What a deeply brilliant piece of writing in its entirety.
MUSING
For the one who feels, there is a kind of horror as they find themselves encountering and contending with more and more people becoming more roboticised from being immersed in and lost to AI ...as if so many aren't already running on automatic anyway.
Dear Robert, I have just purchased your new book and have read to the end of chapter 3 on Loneliness, I wanted to pause and to write to you. This chapter is intimate and beautiful. I carry that ache, and I know it so well, I feel very, very blessed to have read this, it spoke to me immediately and deeply, with much pathos and tenderness, it brought tears of recognition to my eyes and a quiet confirmation that there is not a wrongness there in me for this feeling - thank you so much. I can trust life and lean more into the fullness of my experience from reading this. What a gift you are giving as you age - as they say - like a fine wine…
With the increased use of digital communication technology, which started (circa 1990s) with the Internet and then the World Wide Web and, now, artificial intelligence, we seem to have lost real connections to the past. This is highly problematic It is as if the past collapses into the present, but in a contra-factual way.
This might explain one reason people will today believe something that is not true, when pre-Internet it was unlikely. I know the difference, because I am 67.
This technology is immersive, but immersive in the now (present), so much so that even if you are reading about an event hundreds of years ago, your mind is still here. In contrast, when reading a book, one is also immersed, but you are carried to that particular place and time. Most of the time.
This is one difference I have noticed; there are many more.
Robert, thank you for this. I've been thinking a lot about AI for several months now, especially after reading UC. I've been devouring everything I can find on the subject. I believe you've hit on something profound: A coming singularity of artificiality. We're already having trouble discerning whether videos are real or AI-generated. Music is being reduced to a sort of "toss it in the blender and see what happens" dreck. Paintings are being "created" by these calculating machines. People are even "dating" them. Some cults are forming, gaining "secret knowledge" from "aware" AI.
And on and on it goes, and these are only the early, preliminary days!
I must admit, the future that all of the "experts" predict seems barren and dead to me. As a child of the late 1960s-early 70s, I see a world coming that, by all accounts, appears to be an AI-dominated hellscape. Of course, it's being debated whether this means a Utopia or Dystopia, but either way feels bleak to me.
What is it about our species that would allow it to give itself over, in its entirety, to mechanical Morlocks? Are we just mindless cattle after all? What has happened to us?...
Each of us lives with a personal, internal language model... shaped by genetics, conditioning, and lived experience. Like a custom-trained LLM, this internal model filters, interprets, and constructs our perception of reality. No two are exactly alike.
The brain relies on this internal model to navigate what we call the “world.” But in doing so, we fall into a kind of trance... an entrancement with our own interpretations. Take political polarization, for example: the anger we feel toward the “other side” doesn’t arise from the ineffable mystery of reality, but from how our internal model frames and reacts to it.
If that’s the case, is any experience truly free from this inner mediation?
Perhaps the only path beyond this cognitive spell lies in the awareness of the model itself. A kind of open, unfiltered awareness... a presence that observes without immediately interpreting may offer a way out of the trance.
"Take political polarization, for example: the anger we feel toward the “other side” doesn’t arise from the ineffable mystery of reality, but from how our internal model frames and reacts to it."
Really? That seems far too pat. Are you saying that when I view masked, armed men on horseback riding through a public park in an immigrant community just to terrorize the population, my reaction is only the result of a hypnotic trance?
Fair point, Robert... and thank you for calling that out.
You’re absolutely right: when we see injustice, like armed men terrorizing a vulnerable community, it’s not just some abstract projection. It’s real, it’s visceral, and it calls for a human response.
What I was trying to get at is more about how our framing can sometimes amplify anger or shut down understanding. The model doesn’t negate the reality of harm... but it does influence how we interpret, react, and sometimes get stuck in cycles of outrage that keep us locked in a fixed identity.
There’s a world of difference between clear moral discernment and reactivity that feeds polarization. I’m still learning how to hold that distinction.
Your challenge helps me look closer. Appreciate it.
