development, almost as an extension of natural evolution. In truth, it is a commercial ploy that a few individuals pursue for their profit—a product of venture capitalism. It is no coincidence that Silicon Valley is the home to both AI and modern venture capital.

Conventional capitalism earns returns from producing and selling actual goods and services in real time. Venture capitalism is a form of speculation that tries to anticipate and dominate future markets. It resembles “disaster capitalism” insofar as it depends on crisis, but differs insofar as it doesn’t wait for disasters (such as earthquakes or wars) to create new needs in the short-term. Instead, it bets on foreseeing longer-term future needs—in this case, dependency on AI. It tries to create such needs, which stem from the atmosphere of uncertainty surrounding new technology, rapid change, and social crisis resulting from it.

Venture capitalism is itself a fallout from a recent social crisis—the 2008/2009 financial meltdown. While the instability of the system leading to this crisis was not resolved, cheap capital continued to be abundant. At the same time, the means to use it in novel ways emerged through the internet, mobile phones, and new services (such as Amazon and Facebook) that penetrate everyday life, opening new markets based on new needs. The more dependent we are on automation and technological infrastructure in general (not just AI), the more vulnerable to disruption society becomes, creating new opportunities for opportunists. (Think of power grid failure, mass hacking of digital accounts, oil shortages and flight cancellations.)

Capitalism is a work in progress. Like scientific thought, it tends toward ever more abstruse and technical constructs. Yet, the basic premise is the same: to capture “wealth,” in the sense of what others are willing to pay for or trade. But wealth, in this abstract and disembodied sense (market value or market domination) is not the same as wealth in the form of tangible goods and services, which relate ultimately to the bodily needs of consumers. Ultimately, wealth is what helps people to live well. While promising a bigger and better pie, the usual motive for investment is to get a bigger share of that pie.

This reflects the perennial tension in human nature between cooperation and competition—altruism versus greed. Most business is a compromise between them. It meets stable, predictable, and tangible needs (like food, shelter, clothing, transportation) by regularly skimming relatively modest profit from actual production. Venture capitalism instead speculates on uncertainty, fear, disruption and crisis, in hope of enormous future profit. In order to succeed, it must anticipate future needs. The reliable way to do that is to create them. But such artificial needs are no more than dependencies, like drug addiction. This is exactly the strategy now pursued in the development of AI. Through a lot of hype, a long-term future dependency is being established, both for business and for the ordinary consumer. Both employers and employees will “need” the edge provided by the latest AI tools, in an endless competitive arms race: the rat race on steroids. This arrangement will continue until the whole system melts down or explodes from its own contradictions and pressures—the real “singularity.” This eventuality will matter little to those who create it, who will have the means to survive it. This is why billions of dollars are invested in developing generative AI tools, the data centers to run them, and the power grid to run the data centers. It is part of a general drive to automate everything, regardless of consequence, because this is where future profits lie.

But why automate? Aside from novelty, the promised consumer benefit is convenience. Modern automobiles, for example, are indeed far more convenient than the Model T Ford—which was itself a paradigm of automated production. But we pay for that convenience in several ways. First, the adjusted cost of the modern equivalent of the 1920s Model T is about six times greater. But it was also feasible for an individual to service and even build a Model T oneself. (Before pollution controls, many people tinkered with rebuilding their car engines.) Cars today depend on technology beyond the individual’s grasp. Modern vehicles require professional servicing: that is, servicing them has become monetized. They are more dependable when new, but more costly and not repairable by the owner. There are more things that can wrong with them. But cars are merely an example; many modern appliances follow the same pattern: expensive, reliable when new, with built-in obsolescence, not serviceable by the owner. In general, we pay for monetized services that once were open to individuals to perform themselves. Thus, we become more dependent on factors beyond our control, and obliged to work harder to pay for them. This is the ironic dark side of a vision in which AI liberates us from drudgery.

From the consumer’s point of view, the purpose of automation is convenience.  From the investor’s point of view, it is monetization. Production becomes an opportunity to convert things that people take for granted (like air and water)—or actions they are used to performing for themselves—into commodities or services they are willing (and finally obliged) to pay for. Better yet: to convince people to buy things or services they don’t really need at all. This requires a campaign to “re-educate” the public. It is also a self-reinforcing process: as more people become used to paying for a service, it becomes a norm they cannot do without, for fear of being left behind. (Think of your mobile phone, your email and online banking.) This amounts to creating addictions and then supplying the craved drug. (Think of “free” trial offers of chatbots, with frequent reminders to “upgrade” to the paid version.) The services are convenient, but they are not without cost; they create a dependency in which consumers are at the mercy of a handful of mega-businesses. While there may be some competition among these giants, from which consumers could benefit, the dependency itself is a seemingly irreversible social fact from which the competitors all benefit far more than society.

Control and automation are distinct concepts. In fact, they are opposites. Control requires attention, in a constant feedback loop between the controlling agent and the object controlled—what we call skill. The point of automation is to reduce the need for (human) control or skill. This shift requires two things: to create a system that takes the place of the human agent (e.g., algorithms or robots); secondly, to redefine the object to control as a system the algorithm can manipulate. Ultimately, this means redefining, in mechanistic terms, the natural world and everything in it—including human beings themselves. This is precisely the idea behind AGI: that human intelligence (and even consciousness) can be captured in algorithms and artificially engineered. These new agents can then be autonomous, like organisms, evolving indefinitely, rendering them much smarter, faster, and more competent than humans. AGI is thus the ultimate service to monetize: it provides you with a slave to do everything for you that you find the least bit onerous—including thinking. In short, the companies promoting AGI promise you a life of ever greater ease. They don’t mention that it will be for an ever-increasing price. Nor do they mention the other contradiction in the notion of a super-intelligent, super-capable slave: it is just not feasible to control someone smarter and more powerful than you!

Whether realistic or not, the whole concept of AGI is a foolhardy ruse to make money by playing on human foibles. The hype around it appeals to ancient fascination with matching and outdoing nature—including the possibility to create artificial mind. (With eight billion natural minds to interact with, and with whom we can hardly get along, why would we want to do that?) It promises a utopian world of leisure and enhanced human capabilities, while the actual motivation is profit. AGI is being promoted as necessary, inevitable, and ultimately desirable simply in order to generate enormous gains for a few individuals—hardly for the benefit of humanity. Its dangers far outweigh advantages. Even its promoters admit the dangers, which they vaunt in order to create the very atmosphere of crisis in which people will “need” AI solutions to the problems AI creates.

