Pinboard (robertogreco) https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/public/ recent bookmarks from robertogreco Fakes of the Future | Los Angeles Review of Books 2026-07-05T05:21:54+00:00 https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fakes-future-artificial-intelligence-llms-larb-quarterly-traffic/ robertogreco ai artificialintelligence llms chatbots howwewrite writing humanness fakes authenticity doubt human humans humanism krzysztofpelc 2026 fraud uncertainty confidence history photography aihallucinations recursion authorship handmade petrarch erasmus renaissance falsehoods culture chronology literature creativity machinelearning generativeai genai fabrication samueljohnson ossian homer napoleon https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9fbaccbd431c/ Jerry's Map 2026-06-24T07:41:46+00:00 https://www.jerrysmap.com/ robertogreco maps mapping fiction jerrygretzinger obliquestrategies art brianeno henrydarger making imagination creativity rules systems systemsthinking games play gaming worldbuilding arts accretion persistence peoplemakegames lore change random randomness uncertainty unrest future disorder order cards carddecks productivity surpise mortality death collage diaries howwewrite writing memory generativeart generative https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9099a592d543/ He Won’t Stop Building a Map to an Imaginary Place - YouTube 2026-06-24T07:40:50+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is8N7B9b0GQ robertogreco jerrygretzinger maps mapping fiction obliquestrategies 2026 art brianeno henrydarger making imagination creativity rules systems systemsthinking games play gaming worldbuilding arts accretion persistence peoplemakegames lore change random randomness uncertainty unrest future disorder order cards carddecks productivity generativeart generative https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6ac8c23a8f07/ Tolstoy and the Illusion of Inevitability | THR Web Features | Web Features | The Hedgehog Review 2026-06-17T10:22:04+00:00 https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/tolstoy-and-the-illusion-of-inevitability robertogreco“Traveler, there is no road. The road is made by walking.” —Antonio Machado Machado’s famous line suggests that the future does not exist in advance, waiting to be discovered, but comes into being through a choice among possible actions. Many possibilities exist at any given moment. The one that becomes actual depends on coincidences and chances as well as choices, all producing events whose significance emerges only as they unfold. That, as it happens, is also Leo Tolstoy’s argument in War and Peace. In the book’s battle scenes, plans dissolve into confusion, causes multiply beyond reckoning, and outcomes hinge on fleeting, unrepeatable moments. On the eve of the Battle of Borodino, the novel’s hero, Prince Andrei, reflects that what lies ahead is not a determinate sequence but “a hundred million chances…decided on the instant.” What matters is less the perfection of a plan and more the ability to respond to what no plan could anticipate, by means of what Tolstoy calls “alertness.” For Tolstoy, this is a feature not of war alone but of reality in general. History, far from representing the execution of a grand design, is rather the result of countless interacting elements, each shaping and reshaping what can happen next. New possibilities are always emerging as earlier ones are left unrealized. Life more closely resembles an evolving system than a solved equation. Events are contingent in Aristotle’s sense of the term: They “can either be or not be.” After all, if things could only happen one way, human action would collapse into the mechanical execution of what was already implicit in the present. “If human life could be [entirely] governed by reason,” Tolstoy writes in the book’s epilogue, “the possibility of life is destroyed.” And yet again and again, in our aspiration to a hard science allowing for prediction, we are drawn to deny this. That is one reason War and Peace has never lost its relevance. The Recurring Dream of Certainty Since the scientific revolution, Western thought has repeatedly returned to the hope that contingency might be an illusion. As Newton explained the baffling complexities of planetary motion by four simple laws, perhaps, many imagined, the same could be done for human affairs. Thinkers as diverse as Marx, Skinner, and Malinowski have shared this dream, with each promising, in his own way, to reveal necessity beneath apparent disorder. Complexity, for such men, is conceived of as a surface phenomenon, concealing an underlying simplicity that, once uncovered, will render the future knowable. Pierre-Simon Laplace insisted that events are certain, not probable: In speaking of their probability, we are really speaking of the chances our guesses may be accurate, but the events themselves are certain. Time and again, the apparent contingency of events is presented as evidence of our own ignorance. If we knew enough, we would see that events could not have happened otherwise. But there is another possibility: that contingency is real—that the world is not merely complicated but fundamentally generative, that new possibilities are not simply revealed over time but produced within it, through the interaction of elements that cannot be fully anticipated in advance. This is the world Tolstoy describes, one where knowledge cannot precede action, only emerge through it. Time and the Limits of Foresight Tolstoy’s deepest insight concerns time itself. In a deterministic view, time is a neutral space where events unfold according to fixed laws and the future lies already implicit in the present, waiting to be revealed. But in Tolstoy’s world, time is generative. Each moment reshapes what can happen next. Possibilities interact, combine, and disappear, their significance becoming visible only as events unfold. One might say that the system is constantly generating variation—new configurations, new alignments, new opportunities—but without any overarching mechanism that selects among them in advance. Selection happens locally, in real time, through action. The closer one looks, the more things fail to simplify, as in the Newtonian model, and ramify instead. What happens to be taken up is what persists. This is why most Austrian and Russian generals in War and Peace are consistently wrong. They believe they possess a science of warfare—a system capable of anticipating outcomes. Before Austerlitz, they insist that “every contingency has been foreseen.” The result is Napoleon’s greatest victory—yet their confidence remains intact, attributing failure to imperfect execution, never to the limits of prediction itself. As so often happens, the conviction that events must conform to a science makes the supposed science unfalsifiable. The wisest general, Kutuzov, appreciates that people conceive only of a few possibilities while there are thousands. Famously, in the Council of War before Austerlitz, he advises not more planning but “a good night’s sleep.” What matters most is the alertness to seize opportunities that cannot be anticipated in advance. This distinction—between a world that can be mapped and one that must be navigated—extends beyond warfare. Wherever outcomes depend on unfolding interactions, local knowledge, and irreversible time, no complete science is possible. One can orient oneself, but one cannot blaze the path in advance. The Illusion of Inevitability If the future is open, why does the past so often appear inevitable? Tolstoy offers several answers, including what he calls “the law of retrospection.” Once events have occurred, we can reconstruct the paths that led to them. We identify signs that seem to foreshadow the outcome we now know. Alternatives fade from view—not because they were not real, but because they left no trace. The result is a powerful illusion: What happened begins to seem as if it had to happen. Tolstoy asks us to imagine a group of men hauling a log, all pulling in different directions. Wherever they happen to wind up, someone will say they planned to do so. This retrospective projection—which one of us has called backshadowing—reshapes our understanding of history. We look at earlier moments and conclude that the outcome was implicit all along. The more coherent the explanation, the easier it is to forget that things might have turned out otherwise. To avoid backshadowing, we must practice sideshadowing—recognizing that other outcomes, some of which we can imagine, were genuinely possible. That is just the insight that those who believe they have discovered a hard science allowing for prediction in the social world forget or deny. And yet they cannot foresee their own future. Tolstoy’s narrative resists this illusion by preserving the density of lived experience—the sense that at each moment multiple futures were genuinely possible. History, in this view, is not a line but a branching structure, most of whose branches vanish without record. AI and Narrative Certainty In the age of AI, this dream of certainty has taken a new and more persuasive form. Artificial intelligence can process vast datasets, identify patterns invisible to human perception, and generate explanations with remarkable coherence. Faced with such capabilities, it is tempting to believe that uncertainty can finally be overcome—that the future can be rendered legible in advance. But the deeper effect of AI lies in its ability to reorganize the past. Given sufficient data, AI systems can produce