Thanks for your reply, Stan. I did get your point. And it's not wrong, but leaves something out that I think must not be left out: moral outrage.
I feel sad and angry about the blatant racism of MAGA, and do not think that my feelings indicate a lack of understanding. Quite the opposite. I understand this all too well: think Nazis.
As far as I am concerned, there are not two sides to this story. Anyone who supports Trump and his grip on the US, whatever their reasons, has thrown down on the side of bigotry and hatred.
Yes, free will is a fantasy, so you can see those people as deluded and understand that they are only doing what they must. But that is only one way to look at it.
There is a kind of "spiritual" outlook that tries not to take sides. I'm not there. I'd be happy if Trump fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck, and the Proud Boys, who are now ICE agents right after him.
You’re right to challenge anything that seems to dismiss or reduce the visceral reality of harm. I don’t want to imply that our reactions to cruelty or injustice are illusions, or that we should suppress them.
What I’m exploring is something subtler... how our internal models, shaped by fear and identity, often lock us into a kind of reciprocal trance. When we see people causing harm, like the example you gave, the outrage we feel is real and often appropriate. But I’ve also noticed that when I stay with the awareness of how those committing harm are often caught in their own frozen worldview... driven by fear, history, and conditioning... something shifts.
It’s not about excusing harm. It’s about seeing more clearly.
From this place, my empathy doesn’t diminish... it actually expands. I still feel for those being harmed, but I also see how the ones doing harm are deeply lost. And in that shift, I find that anger often gives way to a different kind of energy... one that can imagine responses that anger might obscure.
For me, this isn’t about transcendence or detachment. It’s about staying human in a more whole and creative way.
Thank you again for challenging me to clarify. I value your voice.
What a deeply brilliant piece of writing in its entirety.
MUSING
For the one who feels, there is a kind of horror as they find themselves encountering and contending with more and more people becoming more roboticised from being immersed in and lost to AI ...as if so many aren't already running on automatic anyway.
Stark truth. Thank you.
Spot on! “The word is not the thing.”
Thank you, Robert
Thanks Robert...this piece gave rise to reflection and questioning once again...your writing really is very useful to me.
Have a great day bro!
🈚️
I often experience -“yugen.” Thanks for bringing to life the word for what cannot be said. Is there no word for this in the English language?
Right. No word in English. Japan has many useful words that point to indescribable states of mind.
I appreciated the depth and feeling in this piece. Well articulated.
Dear Robert, I have just purchased your new book and have read to the end of chapter 3 on Loneliness, I wanted to pause and to write to you. This chapter is intimate and beautiful. I carry that ache, and I know it so well, I feel very, very blessed to have read this, it spoke to me immediately and deeply, with much pathos and tenderness, it brought tears of recognition to my eyes and a quiet confirmation that there is not a wrongness there in me for this feeling - thank you so much. I can trust life and lean more into the fullness of my experience from reading this. What a gift you are giving as you age - as they say - like a fine wine…
With the increased use of digital communication technology, which started (circa 1990s) with the Internet and then the World Wide Web and, now, artificial intelligence, we seem to have lost real connections to the past. This is highly problematic It is as if the past collapses into the present, but in a contra-factual way.
This might explain one reason people will today believe something that is not true, when pre-Internet it was unlikely. I know the difference, because I am 67.
This technology is immersive, but immersive in the now (present), so much so that even if you are reading about an event hundreds of years ago, your mind is still here. In contrast, when reading a book, one is also immersed, but you are carried to that particular place and time. Most of the time.
This is one difference I have noticed; there are many more.
Robert, thank you for this. I've been thinking a lot about AI for several months now, especially after reading UC. I've been devouring everything I can find on the subject. I believe you've hit on something profound: A coming singularity of artificiality. We're already having trouble discerning whether videos are real or AI-generated. Music is being reduced to a sort of "toss it in the blender and see what happens" dreck. Paintings are being "created" by these calculating machines. People are even "dating" them. Some cults are forming, gaining "secret knowledge" from "aware" AI.