Perhaps we do not need a universal “labour-saving tool,” nor a super-intelligent agent to replace us as tool users? Perhaps what we do need—aside from exercise and proper nutrition—is specific tools to meet specific needs. (Alpha-Fold is an example.) Such limited AI tools remain under human control by definition. They don’t need to be trained on the internet (the human data base at large) but can be developed from limited topic-related data sets that do not require the enormous energy infrastructure nor the enormous development costs seen for generative AI. Such costs include massive low-paid and degrading human labour to “check” content coming from the internet—ironically, the very opposite of the ideal of automation! The big players are nevertheless going ahead full steam creating new mega data centers in pursuit of AGI on the assumption that we will buy the hype. This is capitalism at its worst. Billionaires will benefit, while the rest of us pay the costs.

Human and animal cognition is grounded in embodiment, which involves more than physical instantiation. Embodiment means an active relationship of dependency upon a real environment, such that the creature’s cognition is what it needs to be in order to exist in that environment. Realness is how the mind experiences that environment (and behaves toward it) in that embodied relation of dependency. But the adequacy of the organism’s cognition for survival does not guarantee its truth or objectivity, which are human ideals established in response to inevitable error.

Science is a cognitive strategy to correct for the limitations and errors of natural cognition. Through technology, it enhances the human organism’s agency in regard to its environment—which we humans call the real world. Yet there remains a blatant gap between our direct and natural cognition, given by the senses, and the scientific understanding of the world. The latter is indirect, inferential and abstract, and “opaque” in the sense that cognitive processing in science is interpersonal and open to conscious scrutiny and direction. In contrast, while also inferential, natural cognitive processing is private and “transparent” in the sense that we have little conscious access or control over it. Helmholtz referred to it as “unconscious inference,” on the analogy of conscious thought processes. But the parallel between them works both ways: scientific cognition can be viewed as a higher-level version of natural perception.

To some extent, we choose our behavior, but scarcely our sensory perception, which seems involuntary and self-evident. From the point of view of an ideal cognitive agent, this aspect of natural perception can be viewed as a disability for which science can be viewed as a compensation. What if this corrected scientific version of reality could be directly incorporated into some ideal cognitive agent’s perception, so that it had the natural experiential quality of immediacy, transparency, and self-evidence? Instead of conceptually understanding the world in terms of scientific abstractions, what if we humans could perceptually experience it through the eyes of our best science? What would it look like? Is that even a coherent idea? To put the question another way, what if a cognitive agent could upgrade its sensory perception—based on unconscious inference—to correspond to its best conscious modeling of the world?

We perceive water, for example, as a continuous substance, while our science knows it is made of discrete molecules. Our visual perception is not acute enough to see molecules in the way that we see macroscopic objects, so we imagine them as small objects of some sort, but which lack the individuating detail that allows us to identify specific macroscopic objects. As it happens, the physical limits of observation and measurement do not allow the detection of such detail, even should it happen to exist on the micro scale. Rather, atoms are “hairless” in the way that black holes are thought to be: characterized only by a small number of parameters. In other words, like black holes, atoms are idealizations. To experience them “directly” would be to see them as stark Platonic forms, not as ordinary objects magnified, which could be potentially rich with more detail. Unlike macroscopic objects, which can differ perceptibly, all molecules of a kind are identical by definition. What is the relation between our sensory perception of water as a continuous fluid and this ideality of water molecules? They both involve acts of cognition—sensory or scientific. Yet the first seems to reflect a limit of human cognition while the second seems to be reflect a property of reality itself. I suggest that they are not so very different.

The fundamental act of mind is a sort of assertion, whereby some property is “filled in” experientially. A paradigm example is the visual blind spot, which is experienced as a continuous visual field despite a gap in enervation on the retina. Another familiar example is the apparent motion effect whereby the individual frames of a motion picture are experienced as continuous. Both cases can be viewed as inability to detect something that is really there—in spite of which it is experienced as there. Alternatively, both can be viewed as the assertion of something that is not there. It would not serve the human organism to be aware of a gap in the visual field, nor of the gap between frames of film below a threshold of speed. Similarly, it would serve no purpose for a creature on our scale to perceive the individual molecules of water, and appropriately it is not equipped with the sensory means to do so. Instead, the mind asserts the continuity of that medium, inventing the experience of a clear liquid, despite the discreteness and “solidity” of its molecules.

However, it does serve a purpose to know that water consists of discrete molecules. Such knowledge enables chemistry. But would it serve chemistry to treat individual molecules as non-identical in the way that macroscopic objects—such as coins—appear? (As physical individuals, coins can have identifying marks that allow them to be distinguished. But as units of value they are identical by definition.) To treat individual molecules as identifiable objects would make mathematical treatment awkward if not impossible. The question is rendered moot by the fact that the physics (of light, for example) does not permit us to closely inspect individual molecules like macroscopic objects. It is convenient, therefore, to idealize them as identical and featureless. Idealization is the conceptual version of perceptual “filling in.” Uniformity is asserted where it may or may not exist.

We live at a certain mesoscopic scale, to which our consciousness is adapted. We can imagine occupying a different scale, such as the very small or the very large—moving among molecules or among galaxies. In this “fantastic voyage” to a different realm, our consciousness carries with it the mentality adapted to our actual scale, according to which molecules or galaxies could plausibly seem to us like natural objects of sensory perception. In truth they are not. To imagine perceiving them that way simply projects onto them knowledge actually gained by means of telescopes, microscopes, and experimental apparatus—not with the natural senses. While constantly being improved, the resolution of such devices is limited by real physical factors.

