In an age of machines, what makes life worth living?
Iain McGilchrist, on "Resonance"
In the age of machines, what makes life worth living?
“If we are not to become ever more diminished as humans, we need to remain in control of machines, not come under their control. I am not talking about an apocalyptic future; I am talking about apocalypse now.”
As I’ve mentioned, lately I’ve been reading the work of the great author and psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist. Today, I thought I’d share this crucial and lovely bit with you here, from his 2024 essay, “Resist the Machine Apocalypse”.
“No two ways about it: We are making ourselves wretched. We are more affluent than ever, but riches — and power, the only point in having riches — do not make people happy. Ask a psychiatrist. Or take a look at the face of Vladimir Putin, who has, alas, the power of life and death over millions of people and is the owner of the most expensive toilet-paper dispenser in the world. No, affluent as we are, we are also more anxious, depressed, lonely, isolated, and lacking in purpose than ever. Why is this? I suggest it is because we no longer have the foggiest idea what human life is about [emphasis added]. Indeed, there is a sense in which we no longer live in a world at all, but exist in a simulacrum of our own making.
What makes life worth living is what can only be called resonance: the encounter with other living beings, with the natural world, and with the greatest products of the human soul
Leaving nuance aside, and condensing three decades of research and a vast body of supporting evidence into a phrase: We are now mesmerized by the least intelligent part of the human brain. For reasons of survival, one hemisphere of the brain, the left, has evolved over millions of years to favor manipulation — grabbing, getting, and controlling — while the other, the right, has been tasked with understanding the whole picture. So conflicting are these goals that in humans the hemispheres are largely sequestered, one from the other. Our seeming ability these days to hear only what comes from the left hemisphere does not arise from the brain’s having changed radically in the last couple of centuries, though it is indeed always evolving. It’s more like this: You buy a radio set, and you soon find a couple of channels worth listening to. After a while, you find yourself listening to only one. It’s not the radio set that has changed; it’s you. In the case of the brain, it would not matter so much if we had settled on the intelligent channel-but we didn’t. We settled on the one whose value has nothing to do with truth, or with courage, magnanimity, or generosity, but only with greed, grabbing, and getting. Manipulation….
What makes life worth living is what can only be called resonance: the encounter with other living beings, with the natural world, and with the greatest products of the human soul — some would say, with the cosmos at large, or with God. Only in encountering the uncontrollable do we experience the world in its depth and complexity and come fully alive. The resonance we enjoy in a real relationship with a sentient other is not possible where there is no freedom, no spontaneity, no life. If we are not to become ever more diminished as humans, we need to remain in control of machines, not come under their control. I am not talking about an apocalyptic future; I am talking about apocalypse now. We are already calmly and quietly surrendering our liberty, our privacy, our dignity, our time, our values, and our talents to the machine. Machines serve us well when they relieve us of drudgery, but we must leave human affairs to humans. If not, we sign our own death warrant.”
The above is from a 2024 essay by Iain McGilchrist, called “Resist the Machine Apocalypse.” You can read the rest on McGilchist’s wonderful site.
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And for today’s prompts, I ask you:
*Where do you most experience what McGilchrist calls “resonance” - with (as he puts it) other living beings, the natural world, or “the greatest products of the human soul”)?
*What are the parts of your life that you most want to guard from AI/machine takeover?
*What aspects of your life have been improved — or diminished — by tech?
Every person you meet, every moment that unfolds, every beginning, every ending is the flowing of intention, purpose, and meaning. Beauty is the reason for living, our Creator’s gift. Beauty is the harvest of presence witnessing experience of relationships in consciousness of time and space in continuum … “beauty is the opening welcoming of the truth before us savoring pure experience embodying harmony with all creations” 🦅🪶
I’ve related much better to machines (and animals) than I ever will with people.