narratives that make outcomes appear coherent, even inevitable. They can identify correlations, reconstruct causal chains, and highlight what they regard as signs foreshadowing what followed. The result is not necessarily false, but it is selective. In this way, AI functions less as a predictor than as a powerful engine of narrative compression, reducing the apparent space of possibilities by presenting a single path as the path. What was once understood as a field of possible alternatives becomes retrospectively legible as an inevitable sequence, reducing many “futuribles” to one. The danger here lies in premature coherence, the sense that complexity has been resolved when it has only been reorganized into a persuasive form. A Compass Rather Than a Map Tools do more than extend thought; they reshape the environment in which thought occurs. AI, for instance, introduces a distinctive bias by generating what is statistically coherent, what resembles patterns derived from accumulated data. In an evolutionary system, what persists is not necessarily what is best in any absolute sense but what is most easily selected under prevailing conditions. AI changes those conditions in the intellectual world, lowering the cost of generating variations while subtly guiding selection toward what is already legible within its patterns. Over time, this can narrow the space of perceived possibilities by making them less visible, less accessible, less likely to be pursued. Certain forms of thought—those that resist simplification, that depend on sustained attention, or that emerge from direct engagement with the world—become comparatively fragile. What follows from Tolstoy’s ideas, on the other hand, is not that prediction is useless or that analysis should be abandoned, but rather that we must think in terms of a compass rather than a map. A map assumes a fixed terrain and a determinate path, while a compass provides direction without specifying the route. In a world of genuine contingency, only the latter is available. One can choose a bearing, but the path itself is discovered through movement. Orientation is not foresight. This is the force of Machado’s insight: The road is made by walking not because we lack information but because the path does not exist until it is created. To accept this is to adopt a different understanding of knowledge, not as a complete representation of what will happen, but as a capacity to respond intelligently to what does happen. It is inseparable from time, from attention, from the ability to recognize significance as it emerges. The impulse to eliminate contingency is understandable. Uncertainty is uncomfortable: It resists control and frustrates planning. But it is also what makes agency possible. A world in which everything could be predicted would be a world in which nothing could be otherwise. Action would lose its meaning, since outcomes would already be fixed. The openness of the future is not a defect in our knowledge, but a condition of human life. Artificial intelligence does not change this condition—but it can make us forget it. By rendering the past as if it had been inevitable, it invites us to imagine that the future is already written. Against this, one must insist on what Tolstoy and Machado understood in saying that the future remains unwritten, not because we have failed to compute it but because it does not yet exist."]]> tolstoy garysaulmorson julioottino antoniomachado fleeting alertness certainty uncertainty foresight prediction predictions contingency time variation selection local localism slow small complexity simplicity inevitability retrospection localknowledge knowledge irreverability science 2026 backshadowing sideshadowing coherence cohesion control human humanism planning plans narrativecompression future data ai artificialintelligence conditions possibility possibilities simplification orientation compass direction maps mapping liveexperience experience history action reason technocracy futuribles compasses canon humanness life living warandpeace bfskinner bronisławmalinowski karlmarx https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9d990d00b4a4/ Building Strange Oases - Beautiful Eccentrics 2026-06-05T05:34:51+00:00 https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/building-strange-oases robertogreco pablohelguera art play 2026 participation participatory interactive interaction uncertainty socialpracticeart collaboration life society exploration permission adulthood children childhood reseacrh innovation johanhuizenga homoludens playgrounds rules dwwinnicott jeromebruner psychology education action improvisation experimentation hypotheticals entertainment federicodamorais marianpedrosa eugenfink fernadopessoa álvarodecampos intelligence joy museums thinking howwethink freedom agency artwork https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6cea2424faf4/ What Are We? Where Are We? – Charles Foster 2026-05-31T21:59:18+00:00 https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/what-are-we-where-are-we/ robertogreco charlesfoster uncertainty human humans comfort discomfort francescopetrarch petrarch augustine staugustine saintaugustine life living imagodei aristotle philosophy metaphor symbolism modernity bodies health affiliation conscience consciousness relationships morethanhuman multispecies play environment marthanussbaum humanness thinking howwethink christianity storytelling stories quantumtheory quantumphysics quantummechanics iainmcgilchrist experience cosmos edges liminality littoralzone phenomenology whatmatters eustace borders heraclitus hegl alfrednorthwhitehead thomasnagel galenstrawson jennyodell henribergson georgeellis cslewis grahamgreene physics nielsbohr robertbrowning 2026 liminal betweenness inbetween inbetweenness bhagwanshreerajneesh refusal failure margins cern reality alberteinstein experientiallearning between https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:59eec24a33e9/ Global Thinkers: On the Equality of All Things | Carlo Rovelli - YouTube 2026-05-28T08:19:34+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJGLmI-rEzE robertogreco carlorovelli 2026 physics quantumphysics quantummechanics generalrelativity reality philosophy nagarjuna zhuangzi metaphysics newtonianphysics velocity relativity wittgenstein perspective perspectivism uncertainty naturalism circularity universalism morality knowledge language verification verificationalism observation measurement quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:825ef71dc085/ Defending Our Consciousness Against the Algorithms 2026-04-19T05:06:48+00:00 https://nautil.us/defending-our-consciousness-against-the-algorithms-1279260 robertogreco michaelpollan boredom internet socialmedia online web instagram attention 2026 algorithms consciousness novelty chatbots ai artificialintelligence aipsychosis kalinachristofhadjiilieva thinking howwethink reading howweread christofhadjiilieva resistancemeditation slow chatgpt sycophancy technology politics policy uncertainty freedom interiority https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:28d164b24a70/ The Ozempicization of Everything - by kyla scanlon 2026-03-30T05:02:52+00:00 https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-ozempicization-of-the-economy robertogreco kylascanlon 2026 economics politics biohacking looksmaxxing manosphere optimization efficiency finance financialnihilism socialmedia millennials genz generationz zoomers geny generationy ivanillich google meta nihilism raymondwilliam medicine health infrastructure donaldtrump trumpism peptides ozempic ozempification control bryanjohnson longevity institutions government governance governing immortality chads wwe maha healthcare siliconvalley taste agency branding marcandreessen samkriss cluely generativeai genai aislop aihype aibubble crypto cryptocurrencies gambling markets predictionmarkets monetization capitalism latecapitalism novig kalshi coinbase narrative loneliness spectacle louistheroux clavicular mlm onlyfans polymarket stuartthompson davidyaffe-bellany mikeisaac conspiracytheories benjaminfogel andrewtate predation exploitation clout cloutchasing hustlecultire hustling scams celebrity attention privateequity confusion uncertainty belief joblessness pain alienation desperation amandamull consumption https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7e81b60da6e0/ Lynda Barry on How the Smartphone Is Endangering Three Ingredients of Creativity: Loneliness, Uncertainty & Boredom | Open Culture 2026-03-25T03:14:30+00:00 https://www.openculture.com/2026/03/lynda-barry-how-the-smartphone-is-endangering-three-ingredients-of-creativity.html robertogrecoThe phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty and boredom. Those have always been where creative ideas come from. — Lynda Barry In the spring of 2016, the great cartoonist and educator, Lynda Barry, did the unthinkable, prior to giving a lecture and writing class at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She demanded that all participating staff members surrender their phones and other such personal devices. Her victims were as jangled by this prospect as your average iPhone-addicted teen, but surrendered, agreeing to write by hand, another antiquated notion Barry subscribes to:
The delete button makes it so that anything you’re unsure of you can get rid of, so nothing new has a chance. Writing by hand is a revelation for people. Maybe that’s why they asked me to NASA – I still know how to use my hands… there is a different way of thinking that goes along with them.