The world can only be viewed through the cognition of some particular embodied agent, whether that is by means of natural senses or extended with technology. Yet, we are tempted to imagine an objective view as what the world would look like if no one in particular was looking. (By default, that tends to be simply the world as we humans perceive it, in contrast to the perception of other creatures.) Alternatively, we might be tempted to imagine it as the view of a disembodied agent, such as the mind of God. While an embodied organism is cognitively limited by its biology, an agent freed of biological constraints has no bodily need to conceive “reality” at all. A disembodied agent would have nothing at stake, no need for certainty, and no basis for decisions. While the organism is cognitively a prisoner of its biology, an agent completely freed of those constraints has no need to confront “reality” at all. It would seem to us to exist in the world, but neither the world nor its own self would exist for it.

What, then, should objectivity mean? Well, it could mean what is invariant among embodied cognitive systems. Mathematics, for example, may represent what is common to all human cognizers:, consisting of the most general features of natural reality as it appears to us. This would include features such as “objectness” (number), grouping characteristics (sets), and patterns that can be formulated as rules (axioms and operations). Such  features are characteristics of our particular environment, on a solid planet with liquid water and transparent atmosphere. They may also reflect features of our embodiment, such as hands that can manipulate and even manufacture “objects,” and minds that can perform manipulations on simulated objects. While mathematics is deemed to represent the most general properties of the world, science may depend more on the particulars of our embodiment. For example, the concept of force in physics—and the sensation of acceleration—are grounded in muscle proprioception.

If there is no absolute (read: disembodied) objectivity, can we at least define a relative one, in which one embodied perspective can be more objective than another? That seems to be one function of reflexive self-consciousness, which enables humans to transcend a given framework by stepping beyond it to a meta-level. “Thinking outside the box” is even a measure of intelligence as we conceive it: the ability to try a different approach in solving a problem, not to be stuck in an approach that doesn’t work. This ability to step back and take a broader view is a critical power of the cognitive self. Perhaps it is a measure even of how deeply that self exists. Descartes may have been mistaken to assume that the mere appearance of experience confirms the existence of a self. The fact that the world seems real is biologically built in, and is no guarantee of either objectivity or of the subjective self. On the other hand, the ability to question perception, belief, and apparent reality implies the capacity to self-transcend. That at least implies an additional level of agency.

Humanity’s long infatuation with technology has deep roots in ancient dreams of liberation from the constraints of biology and physics. From the earliest times, we’ve sought a spiritual nature to supersede our bodily animal nature—including ways to morally transform our primate tribalism. More recently, we’ve tentatively broken away from the Earth’s surface, from gravity itself, even to invade other worlds. What is the impetus behind this and where will it lead?

Early humans were no doubt painfully aware of their precarious situation amongst dangerous predators, the horror of being hunted. They were well aware of the body’s frailties and its mortality. Belief in an afterlife served to deny the finality of the body’s end. Belief in magic and spirits, whether good or evil, served to assimilate inscrutable natural forces to human intentionality. Such notions served to appropriate what we now call nature to the human cultural realm. Technology began modestly with small advantages over other creatures, often copying them: sharpened stones for claws and spear points for teeth; stitched skins for fur and woven shelters for dens. Advancing technology would turn the tables on nature, perceived as hostile, with humankind rising to the top of the food chain and never forgetting its reasons to do so.

Technology has allowed us to create a parallel world, literally as separate from nature as the city is from the wild—with an identity as different from the mere animal as a machine is from a living organism. Yet, in tune with the program to dominate nature—by copying it and displacing it with human artifacts—our science strives to imitate organisms ever more closely. Asserting our human creativity, we deliberately blur the distinction between nature and artifice. We try to re-create everything natural, to do everything nature can do but better.

Though mastering disease to some extent, we remain, with chagrin, mortal. Through science, we are aware of the planet’s chequered history of extinctions and ice ages, of its eventual doom, and of potential dangers lurking in space. Our ability to plan for the future, or at least to imagine it, therefore extends to the far future of our species and even the quest for personal immortality. An improved version of humanity is an agenda in the minds of some, although there is no political “we” to speak for humanity at large or its destiny. Only recently, through genetics, is there even a consensus for how to define humanness. And this too is blurred by the intention to re-create our own nature artificially. What we shall become is up for grabs. Science fiction has mapped out possibilities that technology tends to follow—at least to the extent that these coincide with the self-interested goals of corporations and the eagerness of consumers for novelty and convenience.

Technology brings us a facsimile of progress toward a utopian transhumanist vision; but the reality falls short on every front. While the rising tide of economic growth has lifted nearly every bit of flotsam, a few super-yachts are as close as we have come to Spaceship Earth. The ideals of liberty, fraternity and equality are ebbing, as the world turns back toward a modern-day feudalism. The dream of complete control of matter inevitably means control—by some—of the uses to which matter is put. And this implies control of consumer-users. The other side of that coin is the fact that the quest for self-control and individual virtue (traditionally through discipline and moral practice) has given way to a craze for convenience and novelty—the mass appeal of things whose alleged virtue is external and perhaps illusory.

But just how “labour-saving” is modern technology, actually? Does “autofill” really save time or is it more of a nuisance? Does constant updating of operating systems and hardware, or of automobiles and other appliances, really improve your life? Or does it just add to the challenge and expense of keeping up? Urban life seems a driven rat race for many, while others—living in cardboard boxes—cannot even get a foot on the treadmill. Social media turn out to be anti-social in their effects. Computer “literacy” results in illiterate babbling online and on the airwaves. There will soon be a world-wide crisis in electrical grids, as data centers consume ever more power to feed your AI personal assistant(s).

There is a corresponding crisis of “information.” Information that is supposed to result in an informed citizenry, and to serve the individual’s purposes and integrity, is displaced by “data” about them—to serve the purposes of exploitive corporations: namely, to convince you to give them what remains of your money. Your attention is now supposed to be the most valuable commodity, and the commercial or political aim is to capture and control it. Doesn’t the success of advertising suggest that consumers have no free will over their own attention and intention, no control over their own mind or desires? Perhaps the whole commercial mill would grind to a halt if people could not be tricked into buying its trinkets and novelties, many of which correspond poorly to real needs.

