Adventures Among Ideas

Is it possible for an artificial intelligence to become really conscious? Are some AIs already conscious, as at least a few people think? And in particular, are large-language-model-based chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard—which after all seem to express thoughts and feelings—conscious? If so, in what sense are they conscious? How conscious are they?

In this episode I look at four essays by the philosopher Jay Ogilvy on paradigm shifts, the nature of power, and possible futures.

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Ogilvy, James. “Understanding Power.” Philosophy & Social Criticism, vol. 5, no. 2 (1978): 128–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/019145377800500202

Ogilvy, James. “From Command to Co-Evolution: Toward a New Paradigm for Human Ecology.” Ecological Consciousness: Essays from the Earthday X Colloquium, University of Denver, April 21–24, 1980, pp. 265–293. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981.

Ogilvy, Jay. “Scenario Planning, Art or Science?” World Futures, vol. 61, no. 5 (2005): 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/026040290500561

Ogilvy, Jay. "Facing the Fold: From the Eclipse of Utopia to the Restoration of Hope." Foresight, vol. 13, no. 4 (2011): 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636681111153931

A discussion of experiential knowledge and virtual experience based on Dorothy Walsh's Literature and Knowledge (1969).

More on the relation between literature and knowledge, this time through the work of Eliseo Vivas.

Does literature give us knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge? And knowledge about what? In this episode I explore literature as propositional knowledge, behavioral knowledge, and reorientational knowledge. Based on Morse Peckham's essay "Literature and Knowledge" (1972).

Discusses Derrida's deconstruction as a kind of double reading.

Useful Readings:

*Abrams, M. H. “Construing and Deconstructing” (1986). Collected with Abrams’ other essay on deconstruction in Doing Things with Texts (1989). https://archive.org/details/doingthingswitht00abra

*Kakoliris, Gerasimos. Derrida’s Deconstructive Double Reading: The Case of Rousseau (2022). https://www.academia.edu/78389332/Derridas_Deconstructive_Double_Reading_The_Case_of_Rousseau

*Miller, J. Hillis. “On Edge: The Crossways of Contemporary Criticism” (1979). Collected in Theory Now and Then (1991). https://archive.org/details/theorynowthen0000mill and https://www.unife.it/letterefilosofia/llmc/insegnamenti/letteratura-inglese-ii-llmc/materiale-didattico/programma-bibliografia-modalita-desame-e-materiale-didattico-letteratura-inglese-ii-laurea-interclasse-anno-accademico-2011-2012/J.%20Hillis%20Miller-%20On%20Edge.%20The%20Crossways-%201979.pdf

In this episode I discuss Wayne C. Booth's four values for good critical (and perhaps social and political) life. Based on Booth's Critical Understanding (1979).

Is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle a behaviorist? Listen and find out!

In this episode I discuss a few ideas of the literary critic J. Hillis Miller on the ethics of reading.