Barry—who told the Onion’s AV Club that she crafted her book What It Is with an eye toward bored readers stuck in a Jiffy Lube oil-change waiting room—is also a big proponent of doodling, which she views as a creative neurological response to boredom:
Boring meeting, you have a pen, the usual clowns are yakking. Most people will draw something, even people who can’t draw. I say “If you’re bored, what do you draw?” And everybody has something they draw. Like “Oh yeah, my little guy, I draw him.” Or “I draw eyeballs, or palm trees.” … So I asked them “Why do you think you do that? Why do you think you doodle during those meetings?” I believe that it’s because it makes having to endure that particular situation more bearable, by changing our experience of time. It’s so slight. I always say it’s the difference between, if you’re not doodling, the minutes feel like a cheese grater on your face. But if you are doodling, it’s more like Brillo. It’s not much better, but there is a difference. You could handle Brillo a little longer than the cheese grater.
Meetings and classrooms are among the few remaining venues in which screen-addicted moths are expected to force themselves away from the phone’s inviting flame. Other settings—like the Jiffy Lube waiting room—require more initiative on the user’s part. Once, we were keener students of minor changes to familiar environments, the books strangers were reading in the subway, and those strangers themselves. Our subsequent observations were known to spark conversation and sometimes ideas that led to creative projects. Now, many of us let those opportunities slide by, as we fill up on such fleeting confections as funny videos and all-you-can-eat servings of social media. It’s also tempting to use our phones as defacto shields any time social anxiety looms. This dodge may provide short term comfort, especially to younger people, but remember, Barry and many of her cartoonist peers, including Daniel Clowes, Simon Hanselmann, and Ariel Schrag, toughed it out by making art. That’s what got them through the loneliness, uncertainty, and boredom of their middle and high school years.
"The book you hold in your hands would not exist had high school been a pleasant experience for me… It was on those quiet weekend nights when even my parents were out having fun that I began making serious attempts to make stories in comics form." - Adrian Tomine, introduction to 32 Stories
Barry is far from alone in encouraging adults to peel themselves away from their phone dependency for their creative good. Photographer Eric Pickersgill’s Removed imagines a series of everyday situations in which phones and other personal devices have been rendered invisible. (It’s worth noting that he removed the offending articles from the models’ hands, rather that Photoshopping them out later.) Computer Science Professor Calvin Newport’s book, Deep Work, posits that all that shallow phone time is creating stress, anxiety, and lost creative opportunities, while also doing a number on our personal and professional lives. Author Manoush Zomorodi’s TED Talk on how boredom can lead to brilliant ideas, below, details a weeklong experiment in battling smartphone habits, with lots of scientific evidence to back up her findings. [embed: "How Boredom Can Lead to Your Most Brilliant Ideas | Manoush Zomorodi | TED" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c73Q8oQmwzo "Do you sometimes have your most creative ideas while folding laundry, washing dishes or doing nothing in particular? It's because when your body goes on autopilot, your brain gets busy forming new neural connections that connect ideas and solve problems. Learn to love being bored as Manoush Zomorodi explains the connection between spacing out and creativity."] But what if you wipe the slate of digital distractions only to find that your brain’s just… empty? A once occupied room, now devoid of anything but dimly recalled memes, and generalized dread over the state of the world? The aforementioned AV Club interview with Barry offers both encouragement and some useful suggestions that will get the temporarily paralyzed moving again:
I don’t know what the strip’s going to be about when I start. I never know. I oftentimes have—I call it the word-bag. Just a bag of words. I’ll just reach in there, and I’ll pull out a word, and it’ll say “ping-pong.” I’ll just have that in my head, and I’ll start drawing the pictures as if I can… I hear a sentence, I just hear it. As soon as I hear even the beginning of the first sentence, then I just… I write really slow. So I’ll be writing that, and I’ll know what’s going to go at the top of the panel. Then, when it gets to the end, usually I’ll know what the next one is. By three sentences or four in that first panel, I stop, and then I say “Now it’s time for the drawing.” Then I’ll draw. But then I’ll hear the next one over on another page! Or when I’m drawing Marlys and Arna, I might hear her say something, but then I’ll hear Marlys say something back. So once that first sentence is there, I have all kinds of choices as to where I put my brush. But if nothing is happening, then I just go over to what I call my decoy page. It’s like decoy ducks. I go over there and just start messing around.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2017."]]> lyndabarry slow smartphones creativity loneliness uncertainty boredom technology productivity art artmaking 2016 2026 manoushzomorodi 2017 howweread howwewrite howwemake making drawing observation noticing https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:91d02c342f88/ Why modern life is designed to keep you anxious — and what to do about it | The Gray Area - YouTube 2026-03-03T06:43:41+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRxBCd4q9Lc robertogreco seanilling thegrayarea 2026 samirchopra anxiety philosophy buddhism acceptance stress worry dread fear life living interdependence interconnected interconnectedness existentialism freud resignation consciousness psychology finance panic vibes time presence future human humanism curiosity control change everythingchanges modernity humans parenting thinking howwethink wonder awe terror freedom activism problemsolving uncertainty complextity inquiry emotions society affect crueloptimism affecttheory mind signalanxiety power loss relationships love hope security suffering outdoors prescribingnature death dying social embodiement boides mindfulness culture sublime present mysticism beauty selflessness objects https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4e106522c021/ The lesson of Mexistentialism: the strength of uncertainty | Aeon Essays 2026-02-20T05:48:15+00:00 https://aeon.co/essays/the-lesson-of-mexistentialism-the-strength-of-uncertainty robertogreco carlosalbertosánchez 2026 mexico uncertainty philosophy existence vulnerability accidentality fragility existentialism mexistentialism crisis humanity juliánmarías heidegger wilhelmdilthey joséortegaygasset leopoldozea latinamerica immigration persecution death pessimism aristotle abelardovillegas violence trauma catastrophe empowerment worldview freedom postcolonialism objectivity perspective culturalrelativism identity life living emiliouranga jorgegracia https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:93c913460f28/ Academia: Rigor Mortis - by Timothy Burke - Eight by Seven 2026-02-16T04:01:12+00:00 https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-rigor-mortis robertogreco timothyburke academia highered highereducation colleges universities education gradeinflation grades grading training skills knowledge globalization tests testing socialmobility society meritocracy teaching howweteach pedagogy ideology power economics love joy wisdom happiness contribution whatatters standards content ivyleague politics leadership economy signaling mentalhealth self-pity uncertainty fear anger institutions criticalthinking motivation intrinsicmotivation change outcomes expectations relationships communication presence ambition https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1c25d7550b4d/ The Future of Being Human: A Critical Complementary Investment Thesis 2026-02-16T01:57:54+00:00 https://indyjohar.substack.com/p/the-future-of-being-human-a-critical robertogrecoSelective legibility is the middle path between two failures: total capture, which corrodes formation and agency, and romantic opacity, which can shelter harm. The aim is not to disappear. The aim is to make life livable: to allow becoming, while being held. […] It can also mean an anti-optimisation layer: systems that introduce friction where extraction would otherwise be automatic; that detect when environments are becoming too capturing; that enforce norms of non-instrumental interaction; that protect the right to opacity and the right not to be continuously translated into signal. […] But there is another coupling available: machines that actively create space for irreducibility—systems that reduce capture rather than increase it, that preserve unpriced time, that protect attention as a right, that enable encounter without turning it into data. […] The invitation is to begin unfurling: to prototype the conditions that allow thicker forms of life to re-enter the everyday; to create spaces where micro-communication can return; to defend the right to opacity as a civic affordance; to design selective legibility as a livable doctrine rather than an abstract principle; to explore machine-assisted stewardship as an institutional stance rather than a moral aspiration."]]]