There is much talk in some circles of a “singularity,” when automation soon becomes so complete that humanity will have lost control over technological development. In truth, only a few humans have control over technological development right now. Chances are you are not one of them. An alternative possibility is a “crunch,” in which technological progress is stymied by its own internal contradictions—e.g., by how much it doesn’t reflect and serve actual human needs and even thwarts them. If progress is defined by profit for the few, it doesn’t represent the good of the many. If it means pollution, waste of resources, and harsher weather, then the crunch will also be ecological. We see this already in climate change and the Holocene mass extinction now underway.

Early on, our species was horrified by its precarious lot in the natural order. We didn’t like being vulnerable animals and so conceived an ideal realm of the gods outside the natural order, with the secret project to become god-like ourselves, in power if not in wisdom and beneficence. We sought to turn the tables on nature, displacing it with culture and artifact. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering now seem effective paths to that goal. But what if they lead to an unnatural order that we detest no less, dominated by human predators? Having long rebelled against the natural order and our own biological embodiment, might we come to be horrified by the technological order that displaces it?

Such questions are not merely philosophical, but existential and political. They confront individuals now—as producers, consumers, and citizens. With sufficiently widespread reflection and disenchantment, they could become collective choices, a rebellion or referendum against technocracy. To succeed, that would not be mere resistance to changing technology, but would seek to change the power structure that controls the production of technology. In other words: to rethink the very premises of capitalism, and its consumer base, which serve to maintain the status and power of an elite with diminishing consideration for the general good. The “big man” seems built into our primate nature; it is with some irony, then, that “big men” today promote digital technology that ideologically (an idealistically) promises to transcend our primate heritage, to lift us to the leisured realm of gods. We are told that technological progress is inevitable, as though our choices had nothing to do with it. And we tend to find it inherently desirable, as though it was not an instrument of power wielded by the few, potentially against us. But technology cannot be considered apart from who controls its production and why.

Revolutions have come and gone, and economies fluctuated, without changing power relations permanently in the long term. This seems to be where humanity is stuck: social progress toward equality is always stymied by the skill of elites to remain in control. But just as humans struggled, unconsciously and incrementally, against their subjection to the natural world, they could resist the techno-capitalist world that replaces it. Whatever its allure of convenience and modernity, to focus on technology per se is misleading; for it is but the instrument, and not the agent, of power. Concern that machines will take over the world masks the reality that it was long ago taken over by the powerful, for whom we are little more than drones. A different singularity looms: the accelerating concentration of wealth in ever fewer hands—which means that the control of information and of the means of production generally passes out of our control. That is the tipping point when ordinary people—not “humanity” in the abstract—will have irrevocably lost all power. Not lost to AI overlords, but to very human ones.

Like scientists, we may marvel at the very existence of the universe, why there is something rather than nothing, and what it means that we are conscious of it. We might also wonder at the future of this existence: our personal destiny, that of our planet, and the whole she-bang.

There are theories of the far future of the universe. And current understanding enables us to foresee that the earth will eventually be uninhabitable, if only when the sun is in its death throes in 5 billion years. The fate of global civilization, even in a hundred years, is far more uncertain. The human situation seems inherently unstable, owing to our divided nature. We are the self-conscious creature with a foot in each of two worlds: our biological nature as primates and our ideals as world-makers outside nature. This unresolved inner contradiction is even more fundamental than our tribal divisiveness.

Self-conscious intelligence sets us aside from most of the animal kingdom. As a species, we are able to deliberately affect an entire planet in unchecked ways that other creatures presently cannot. Plants and microbes had early transformed the rocky and watery Earth into a living, self-regulating biosphere, with animal life as a refinement. A key feature of the biological world is its checks and balances, so that the coming and going of diverse life forms are but footnotes to the overall persistence of Gaia.

We too are a product of that system, but one that has conceived the possibility to step outside or beyond it. While there may be no teleology in natural evolution, human beings have ideas about where it should all go. These range from religious fantasies of afterlife to post-humanist dreams of disembodied cyberlife and a cosmic manifest destiny. “Intelligence,” if not spirit, might appropriate the entire universe. We have ideas about how things could be or should be in contrast to how they actually are. These are not just passive preferences (which other creatures may also have), but intentional directives. The subversive human goal, all along, has been to create parallel worlds outside nature, following visions shaped by diverse, often parochial tastes.

This is a paradoxical situation. For, the values that inform such visions are grounded in the biology they seek to transcend. We are primates who aspire to be gods. It is no wonder that history vacillates between tribal war and global cooperation, since our species is by inheritance at once cooperative, competitive, and xenophobic. Our creative imagination breeds diversity while yearning for unity. Hence, a plethora of divisive religious and political cults, on the one hand, and unifying international law and economic globalism on the other. In the context of such unresolved antitheses, history is compelled to move in cycles. But is there—can there be—overall progress? We are the only creature on this planet that can ask such questions or define such progress. And only humans are potentially in a position to direct planetary evolution.

An obstacle, of course, is the very multiplicity of conflicting visions. Change does happen, perhaps irreversibly, but is it progress? The current obsession with generative AI, for example, is transforming the noosphere, but does it follow some collective human will or simply the profit motive of dominating corporations and greedy consumers? Governments defensively adapt to these changes, with safety concerns, but to what extent do they pro-actively plan for the risky development of Artificial General Intelligence?

While no one is in charge of global long-term planning on behalf of the whole human community, there are individuals and vested interests who would assume that role for their private purposes. Human societies have from the outset been dominated by strongmen, and by elites who first established themselves through violent force. But in any contest of wills, the dominant must arrive at some at least unspoken contract with the dominated. Hence, feudal arrangements included obligations of the warrior nobility toward their peasant farmers—and vice-versa. Today, dominant corporations, and the individuals behind them, provide enough consumer benefits and propaganda to keep the masses enthusiastic about capitalism.

The underlying and overriding fact of history is that the powerful have always been skilled at maintaining their dominance. They have the means and intention to do so. The dominated, on the other hand, have little interest in power and mostly intend to get on with their lives as best they can. Ordinary people are not world creators or destroyers, just folk who want ordinary satisfactions, such as family and a stable job. This puts them at a great disadvantage in any struggle for social justice and economic equality. The rich have the freedoms money can buy while the poor struggle to survive. Those in between are reluctant to bite the hands that seem to feed them. Inadvertently they nourish those who, vampire-like, cleverly feed off of them.