And on and on it goes, and these are only the early, preliminary days!
I must admit, the future that all of the "experts" predict seems barren and dead to me. As a child of the late 1960s-early 70s, I see a world coming that, by all accounts, appears to be an AI-dominated hellscape. Of course, it's being debated whether this means a Utopia or Dystopia, but either way feels bleak to me.
What is it about our species that would allow it to give itself over, in its entirety, to mechanical Morlocks? Are we just mindless cattle after all? What has happened to us?...
One problem is that evolution trained us to see "selves" and intention in coherence. I have addressed this in detail in The 21st Century Self.
Expression shapes experience.
Each of us lives with a personal, internal language model... shaped by genetics, conditioning, and lived experience. Like a custom-trained LLM, this internal model filters, interprets, and constructs our perception of reality. No two are exactly alike.
The brain relies on this internal model to navigate what we call the “world.” But in doing so, we fall into a kind of trance... an entrancement with our own interpretations. Take political polarization, for example: the anger we feel toward the “other side” doesn’t arise from the ineffable mystery of reality, but from how our internal model frames and reacts to it.
If that’s the case, is any experience truly free from this inner mediation?
Perhaps the only path beyond this cognitive spell lies in the awareness of the model itself. A kind of open, unfiltered awareness... a presence that observes without immediately interpreting may offer a way out of the trance.
"Take political polarization, for example: the anger we feel toward the “other side” doesn’t arise from the ineffable mystery of reality, but from how our internal model frames and reacts to it."
Really? That seems far too pat. Are you saying that when I view masked, armed men on horseback riding through a public park in an immigrant community just to terrorize the population, my reaction is only the result of a hypnotic trance?
Fair point, Robert... and thank you for calling that out.
You’re absolutely right: when we see injustice, like armed men terrorizing a vulnerable community, it’s not just some abstract projection. It’s real, it’s visceral, and it calls for a human response.
What I was trying to get at is more about how our framing can sometimes amplify anger or shut down understanding. The model doesn’t negate the reality of harm... but it does influence how we interpret, react, and sometimes get stuck in cycles of outrage that keep us locked in a fixed identity.
There’s a world of difference between clear moral discernment and reactivity that feeds polarization. I’m still learning how to hold that distinction.
Your challenge helps me look closer. Appreciate it.
Thanks for your reply, Stan. I did get your point. And it's not wrong, but leaves something out that I think must not be left out: moral outrage.
I feel sad and angry about the blatant racism of MAGA, and do not think that my feelings indicate a lack of understanding. Quite the opposite. I understand this all too well: think Nazis.
As far as I am concerned, there are not two sides to this story. Anyone who supports Trump and his grip on the US, whatever their reasons, has thrown down on the side of bigotry and hatred.
Yes, free will is a fantasy, so you can see those people as deluded and understand that they are only doing what they must. But that is only one way to look at it.
There is a kind of "spiritual" outlook that tries not to take sides. I'm not there. I'd be happy if Trump fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck, and the Proud Boys, who are now ICE agents right after him.
You’re right to challenge anything that seems to dismiss or reduce the visceral reality of harm. I don’t want to imply that our reactions to cruelty or injustice are illusions, or that we should suppress them.
What I’m exploring is something subtler... how our internal models, shaped by fear and identity, often lock us into a kind of reciprocal trance. When we see people causing harm, like the example you gave, the outrage we feel is real and often appropriate. But I’ve also noticed that when I stay with the awareness of how those committing harm are often caught in their own frozen worldview... driven by fear, history, and conditioning... something shifts.
It’s not about excusing harm. It’s about seeing more clearly.
From this place, my empathy doesn’t diminish... it actually expands. I still feel for those being harmed, but I also see how the ones doing harm are deeply lost. And in that shift, I find that anger often gives way to a different kind of energy... one that can imagine responses that anger might obscure.
For me, this isn’t about transcendence or detachment. It’s about staying human in a more whole and creative way.
Thank you again for challenging me to clarify. I value your voice.