> indyjohar 2026 computation automation optimization prediction llms ai artificialintelligence uncertainty attention extraction relationships accountability anxiety legibility illegibility opacity rewilding clivethompson hannurajaniemi life living humanism human humans quantification slow https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e8c962b5fd46/ Why we should embrace ‘nepantla’ – the in-betweenness of life | Psyche Ideas 2026-02-16T00:29:15+00:00 https://psyche.co/ideas/why-we-should-embrace-nepantla-the-in-betweenness-of-life robertogreco nahuatl words betweenness inbetweenness 2026 carlosalbertosánchez freedom oppression language neutrality indigeneity indigenous inbetween uncommitted dichotomy andrzeesdeolmos spanish español diegodurán obligation identity gloriaanzaldúa borders nepantla temporalities attention action transition movement certainty uncertainty stability life living originality interruption intervention ontology allegiance change between https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:432a62cc9397/ The Mythology Of Conscious AI 2026-01-14T21:23:01+00:00 https://www.noemamag.com/the-mythology-of-conscious-ai/ robertogreco consciousness ai artificialintelligence computation life living anilseth 2026 blakelemoine google davidchalmers geoffreyhinton technology llms openai chatgpt anthropic claude deepmind alphafold hallucinations experience siliconvalley aibubble adambecker computers computing brain neuroscience neurobiology alanturing history algorithms software hardware walterpitts warrenmcculloch stephenkleene neuralnetworks mindware wetware biology silicon carbon autopoiesis intelligence chaitanyachintaluri timvogels generativeentrenchment neuroons alfrednorthwhitehead philosophy turingglasses antikytheramechanism cybernetics timvangelder systems systemsthinking cognition cognitivescience science mind functionalism johnsearle being self interoception emotions moods metabolism materiality simulation instantiation nickbostrom psychology social uncertainty ethics machines syntheticbiology kant mustafasuleyman microsoft yoshuabengio shannonvallor bodies embodiment stoneage descartes sherryturkle lamda immanuelkant https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9858b5102d17/ Everything Was Already AI - YouTube 2026-01-09T19:34:30+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2bn0HvUwg robertogreco ai artificialintelligence unlearningeconomics llms evolution context language naturalselection economics capitalism economy culture slop aislop marketing film filmmaking music freemarkets friedrichhayek markets behavior circulareconomy adaptation morality generativeai privateequity technology information arvindnarayanan sayashkapoor dandavies graceblakeley timo'reilly elonmusk openai chatgpt stockmarket herbertsimon jamescscott seeinglikeastate data stevekeen markschatzker decisionmaking prediction nathantankus accounting benjaminkuipers institutions culturaltechnologies states edzitron geoffreyhinton alexanderavila commodification timcook markzuckerberg peterthiel satisficing satisfaction loxalmaxima culturaltechnology simplicity massproduction familiarity complexity exploitation finance conventionalwisdom experimentation trevornoah jeromepowell communication interpretation languages conformity bubbles aibubble lossiness idiosyncrasy art humanity enshittification chatbots bots media corporations corporatism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f6f026e3046d/ Mourning and Migrancy • Ill Will 2026-01-03T06:15:40+00:00 https://illwill.com/mourning-and-migrancy robertogrecoolgarodríguez-ulloa 2025 mounrning migrants migration immigration monroedoctrine us border borders latinamerica israel apartheid palestine geopolitics indigeneity indigenous mourning southamerica perú gayatrispivak death grief dying imperialism empire coloniality colonialism colonization lenapenation history hospitals edwidgedanticat catholicism spirituality religion relationships families haiti kimberlytheidon anthropology sophielewis silviafederici uncertainty nietzsche jacquesderrida kafka https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:76a221725c77/ The Persistence of Decay - YouTube 2026-01-02T01:02:09+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Yqz3h6RF_7I robertogreco sarahdavisbaker lighthouses 2025 caitlindesilvey decay treverowens calflyn jeffvandermeer digitalmedia degradation time erosion annihiliation inbetween inbetweenness preservation digital abandonment heritage information inforamationentropy informationtheory compression uncertainty linkrot geology milliondollarhomepage timecapsules internet web online entropy destruction bitrot betweenness between https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7c0374e4d3e6/ Fauxstalgia: When the Internet Misses a Past That Never Existed 2025-12-31T07:06:41+00:00 https://www.lifeblogs.org/entertainment/fauxstalgia-when-the-internet-misses-a-past-that-never-existed.html robertogreco fauxstalgia nostalgia simulatednostalgia 2025 internet web online gilbertott digital digitalculture vaporwave aesthetics memory memories technology culture commerce marketing branding comfort psychology ethics yearning uncertainty authenticity emotions escapism remakes meaning capitalism 8-bit ai artificialintelligence 1980s presence tiktok youtive instagram retro innocence ahistoricism vacuity collectivity safety instability stability artificiality illusions meaningmaking y2k cottagecore 1990s messiness inequality whitewashing society manipulation hyperreality reality simplification disconnection unease despair stagnation consumerism consumption reflection criticalthinking https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:40979c2c6464/ Mel Chin - YouTube 2025-12-25T03:22:43+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMqayj6EvB0 robertogreco melchin teicarpenter 2025 art artmaking via:javierarbona 9/11 flags chile coup pinochet culture conceptual iraq iraqwar war vietnamwar cambodia vietnam bombs us westbank b'tselem destruction foreignpolicy houston violence ronaldreagan georgehwbush georgewbush actup aids aidscrisis lies making control rodneyking fbi terrorism melroseplace walterbenjamin galacommittee donaldrumsfeld neworleans katrina nola hurricanekatrina empathy unknowing conceptualart framing wittgenstein friction socrates philosophy process marcelduchamp liberation psychology jamesbaldwin cargocult vanuatu bombing truth becoming justice jacquesderrida notknowing beginnersmind amateurs amateurism uncertainty https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6e9cfdad7c0b/ For want of a story - by Matthew Battles 2025-12-24T06:40:59+00:00 https://matthewbattles.substack.com/p/for-want-of-a-story robertogreco matthewbattles teaching howweteach pedagogy education highered highereducation learning howwelearn christopheralexander shopfrontschools networkedlearning paulelie pilgrimage workgroups social fellowship trust patterns apatternlanguage 2025 saraishikawa murraysilverstein presence process sharedstory story shelter intimacy uncertainty vulnerability https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:69ff66758f08/ T12x38 - Catolicismo pop: por qué volvemos a hablar de Dios (CARNE CRUDA) - YouTube 2025-11-16T23:20:45+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmDje3HfHI robertogreco rosalía christianity catholicism catholicchurch 2025 music god rafaelruiz josebagarcía frankiepizá estelaortiz reactionaries tradwives women gender antíalousada media influencers via:javierarbona effetá youth hakuna siloé spirituality religion trends aesthetics ethics sociology ángelarodríguezpam pandemic covid-19 coronavirus genz generationz zoomers uk france españa spain ángelarodríguez pam west secularism farright rightwing liberalism capitalism girlboss girlbosses feminism belonging purpose faith belief fads