Occasionally the elite screw up through excessive greed, breaking their tacit contract to manage society, risking rebellion by those who have too little left to lose. But those are glitches in an overall success at maintaining power from age to age, often literally passed down through inheritance. With the benefit of accumulating experience, ever refining the strategies of dominance, above all the powerful have the benefit of law, which institutionalizes their interests. The reign of law makes life possible for the masses. But it also makes it unfair, and sometimes miserable, for ordinary people when the dice are loaded and rules of the game are stacked against them.

Many people nevertheless heroically try to do good, in whatever ways they can. They are not motivated by the elite’s lure for power and wealth, nor by the consumer’s greed for more personal satisfactions. They may be organized on local scales, through NGOs, churches, charities, or action groups. But their individual and collective actions are random compared to the focused efforts of the powerful, who employ lobbyists, bribes, and the media they control to influence governmental decisions and popular opinion. Even the collective wealth of some nations—with millions of citizens—is outweighed by the disproportionate wealth of some individuals. Though guided by consumer data, what magically appears in the marketplace is decided in corporate boardrooms, not in public forums. It literally defines the world we live in. In this imbalance of power, consumerism is more than a covetous attitude toward material goods and convenient services; it fosters a relation of passive acceptance of whatever the powers that be dish out.

Can the distributed, nearly random exercise of good will by the many prevail over the concerted efforts of a powerful few? History so far says no, though there has always been a compromise among interests: the symbiosis we call civilization. AI may upset that balance in favor of the elite. People have heretofore been able bargain on the basis of their labour. Work is traditionally how we justify our slice of the economic pie. If all work, even intellectual and creative, is eventually automated—done by machines—people will be superfluous as producers. Even their role as consumer will be threatened, since the purpose of production (from the corporate standpoint) is to generate profit from mass consumption. If the things the wealthy desire can be generated directly by machines, they won’t need your hard-earned money to be able to acquire them, any more than they will need your labour to produce them. And they will already have secured your political vote, since they will have pre-defined the options and influenced your choices.

There is a conspiracy, if not what you think. We are the collaborators! Far from focusing on the dynamics of power, rumours of secret cabals serve to distract attention from the complicity of ordinary people in their own subservience. Do we not crave strong leadership, because only then can we be free to pursue the conventional goals of life, like children free to play because their parents shield them from adult realities? We do no more than follow what is given in biology. But also given in that biology is the drive of the aggressive to dominate the herd. We collaborate with our would-be masters in a conspiracy of the haves with the have-less. From this timeless arrangement, the fate of the world will emerge.

Like everyday experience, science relies on metaphor to extend its conceptual grasp. An airplane or rocket “flies,” but not in the literal way that an insect or bird does. The idea of flight is abstracted to include unnatural things without flapping wings.

Metaphor may also involve reification. A literal field is an expanse where grass grows. The concept of field in physics was metaphorically first a mathematical device to map the measured strength of the electric, magnetic, or gravitational vector in space; later it was considered ontologically as real as traditional matter. The concept of energy was similarly reified, though at root it refers to measurements of mass (gravitational or inertial) and change of position, not to a substance. Even in common parlance information is an abstraction based on real acts of communication. It has been further abstracted and reified in physics as an alleged fundamental entity, even with causal powers.

Platonism illustrates all of these tendencies: metaphor, abstraction, and reification. Like Aristotle, Plato had imagined an essence of a physical thing, abstracted from it; but he went further to suppose that this essence serves as a prototype for its material counterpart. It was a form—in the metaphorical sense of a mould into which the material thing could be cast, or a blueprint from which it could be constructed. It was also thought to pre-exist material things in an eternal realm independent of them. This is a view long favored by mathematicians since Pythagoras, because mathematical “objects” seem to exist apart from matter, in some logically prior domain. Max Tegmark’s “Mathematical Universe” is a modern example: the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is itself a “mathematical structure.”

The temptation of Platonism is understandable for mathematicians and theoretical physicists, who work in a mental realm of abstractions. It is something of a surprise that an experimental biologist would embrace such metaphysical thinking. I have great respect for the research of Michael Levin, which challenges and broadens our understanding of what constitutes organism and intelligence or mind. In particular, it further reveals the limitations of the role of DNA in morphogenesis, and of natural selection in determining biological forms. It points to a huge gap in our understanding of how organisms develop and how life evolves.

Something—vaguely called epigenetics—mysteriously guides developmental processes in ways unaccounted for by DNA, genetics, and natural selection. Levin’s research shows it has something to do with bioelectricity. His discoveries should stand as an invitation to the scientific community to explore more deeply how cells collectively know how to organize into larger beings. No doubt this is what Levin himself will continue to investigate. However, he seems inclined to take his investigations in a metaphysically suspect direction—that is, away from biochemistry and into the realm of mathematical Platonism.

According to Levin, the Platonic realm consists not only of forms corresponding to mathematical ideas (endowed with what he calls “low-level agency”), but contains far more that literally in-forms the diversity of forms and processes of life. According to him, the mysterious something that explains epigenetics is this metaphysical realm. Forms in this realm “ingress” to the material level where a receptive “interface” is presented. This idea reminds one uncomfortably of souls incarnating in bodies. This is not a scientific explanation, in physical terms. I don’t doubt that whatever Levin pursues will be interesting. The risk, however, is that it could turn out to be metaphysics more than biology.

Levin’s research shows that small organisms can be “prompted” with electricity to reconfigure themselves in a controllable way. While that’s an amazing empirical finding, it’s framed in the language of computation: a living system can be (re)programmed at a high level without addressing its mechanics at lower levels. This is because it already embodies a certain intelligence—as do even some simple chemical networks capable of learning. He notes that we are used to thinking of intelligence in terms of problem-solving in physical space—largely an issue for organisms as whole entities, especially those creatures we are familiar with on our human scale. He points out that problem-solving can occur in other kinds of “space,” such as morphogenetic space, including a space of possible body forms and a space of possible minds.

These are metaphors, like phase space in physics, which abstracts the visual space we naturally experience, redefined as a mathematical continuum with arbitrary “dimensions.” (It is merely a convention that even ordinary space has three orthogonal dimensions.) However useful the concept of morphogenetic space, the bottom line is that organisms must be able to problem-solve in real space and time in order to survive. For abstract spaces to have the same reality, something parallel to natural selection in real time must be shown.

A similar creative use of metaphor is Joscha Bach’s “cyber-animism.” He likens the non-material nature of software to the age-old notion of a spirit, a “self-organizing agentic pattern.” For him—as for many others—software is software, whether it runs in a digital computer or in an organism (indeed, “organism” then means the organization, not the substrate). However, we merely guess at the organization of creatures, based on patterns we notice. One helpful tool to do that guessing is digital simulation—to see what patterns result from commands we give to a human artifact made to resemble the natural thing. But resemblance can be superficial; software (digital programming) is literally a human construct, not a natural occurrence.

Only metaphorically does an organism run on its software, just as the universe only metaphorically runs on the laws of physics—as though either could be a digital computer. We observe that there are patterns in the behavior of inert matter, which we formulate as mathematical laws of physics; similarly, we observe patterns in the behavior of living matter, and try to formulate an underlying program. But neither the universe nor the organism is literally running on a computer program. Rather, digital computation has become the modern metaphor to relate patterns found in nature to patterns intentionally created by us. It’s an empowering and productive metaphor. But it’s also potentially misleading, because it rests on the assumption that the whole of the natural thing can be captured in the program. In truth, what can be fully captured is always itself an artifact, something we create.

The purpose of the mechanist metaphor is to view the physical and biological worlds in terms of our own intentionality (machines we create and control), thereby extending human power. The goal of viewing the organization of a living thing as software is to be able to duplicate and control that organization. As a cypher, the “software” of an organism is a handy concept because it provides a course of action. The notion of “spirit” was long similarly handy. The benefit of believing in nature spirits and gods is to be able to control such entities through the primitive “technology” of magic or supplication—that is, through prompts like those that have become familiar through the magic of chatbots and Large Language Models, which have metaphorically become minds with which we converse.

Another Platonic realm is implied in the “receiver” concept of consciousness: the perennially revived idea that the brain does not produce consciousness but only tunes in to it. This theory is as old as radio, at least, and was suggested by William James. Apparently, it informs the latest novel by Dan Brown. Like panpsychism, such an approach does not explain consciousness, but circumvents the need the to explain it, since it is held to be fundamental or axiomatic. Like naïve realism, it also spares us responsibility for what we experience, since we are not its active creators. Perhaps the general lesson is not to be victims of our metaphors.

Truth is the enemy of choice. If something is absolutely true (or right or good), there is no valid alternative to it. There is no rational choice involved. The choice between good and evil, for example, is no more than rhetorical: the appearance of an alternative simply reinforces the rightness of the correct choice. There is meaningful choice only when the possibilities are more equivalent or ambiguous, like a choice between household detergents or how to dress for the occasion. Yet, in the opposite extreme, the alternatives can be so apparently equal that there is no objective reason to prefer one over the other. That was the dilemma facing Buridan’s famous Ass. With two perfectly identical bales of hay to choose between, and no way to make up its mind, the poor creature starved to death!

There are several morals in the story. For the sake of argument, the creature is presumed to rely crucially on a perceptible external difference to make a decision. Further, it should decide. A real creature’s hunger would naturally override any indecision. Human beings too are nominally smart enough not to be immobilized by indecision. Yet, we do rely heavily on alleged realities to determine our choices. Should one vote liberal or conservative if the parties’ platforms are scarcely distinguishable? Or should that redundancy discourage voting at all? Is there something corresponding to the donkey’s hunger that would drive citizens to vote despite a lack of meaningful choice? Though choice in the marketplace of consumer goods is similarly limited—and often meaningless—that hardly stops people from spending their hard-earned money.

At the extreme represented by absolute truth or value there is no real choice. Absolutes compel compliance. But at the extreme of no evident truth or value there is simply no basis for choice. If “free will” is a matter of choice, then it must lie somewhere between these extremes. But, of course, truth and value are not entirely external matters. To some extent (but which, exactly?), truth is in the eye of the beholder, and value is value to someone in particular. (The hay is of value to the donkey; one bale may loom larger in the moment of peak hunger.) Whether or not differences are objectively real, it is up to the subject to act (or not) upon differences perceived. Yet, the fundamental dilemma of a trade-off remains: freedom is conditional to the extent we rely upon externals (perceivable differences), while a rationale for choice is undermined to the extent that we ignore them. Determinism and free will are opposing human constructs—extreme idealizations. Between these extremes, where does instinct, intuition, or common sense lie in choosing, whether for the donkey or the human?

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine a tube down which ball bearings roll in a vacuum. This tube is perfectly ideal, as are the perfectly fitting metal spheres, with perfectly identical dimensions. The tube is perfectly vertical. Below is situated a sharp wedge, perfectly centered underneath the tube. This wedge diverts the falling balls either to the left or right. We should expect a random distribution of balls going either way, analogous to the outcomes of random trials like the tossing of a coin. Any preference for one side or the other would indicate that the wedge is not perfectly centred (corresponding to a “loaded” coin if the statistics is not even between heads and tails). However, it is physically possible for a coin to land on its edge. Only an infinitely thin coin would totally exclude this unlikely possibility. Similarly, we could suppose the wedge is honed to infinite perfection and centering on the tube. As with the coin tosses, two infinitely ideal perfections are pitted against each other—like the irresistible force versus the immovable object. Perfect undecidability is pitted against the perfect means to decide. In this counterintuitive situation, instead of veering left or right, the perfectly elastic falling ball could hit the wedge square on and bounce right back up the tube! In the absence of disturbing forces, even the infinitely thin coin could balance on its razor edge. No decision is made. This is the sort of logical stalemate that idealization can produce.

Occam’s Razor is the principle that the simplest explanation should be preferred. It presumes a well-defined criterion of simplicity and a well-defined situation. To coin a term, Buridan’s Razor is the principle that a distinction can always be made on which to base a choice, if only one’s powers of discrimination are honed enough. That doesn’t mean that choosing is always necessary. Sometimes it’s handy to keep alternative explanations or options on hand. Nor is choosing always meaningful or desirable. Bales of hay are irrelevant to a satiated donkey—or to one that is currently falling to its death alongside them from a high cliff. On the other hand, in this cartoon situation, that momentary state of weightlessness wouldn’t preclude choosing, purely as an act of free will. The fact that we seem to have solid ground under our feet gives apparent weight to our choices. But are we not all falling through time?