patriarchy bodies traditionalism transcendence precarity meaning meaningmaking life living ritual consumption consumerism submission obedience structure certainty uncertainty collectivism collectivity newage millennials geny generationy neoliberalism malaise individualism genx generationx babyboomers boomers religiosity femininity ideology conservatism beauty seduction https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0acd5c2d4ae2/ The Future is Mundane - Farsight 2025-11-10T10:53:55+00:00 https://farsight.cifs.dk/the-future-is-mundane/ robertogreco sarahpink anthropology everyday slow 2025 tamirasnell senses sensory multisensory futurism climatechange climate globalwarming ethnography ai artificialintelligence robotics humanism slowcity slowcities design uncertainty possibility speculation speculative socialscience cities mobility energy foresight creativity trust care caring anxiety futures future embodiment bodies sustainability reality technology society diversity human humans https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:bad7abaef898/ Why AI’s hallucinations are like the illusions of narcissism | Psyche Ideas 2025-11-05T18:34:54+00:00 https://psyche.co/ideas/why-ais-hallucinations-are-like-the-illusions-of-narcissism robertogreco ai artificialintelligence jenninegates 2025 uncertainty narcissism aihallucinations llms https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b946af6cc54a/ Nick Cave - The Red Hand Files - Issue #337- I’ve had several disagreements with friends about where you stand on things. Where do you…stand? : The Red Hand Files 2025-10-01T16:28:47+00:00 https://www.theredhandfiles.com/where-do-youstand/ robertogreco nickcave care caring politics unknowing notknowing conservatism temperament morality beauty life living oppression marginalization careerism survival stance doubt certainty uncertainty hivemind herdmentality dogma violence complicity courage spirituality https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:535abe62bae6/ The Wisdom of Not Knowing (with Pico Iyer and Nathan Gardels) - YouTube 2025-09-16T17:16:11+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFaTxvlMWuY robertogreco picoiyer 2025 nathangardels dawnnakagawa travel zoominginandout wisdom modernity global local stillness globalization place science dalailama ego undeludedness presence impermanence certainty uncertainty notknowing knowing knoweledge sameness silence humility speed slow monasteries bigsur attention retreats monoculture diversity doubt christianity buddhism hinduism islam judaism theosophy names naming religion benadictines self memory quiet insight experience meaning meaningmaking movement perspective byung-chulhan contemplation interiority world informationage communication moevement harukimurakami japan west westernization culture turkey iran russia china differences smallness distance howweread understanding depth nepal materialism affluence 1986 pacificcentury bollywood baseball india 1985 1980s civilization society multiculturalism barackobama malcolmgladwell zadiesmith naomiosaka 1983 shinto surfaces palestine israel us uk popculture translation history context politics emotion identity technology econo https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e501fb627c6a/ Writer Èdouard Louis: Who Gets to Escape? - YouTube 2025-09-02T18:16:08+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF7s16ATbJc robertogreco èdouardlouis freedom escape privilege sociology violence masculinity homophobia monsters left rightwing farright conservatives understanding hannaharendt poverty misogyny howwethink thinking refelction alcoholism reality complexity politics humanism humans hate socialdeterminism society class whiteness race racism exclusion othering conservatism others frankness openness privacy directness politeness civility judgement distance conviviality values transparency bourgeois bourgeoisie pathos workingclass emotion aesthetics culture classwar emotions facts uncertainty dehumanization knowledge power autobiography autofiction literature truth https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d4138b937a61/ Who Goes MAGA? | Techdirt 2025-07-12T00:03:12+00:00 https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/08/who-goes-maga/ robertogreco maga mikemasnick substack politics humanism fascism contrarianism wellness influencers centrism centrists moderation moderates apologia apologists linkedin thoughtleaders crypto cryptocurrencies bitcoin blockchain facebook meta venturecapital media journalism massmedia mainstreammedia capitalism dorothythompson nazis socialmedia twitter platforms algorithms news attention mediaconsumption propaganda poison entrepreneurship entrepreneurialism humanity empathy culturewars fragmentation polarization superiority meritocracy specialness complexity simplification character mistakes fallibility vulnerability selfishness resentment patriotism prejudice prejudices bigotry racism homophobia principles uncertainty darkness evil blame scapegoating supremacy jordanpeterson rural democrats reality civics education academia rationalization eugenics bookbans freespeech censorship votersupression oppression antivax vaccines vaccination rfkjr robertkennedyjr elitism conspiracytheories fluoride plandemic pandemic covid-19 coron https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9570bd2a980e/ Nobody Has A Personality Anymore - by Freya India - GIRLS 2025-06-28T03:39:25+00:00 https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/nobody-has-a-personality-anymore robertogreco freyaindia life living experience trauma labeling idenitity 2025 difference relationships diagnosis diagnoses adhd autism ocd understanding care caring attachent dysregulation character categories categorization explanation wonder wonderment gentleness symptoms childhood medicalization medicine psychology therapy betterhelp mentalhealth romance myster scientism genz generationz normal personality eccentricity culture society suffering hurt therapyspeak language labelling idenity structures theories nostalgia motivation traits health assessment emotions motives emotionalintelligence selflessness happiness arrogance anxiety confusion parenthood calculation quantification human humans humanism control certainty uncertainty classification misery hope pain faith pathology pathologization wisdom personalization markets decisionmaking unsolved unknown unknowing zoomers https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6fcab1b04135/ Uncertainty is stressful, but here’s why we need to feel it | Psyche Ideas 2025-06-12T06:48:33+00:00 https://psyche.co/ideas/uncertainty-is-stressful-but-heres-why-we-need-to-feel-it robertogreco uncertainty 2025 jessicaalquist psychology change anxiety emotions knowledge reason focus attention comfort depression mentalhealth control https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3cabfb09e21c/ Opinion | Jesus Has ‘More to Say Than Any Human Language Can Carry’: A Q&A With Rowan Williams - The New York Times 2025-06-10T19:39:15+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/opinion/jesus-faith-god-compassion.html robertogreco rowanwilliams atheism faith christianity religion 2025 newatheists jesus christ jesuschrist god catholicism cslewis humanism humans suffering humannature theology irismurdoch trauma belief leonardcohen brotherskaramazov reconciliation love forgiveness acceptance nickcave death dying philosophy dorothyday proff empiricism idolatry presence kierkegaard spirituality joy fulfillment richarddawkins acgrayling philippullman augustinebaker olivierclément evangelicals morality conscience bible quran judaism islam newtestament values principles psalms davidbentleyhart storytelling gospel peterwehner doubt sehnsucht longing literature questioning human need dignity struggle uncertainty darkness openness holiness theodicy evil injustice instability elusiveness inaccessibility unmanageability holyspirit fullness trinity infinity infinite prayer divinity believing augustine staugustine saintaugustine georgeherbert generosity thinking howwethink russianorthodoxy mythology idolotry moralconsciousness imorality intuition https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:78016fe78c39/ It’s the Secret Doctors Keep from You - Nautilus 2025-05-23T19:39:19+00:00 https://nautil.us/its-the-secret-doctors-keep-from-you-1212605/ robertogrecomedicine healthcare uncertainty rahulparikh emilysilverman doctors 2025 culture clarity certainty confidence paulhan palliativecare trust humility communication medicalschool training https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:56855bce8cb3/ These lessons in scepticism could make the world a