Life could be common in the universe, given the abundance of stars with planets and the fact that life arose on this planet within a relatively short cosmic time. One could conclude from this that there should be an abundance of civilizations capable of contacting or visiting Earth. This does not seem to have happened. UFOs notwithstanding, there is no scientific evidence for alien visitations or of efforts to communicate, such as might be revealed through programs like SETI. This discrepancy was first pointed out by physicist Enrico Fermi, after whom it was named.

Our search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and attempts to message it (METI), involve detecting or sending electromagnetic signals—especially radio waves. Indeed, our primary means of knowing about the universe is through electromagnetic radiation—light—one of the four fundamental known forces. A modern revelation, however, holds that less than 5% of the “bulk” of the universe is visible to us by means of that force. The mysterious remainder of the universe does not seem to interact with electromagnetism. It does interact gravitationally, however, which is how we can even know about its existence. Let us put aside the possibility that so-called dark matter and dark energy may be no more than artifacts of a defective understanding of gravitation. Perhaps our search for alien life has been like the man who was looking at night for his lost keys under the lamppost—because that’s where the light was. Could we be using the wrong medium to seek out extraterrestrial intelligence?

Faster-than-light communication or travel is commonly thought to be prohibited by Special Relativity. However—as argued in my paper “Why Is c a Cosmic Speed Limit?” (archived on this site)—the speed of light imposes an absolute limit only if light itself remains the unique standard for measuring speeds. The apparent speed limit represented by c results from the circularity of using light itself to investigate even its own properties. That does not, of itself, preclude the existence of a superluminal force that could serve as a signal. To be clear, there is no evidence for the existence such a thing. If it did exist, however, the paradoxical effects of faster-than-light travel (such as going backward in time) would only appear if light continued to serve as the standard by which to measure and investigate the new medium. If this new signal itself became the standard, the speed of light would take a modest place like the speed of sound, perhaps well below the new cosmic speed limit imposedby the new medium.

This suggests a possible explanation of the Fermi paradox: advanced civilizations simply don’t use electromagnetism for communication, but some unknown medium to which we are not (yet) sensible. By analogy, we can imagine our present situation as like blind creatures who only know of the world through touch and through sound—who build huge sound detectors and emitters in the vain hope of making contact with extraterrestrials. On the other hand, the para-luminal signalling medium of advanced civilizations might enable aliens to “see” dark matter if it involves a causal interaction resembling that of electromagnetism with ordinary matter.

This brings us to an aside about black holes. In present theory, by definition a black hole is a region of gravitational force so strong that even electromagnetic radiation cannot escape from it (except by “leaking” through Hawking radiation). But gravity itself does readily escape from it. Curiously like very long and subtle electromagnetic waves, gravity is supposed to travel at the speed of light. But why should gravity resemble electromagnetism in having the same characteristic speed and wave-like nature, yet be unlike it in escaping black holes? (Indeed, what does it mean for gravity to escape itself?) Gravity waves may be thought of as disturbances propagating in the structure of spacetime itself. But that spacetime structure is defined in terms of the speed of light, c, which makes the whole business suspiciously circular.

Of course, many other explanations for the Fermi paradox have been proposed, which is not really a paradox so much as a mystery. A reasonable explanation (while bearing ominous implications for us) is that technological civilizations inevitably destroy themselves before they can accomplish serious space travel. Carl Sagan was perhaps the first to write about the Fermi paradox. In his relevant novel, Contact, the main character is asked what question she would pose to the aliens who have (in the story) initiated contact with Earth in a message that has been received by a radio telescope and deciphered. Her answer: “How did you do it?” Meaning: how did you survive your hazardous technological adolescence?

Technological civilizations might actually be rare. Natural evolution may not favour our kind of tool-using intelligence. On the other hand, our brand of technology and intelligence may lead us to conceive aliens in too-human terms. They could operate on other time scales, using novel means of communication. Their form of advancement might be post-technological: they might not be interested in space travel or contact with distant civilizations. They might be cautious, if not paranoid, about contact—deliberately hiding. They might be ignoring us because we are too primitive—or too small  or too big.

Humans exist on a scale intermediate between the largest and smallest we can conceive. There may be as many possibilities for existence in the realm of the very small as in the very large. Aliens might not occupy our physical scale, with our expansionist ideals of “conquering space.” They might have opted for miniaturization, maximizing possibilities in the micro realm of computation and information flow rather than energy flow. Such a mentality would have no interest in expansion in outer space, terra-forming, Dyson spheres, massive engineering projects on a galactic scale, or communicating with us.

Perhaps we should not expect to encounter biological aliens at all, or their signals. For, in order to persist over cosmological periods, biological life forms would logically give place to more durable artificial successors. Since such beings, unlike us, could have the ability to re-configure their minds and bodies voluntarily, their motivations and thinking could be incomprehensible to us and unimaginable. We cannot anticipate what they might become. Indeed, with some feasible means to overcome the limitations of physical embodiment, they might migrate to cyberspace, no longer interested in what we call physical reality. Yet, even living in a virtual world, their digital reality would necessarily exist as some form of computation in the physical world. According to our present limited thinking, that would involve massive use of energy, which might itself constitute an identifiable signature of alien civilization.

Similar reasoning applies to the human future. In order to persist, we too would be succeeded by artificial beings. Will they have the same interests in space exploration and contact with alien intelligence? How much will they have in common with present humanity at all? If supra-luminal space travel is possible (such as through worm holes), then the distances involved would be less a deterrent to contact than the conventional speed of light currently presents as a limiting factor. But our successors might not have the motivation or mentality to reach out, even if freed from that limit.

The problem of nihilism arises when conventional sources of meaning and motivation wither or are overcome by doubt. By nature, we look to externals to justify what we value. That is, we look to a worth inhering in those things themselves, or some reason in the world why they should be valued. This habit stems from the natural outward orientation of the brain, which focusses on the environment as the source of the organism’s wellbeing. This orientation is a basic fact of being a creature with a nervous system, dependent on an environment for its life. There is security in a dependent relationship, as the child finds security in the mother. The loss of this dependency itself is threatening. One can feel “orphaned,” on one’s own to face the Void (or, more cheerfully, the Great Mystery). One can no longer count on inherited patterns of belief we call meaning.

The same outward focus is the source of our natural interest in causality. We notice that events lead to other events. Turning that observation upon ourselves is a different matter. We are loathe to think that the world determines our every act—including our thoughts and feelings and our very perceptions. We admit that physical causes operate upon and within the brain. But we prefer to think that there are reasons as well as causes for what we do, think, feel and perceive. We prefer to believe that we choose our actions, and that our perceptions are justified insofar as they correspond to reality.

The senses seem to reveal the external world as it truly is. Similarly, there is more to choosing behavior than whim. Choices have real consequences and we naturally seek to justify them (to ourselves and to others) in real terms—which means in terms of causal processes in the world. On the one hand, we recognize that the world has power over us; on the other, we want to determine our own actions and thoughts. Meaning is naturally imposed on us by the external world, upon which we depend as natural organisms. But as beings who wish to claim free will, we are ambivalent toward that dependent condition. Through our biological dependency, meaning seems to abide ready-made in the world, just as the world seems transparently revealed to the visual sense. However, to know that meaning, like perception, is a function of biological need—and not intrinsic in the world—renders the world unreliable as the source of meaning and throws us awkwardly back upon ourselves.

Nietzsche warned that such nihilism could lead to personal despair, apathy, and a passive or destructive culture. There can be anger at the loss of meaning, as of any resource. Disillusionment or disenchantment is a loss of faith in something once deemed real or true, and therefore a loss of certainty. The normal outward-facing mind can no longer count on finding justification “out there” for its beliefs and actions. Doubting particular beliefs or assumptions can be functional, because it can lead to a better understanding of reality and more self-confidence. But doubting the reliability of the mind or the reality of one’s experience can be undermining and overwhelming.

Descartes’ skepticism concerned the input of the senses, which could be falsified through interference in the nervous system; his solution was that God would not permit systematic deception. If we substitute nature for God, we could suppose that natural selection would not permit deception that prevents our existence at least long enough to reproduce. (Deception that promotes our existence is allowed!) In any case, Descartes took comfort in his cogito ergo sum, concluding falsely that—while one could doubt the existence of the world—one could hardly doubt one’s own existence as an experiencing subject.

Nietzsche’s skepticism concerned something else—not the veracity of experience but its meaning. Even granted reliable sensory input, there is no absolute basis on which to interpret it, no absolutely trustworthy source of meaning. There is no absolute reference frame: “God” is dead. His solution was to re-evaluate valuation itself—to relinquish reliance on the external world to determine one’s beliefs and actions, whether by cause or by reason. He took comfort in amor fati—the practice of intentionally embracing all experience without the habitual evaluation. If meaning cannot be counted on from outside, one must create it oneself. Even negative experience should be welcomed as an opportunity to be intentional and self-determining.

Meaning is the framework for evaluating experience. Its loss is itself naturally evaluated negatively. That judgment simply reflects the continuing general habitual reliance on externals, part of our natural conditioning. Despair or depression is a normal response to the deprivation of meaning. One can defend against it by joining a group or cause, embracing an ideology or reaffirming a faith, returning to traditional values, adhering to routines, etc. One can also simply lose oneself in distraction, entertainment, or drugs. Nietzsche calls such responses passive nihilism. While these responses may acknowledge the potential loss of meaning, one reacts as though to an external threat, reflecting the continuing belief in reality as a causal factor. While individuals might choose to actively confront the Void, society as a whole cannot be expected to. Yet, if it does not, Nietzsche warned, it may fall into religious fundamentalism, rigid nationalism, populist movements, or totalitarian systems, as substitutes for lost meaning—all of which we have seen.

An alternative is to voluntarily relinquish the meaning of which we otherwise feel deprived. But that requires claiming utter responsibility for all one thinks and feels. Ironically, that is the position of the Creator, as opposed to the finite creature whose lot is to respond as best as it can to the vicissitudes of the Creation. Nietzsche’s Übermensch is a godlike being, who asserts free will against the determinism of the natural world. That is a strenuous and heroic ideal, whose demands may have been too much even for Nietzsche, who collapsed at age 44 and spent the rest of his short life being cared for by family or in an institution. One could read this as a concrete illustration of the human confrontation with the Void. To live continuously in tension with it, creating new values ex nihilo, requires enormous courage and vitality. Nietzsche’s life shows both the possibility of a life-affirming philosophy and the cost of pushing a finite organism to its limits.

In other words, existentialism may be bad for your health. Moreover, to have faith in it—much less to seek refuge in it (like in the Buddha or in Christ)—would be paradoxical. That would assert an externality to justify a course of action; but that externality is precisely the truth that no externalities can absolutely justify action or belief. To “love life as it is” (embracing all experience as Nietzsche prescribed) must include the biologically-grounded judgments of pleasure and pain, which are given in experience and are hardly matters of conscious choice. (Except for masochists, loving pain seems a contradiction in terms.) To confront the paradox is to confront the Void itself. For, we are conditioned to seek reasons (justifications) for our values, beliefs and actions. If there is no reason underwriting any choice, there is no reason to choose existentialism either. This does not prevent one from choosing one’s values or behavior, only from expecting a justification. There one is on one’s own.

Choice is ultimately arbitrary insofar as it cannot be justified by externals. On the other hand, justification can be found internally: in how the organism senses and evaluates its own states, providing its own reasons. In that context, to choose nihilism, existentialism, or anything else, mirrors the organism’s fundamental self-defining nature—its autopoiesis. Looking inward affirms the self’s responsibility for itself and its actions, reflecting the organism’s autonomy and relative freedom. From an existential point of view, values are not found but created. Nietzsche viewed life as a work of art, rather than a science. Artistic choice is simply up to the artist. On the other hand, value can be a consciously shared collective creation. Then it would no longer be what we fight over, but what we create together.