better place | Psyche Ideas 2025-05-16T00:07:25+00:00 https://psyche.co/ideas/these-lessons-in-scepticism-could-make-the-world-a-better-place robertogreco skepticism 2025 massimopigliucci socrates socialmedia contemplation certainty uncertainty dogma skeptics facts wisdom confusion protagoras relativism plato truth philosophy cicero marsiloficino christianity skepticalacademy newacademy pyrrho ataraxia epicureans pyrrhonists sophists thinking howwethink intelligence reason knowledge academics gregogrylopez meredithkunz stoicism ancientgreece aporia socraticmethod pedagogy criticalthinking https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c092f2c2e2eb/ La Base Comanche 2x27 | ¿Qué planean los ultrarricos? - YouTube 2025-04-26T18:00:40+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EoH2wHE-_I robertogreco peterthiel neom elonmusk jeffbezos curtisyarvin patrifriedman seasteading próspera 2025 katyperry lorenzotecleme brunosharzini lauraarroyo ignacioreyes robersaavedra society civilization ecology environment dictatorship economics economy libertarianism utopia dystopia networkstate apocalypse globalwarming climate climatechange regulation deregulation technooptimism technosolutionism inequality monopolies honduras californianideology darkenlightenment miltonfriedman menciusmoldbug authoritarianism elitism gildedage wealth roatán donaldtrump markzuckerberg capitalism neoliberalism privatization individualism socialism pandemic covid-19 coronavirus necropolitics politics policy precarity uncertainty naomiklein billionaires maga fascism liberaldemocracy liberalism blueorigin spacex ukraine palantir pentagon military militarism liberty freedom democracy hans-hermannhoppe ideology naturalresources altright resources rightwing gender antifeminism javiermilei siliconvalley movefastandbreakthings 2012 porfiriolo https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:20b82bd275a2/ The week Trump nearly crashed the world economy - YouTube 2025-04-13T16:22:46+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-1s9AykUyU robertogreco garystevenson 2025 economics donaldtrump policy economy trade tarriffs inequality uncertainty taxes taxation regressivetaxes progressivetaxes tradedeficits poverty wealth china cambodia jobs work labor markets marketmanipulation wallstreet stockmarket manufacturing clothing vietname bangladesh electronics apple nike fastfashion assets usbonds finance bondmarket bonds liztruss panic destabilization fyrefestival incompetence governance government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:518c43a5a30d/ Media mistakes around masks and lab leaks in Covid hurt public trust | Vox 2025-03-26T04:37:20+00:00 https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/405263/covid-media-coronvirus-masks-lab-leak-public-health robertogreco kelseypiper pandemic coronavirus covid-19 publichealth media consipracytheories journalism reporting cdc trust zeyneptufekci uncertainty vaccines https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f8c649f06a87/ Chartbook 342 Are we all dead in the long run? John Maynard Keynes and the politics of time 2024-12-22T20:31:02+00:00 https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-342-are-we-all-dead-in robertogreco johnmaynarkeynes time 2024 stefaneich economics present politics future temporality capitalism uncertainty action charlessabel presentism experimentalism alberthirschman keynesianism reinhartkoselleck socialism liberalism marxism kingsleymartin democracy efficiency vanessabell virginiawoolf jackhills walterheadlam socialchange society lorenzopecchi gustavopiga utopianism thomasrobertmalthus richardbrinsleysheridan edmundburke freud psychology anxiety hope geoffmann zacharycarter greenkeynesianism robertskidelsky antonionegri https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:24728ae5d8b9/ Literatura e incertidumbre - ¿Qué hace la poesía para ayudarnos a sobrellevar el futuro? - YouTube 2024-12-22T02:03:19+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjWAGDMIu60 robertogreco agustínfernándezmallo 2016 poetry literature teoríadelcaos wernerheisenberg renélópezvillamar kafka uncertainty quantummechanics quantumphysics physics quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:663204073dec/ How the novel became a laboratory for experimental physics | Aeon Essays 2024-12-19T20:17:12+00:00 https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-novel-became-a-laboratory-for-experimental-physics robertogreco literature spanish español physics imagination experimentalphysics speculativefiction 2024 joshuaroebke richardfeynman alberteinstein experimentation experiments cervantes donquixote donquijote tirsodemolina donjuan geraldprince oulipou raymondqueneau émilezola novels novelists gabo gabrielgarcíamárquez borges ernestosábato eltúnel antipoemas robertobolaño mariecurie surrealism juanpablocastel wernerheisenberg mutliverse stendhal quantumphysics quantummechanics hugheverett albertorojo juliocortázar rayuela relativity science agustínfernándezmallo scientificpoetry poetry time reality wbyeats williambutleryeats enriquevila-matas jorgevolpi benjamínlabatut linameruane universe philosophy philosophyofscience uncertainty erwinschrödinger nicanorparra antipoetry antipoems antipoesía yeats ernestosabato quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7476a5c5607a/ Cuatro cuentos cuánticos, de Javier Argüello - Zenda 2024-11-24T07:35:40+00:00 https://www.zendalibros.com/cuatro-cuentos-cuanticos-de-javier-arguello/ robertogreco-Partí- En el muelle saludé vestido de rojo. Sabía y estaba alerta del largo viaje de Ulises. Soñé que mi pensamiento fuera como el mar. Soñé con un violeta eterno. La mecánica del ego nunca te deja ir del todo. La inteligencia te juega trampas, como el recuerdo. -Partí- En la borda mirando el mar oscuro. Tenso, vestía luto. Despedí mis últimas palabras reconocidas. Despedí la muerte del delirio de este mundo. Una palabra volvió sobre sí: poesía. El retorno de la fuga de todas las palabras. El hecho ocurrió hace unos diez años, y no fue sino hasta esta noche que volví a tener noticias de Oscar Caridad. Fue en un bar cerca de mi casa. Un bar en el que, extrañamente, nunca antes había reparado. Me encontraba regresando de un día particularmente ajetreado cuando lo vi. Y no es que estuviera escondido, no. Tampoco era un sitio nuevo. Se notaba en la arquitectura y en el mobiliario, y sobre todo en la forma en que el hombre que lo atendía se relacionaba con sus clientes. Era un tipo mayor y llevaba a cabo su trabajo con la mecánica tranquilidad que sólo el tiempo otorga. Entré como por obligación. Me parecía una especie de deslealtad hacia vaya a saber quién esto de no conocer un bar tan cercano a mi domicilio. Me senté en la barra y pedí cerveza, y mientras esperaba, comencé a recorrer el sitio con la vista. Entonces lo descubrí. A escasos dos metros de donde me hallaba, y también junto a la barra, me encontré con la melancólica silueta de Oscar Caridad."]]> javierargüello 2024 science physics quantumphysics quantummechanics reality philosophy literature fiction perception time space conscience consciousness intelligence uncertainty observation experience cern oscarcaridad poetry poems quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d11515661bf5/ Javier Argüello: “Si no damos un sentido a la tecnología, se puede volver peligrosa” 2024-11-24T07:35:08+00:00 https://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20240415/9595054/javier-arguello-cuatro-cuentos-cuanticos-sentido-realidad-limite-ficcion-tecnologia-inteligencia-artificial.html robertogreco javierargüello 2024 literature fiction reality laragómezruiz benjamínlabatut science quantumphysics physics quantummechanics philosophy perception time space conscience consciousness intelligence uncertainty observation experience cern ukraine beijing geneva ai artificialintelligence robotics robots humanities schools schooling disciplines antidisciplinary transdisciplinary multidisciplinary quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:639cbabcc48e/ ‘Cuatro cuentos cuánticos’, de Javier Argüello: un salto a la incertidumbre de la mano de la física cuántica | Babelia | EL PAÍS 2024-11-24T07:34:36+00:00 https://elpais.com/babelia/2024-07-06/cuatro-cuentos-cuanticos-de-javier-arguello-un-salto-a-la-incertidumbre-de-la-mano-de-la-fisica-cuantica.html robertogreco javierargüello 2024 jernestoayala-dip alberteinstein uncertainty physics quantumphysics quantummechanics time science reality philosophy literature fiction perception space conscience consciousness intelligence observation experience cern pablopicasso lawrencedurrell aldoushuxley borges picasso quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a976ae04c399/ Cómo son los Cuatro Cuentos Cuánticos de Javier Argüello - La Tercera 2024-11-24T07:33:30+00:00 https://www.latercera.com/culto/2024/09/17/javier-arguello-escritor-argentino-la-realidad-no-es-algo-dado-objetivo-e-inmutable-como-solemos-creer/ robertogreco javierargüello 2024 reality science physics quantumphysics quantummechanics philosophy literature fiction perception time space conscience consciousness intelligence uncertainty observation experience cern narrative everyday borges silvinaocampo adolfobioycasares antidisciplinary multidisciplinary transdisciplinary quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b2b470334e27/ ruling out flippancy | sara hendren 2024-11-01T04:21:40+00:00 https://sarahendren.com/2024/10/31/ruling-out-flippancy/ robertogrecoOne way to frame knowing God is to describe it as a quest for ultimate truth. Philosophy is an explicit form of this quest, and science is an implicit form of it. On this quest for truth with a capital “T,” the little word “God” may or may not name a concrete entity or living being; it may be a stand-in for the end of the search, or perhaps a hypothesis yet to be proven. Nevertheless the pursuit of Truth is finally the pursuit of God, on one hand, inasmuch as the question of God inevitably arises at some point in the journey toward knowledge; and, on the other, because as a matter of historical fact the search for Truth is inseparable from the knowledge of God — even when His existence is denied or unknown. In the West this is a historical given through the Enlightenment and Romantics; just think, for example, of Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Locke, Newton, and Leibniz, men born only fifty years apart, and each in his own way captivated, sometimes obsessively, by divinity. The rule still obtains into the twentieth century, too, even for the most secular or naturalistic thinkers. Simply put, God is unavoidable. Every serious intellectual comes to Him eventually. No student, therefore, should earn a liberal arts degree without facing God either. But how? One way is to learn about candidates for deity. It may be surprising how few there are. To be sure, there are countless ancient claimants to the throne, but these have been either defanged or mocked into fiction. A study of gods thus is a study of religions, because gods have living worshipers or they don’t exist. But there is a difference between studying gods and studying “world religions.” The irresistible temptation of the latter is to sample the global buffet as a kind of dilettante anthropologist: a classroom tour of exotic specimens representing outmoded superstitions. How quaint, we remark, as we set the icon back on the desk. That’s not what I have in mind. Any legitimate candidate for deity wants your soul. A class devoted to the gods should take this seriously. Just as a good philosopher will teach students that questions about meaning and purpose are not abstract or irrelevant but urgent and existential, so a theologian will teach students about the gods as a matter of life and death. Is God? and Which is God? are questions on which everything hangs. To say this is not to prejudice the answers — perhaps they are No and None — but it is to rule out treating the subject flippantly, as akin to astrology or alchemy. It is also to assert that theology, which is the study or knowledge of God, belongs in any university worthy of the name. For folks who are still skeptical: last night I went to a talk that was partly about quantum physics and the multiverse hypothesis. One ongoing debate among physicists is whether the multiverse idea constitutes “metaphysical overreach,” that is, whether physics is equipped to posit such an interpretation from the uncertainty made evident in quantum mechanics. If you’re chasing down the nature of reality, at some point you bump up against inescapably metaphysical questions. To treat those questions as optional, rather than the heart of the matter, is to abandon higher education."]]> sarahendren bradeast christianity god truth science liberalarts philosophy 2024 physics uncertainty quantummechanics enlightenment romanticism descartes spinoza leibniz isaacnewton quantumphysics blaisepascal johnlocke quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:33b764c99d65/ There Is No Show More Beautiful Than This – Tove Danovich 2024-10-10T21:14:50+00:00 https://emergencemagazine.org/op_ed/there-is-no-show-more-beautiful-than-this/ robertogreco birds nature morethanhuman wildlife swifts migration britishcolumbia mexico southamerica observation joy uncertainty tovedanovich portland oregon spectacle awe wonder murmurations multispecies https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7ce6580e2617/ To fix climate anxiety, we first have to fix individualism - Los Angeles Times 2024-10-09T01:06:58+00:00 https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-11/climate-anxiety-essay? robertogrecoclimatechange globalwarming anxiety uncertainty individualism 2024 rosannaxia climateanxiety https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a65474e60c05/ American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We’re the Protagonists 2024-09-27T23:27:39+00:00 https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/1/13/american-suburbs-are-a-horror-movie-and-were-the-protagonists robertogrecosuburbs suburbia us shinashayesteh 2022 architecture photography development walking disability disabilities isolation uncanniness uncertainty parking cars neighborhoods health community communities business environment walkability mobility urbanplanning planning landscape stroads well-being austin bancars wellbeing https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4326f8307f18/ The jazz musician’s guide to the universe - The Gray Area with Sean Illing - Apple Podcasts 2024-09-10T01:02:38+00:00 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jazz-musicians-guide-to-the-universe/id1081584611?i=1000666609060 robertogreco seanilling thegrayarea stephonalexander jazz physics 2024 universe multiverse quantumphysics donaldharrison sonnyrollins johanneskepler astrophysics improvisation melvingibbs willcalhoun quantummechanics alberteinstein consciousness philosophy poetry metaphor notknowing uncertainty math mathematics arthurschopenhauer erwinschrödinger maxplanck nielsbohr ideas howwethink music musicmaking understanding matter science scientists research thinking cosmology leoncooper questionasking inquiry sound time quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f2b2dcdb44ce/ La inteligencia de las plantas. Planta sapiens, Homo stupidus - Paco Calvo l Biobío 2024 - YouTube 2024-09-04T17:31:17+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k8YxMWMRTk robertogreco pacocalvo 2024 plants intelligence morethanhuman multispecies consciousness nature howwethink science ignorance perspective biology computers computing philosophy experts physiology jetlag centrism neurocentrism zoocentrism anthropocentrism inference observation brain prejudice arrogance locomotion scale time decentralization earth life circadianrhythm circadianrhythms regularity uncertainty timelapse anticipation adaptation evolution senses behavior conservation anesthesia ethics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:39e9ebcfc03f/ AI SuperCut of Big Questions about life, death, love, work, and the future of humanity - YouTube 2024-08-29T20:34:10+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg9rqkqGGKM robertogreco michaelwesch 2024 ai artificialintelligence life death love work humanity technology alexa sciencefiction scifi generalintelligence agi dystopia intelligence negativeexternalities externalities unknowns avs climatechange driverlesscars globalwarming labor society economics civilization socialstructure kinship superstructure infrastructure environment demographics power powerrelations politics policy change consequences law legal finance medicine cance diseases skills humans humanism anthropology bard ibm automation automationanxiety computers computing productivity wellbeing standardofliving robots capitalism latecapitalism socialsafetynet ethics ubi universalbasicincome wealthinequality inequality manufacturing thomaspaine mlk miltonfriedman andrewyang purpose meaning meaningmaking careers significance unemployment living experience humanexperience philosophy socialsciences relationships socialscience knowledge knowledgeproduction humanities machines machinelearning intimacy emotionalsupport friendship fulfi https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:2c04debfeee1/ Fully Alive | YCFC 2024-08-19T03:53:07+00:00 https://faith.yale.edu/media/fully-alive robertogreco elizabetholdfield 2024 monasticism spirituality anxiety fear soul life living relationships connection sin reconciliation distraction gratitude christianity contempt greed avarice comfort connivance wealth discipline baptism love honesty vulnerability michaelo'siadhail intentionalcommunity nonviolence emotions phyllistickle prayer rhythms pace jesus christ marinbuber liturgy francisspufford johndunne whauden polarization division homophily silence quiet uncertainty poetry thomastraherne guvnab desire jonathanhaidt humanism outrage wrath anger empiness tribalism society divisiveness moralizing stress empathy curiosity offense grief grieving lament rage overwhelm evanrosa feelings therapy ritual hope cycles praise joy psychology wellness change parableofthesower climatechange accumulation consumerism falseidols shame shamelessness marilynnerobinson money enough simple simplicity slow small security stability steadiness jesuschrist https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7be44aa4c8e5/ What Art Is Not - by Dougald Hine - Writing Home 2024-08-16T16:16:19+00:00 https://dougald.substack.com/p/what-art-is-not robertogrecoWhen artists are brought into projects about climate change, the assumption tends to be that they will make something that helps ‘deliver the message’. A poem, a play, a film, a pop song that will wake people up to the depth of the trouble we are in, that will stir people to action or bring about ‘behaviour change’. If this invitation is accepted, the result is usually a failure – both as art and as message delivery – because this is not how art works. As the Swedish playwright Anders Duus put it to me, ‘Our job is to complicate matters.’ Not to be difficult for the sake of it but to do justice to the strangeness and the messiness of life in a world like this, and to create the kind of space in which stories come alive. None of which is helpful if what you are looking for is a tool to get across a message. Art is not a cheap alternative to an advertising agency or a sophisticated extension of the communications department, and the urgency of the message doesn’t change this. This doesn’t mean art can go on as if it doesn’t know, ignoring the smoke that drifts through the open window of the studio, pretending that the world is not on fire. In the conversations that led to the Dark Mountain manifesto, I remember a sense that those who came after us would look back on the art being made in our time with disbelief: how could we have made this stuff, given what we already knew about the trouble we were in? There’s no single answer to the question of what art should do under the shadow of climate change – and besides, anything that’s worth the name of art is allergic to words like ‘should’. It takes a subtler kind of dialogue, an indirect approach, to stumble on the places where the work of art comes alive. Still, over the years, I began to gather a list of possibilities worth exploring. If our job is to complicate matters, then we could start with whatever seems to be getting taken for granted. Take this urge to get the message across. Is it really the case that people don’t have enough information about climate change? Or is it that we struggle to make sense of what this information means, to fit it into the frames we use to make sense of our lives? Art is not an information technology but it does have a knack of drawing our attention to these frames, bringing them into question, suggesting the possibility of other framings. In its attention to whatever is missing or taken for granted, art can lead us upstream. This is as far as I take it in the book, but in an earlier essay I offered an unfinished list of the roles that art might play, picking up from the same line of thought:
1. Art can hold a space in which we move from the arm’s-length knowledge of facts, figures and projections, to the kind of knowledge that we let inside us, taking the risk that it may change us. 2. Art can give us just enough beauty to stay with the darkness, rather than flee or shut down. 3. Like the bronze shield given to Perseus by Athena, art and its indirect ways of knowing can allow us to approach realities which, if looked at directly, turn something inside us to stone. 4. Art can call us back from strategic calculations about which message will play best with which target group, insisting on the tricky need for honesty – there’s a line I kept coming back to, from the playwright Mark Ravenhill, that your responsibility when you walk on stage is to be ‘the most truthful person in the room’. 5. Art can teach us to live with uncertainty, to let go of our dreams of control. 6. Art can hold open a space of ambiguity, refusing the binary choices with which we are often presented – not least, the choice between forced optimism and simple despair.
I hope that At Work in the Ruins itself plays some of these roles for readers, in as much as it is possible to do so within the covers of a book. And I’m hugely grateful to Måns for his trust in bringing me to work with him at Riksteatern and to all the artists I got to work with during those two years." ]]> dougaldhine art climatechange 2024 uncertainty responsibility ads advertising knowing beauty darkness knowledge facts information andersuus https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c84cb4df0cf0/ What Hannah Arendt proposed as an alternative to authenticity | Aeon Essays 2024-07-19T16:01:41+00:00 https://aeon.co/essays/what-hannah-arendt-proposed-as-an-alternative-to-authenticity robertogreco hannaharendt 2024 identity authenticity samantharosehill ideas values beliefs meaning meaningmaking self knowing unknowing solitude self-belonging belonging uncertainty freedom staugustine willing will individuation disharmony existence heidegger jean-paulsartre sartre albertcamus camus existentialism carmenleadege everyday karljaspers rousseau simonedebeauvoir saintaugustine augustine sensemaking augustineofhippo makingsense https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:92226c206583/ an unconditioned whole | sara hendren 2024-06-12T03:16:16+00:00 https://sarahendren.com/2024/05/20/an-unconditioned-whole/ robertogrecoIn his influential treatise The Problems of Philosophy, the English philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell declared that the goal of philosophy was to free itself from the biases of individual perspectives and to see the world “as God might see, without a here and now, without hopes and fears…in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge…as impersonal, as purely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain.” But in practical terms, what would such a knowledge look like? The ideal of “seeing” the universe sub specie aeternitatis has existed for millenia, but those who have grappled deeply with this ideal have all tended to founder on the same shoal. As beings who must know the world in time and space, the notion of a knowledge unconstrained by time and space is quite simply inconceivable. Take one metaphor for knowledge, that of sight. Sight grants us an image of the world, yes, but an exceedingly partial one. Not only do we see very few images in any given moment, but even when we envision an object, we can only ever do so one aspect at a time. Now try to generalize or expand on that ability. Even to stretch the visualization of a single object beyond a single facet quickly runs aground. What is a cube when simultaneously viewed from all six sides? We quickly see that freeing the constraints of our perspective in such a way doesn’t sharpen our understanding of the cube; instead, it obliterates it. Indeed, the very “cubeness” or “cubity” of the cube depends on our not being able to see more than three sides at a time. When we start to push the boundaries of this thought ever wider, this limitation becomes all the more apparent. Not only all visual discernment but every possible form of knowledge we can obtain about the world depends, radically and entirely, on its limitations in time and space. Seeing everything simultaneously or knowing all time in the blink of an eye would obliterate the very connection between objects and instances that constitutes knowing. Thus, although godlike knowledge in its ostensible freedom from bias may seem like a desirable goal, its realization even in theory leads to an absolute contradiction in terms. And:
What I can know is always conditioned on an unconditioned whole that I must presume to exist but that remains unknowable. Put another way, the minimum condition of any experience whatsoever is not being a god, whether a god of very small things or of very large ones.
If more thinkers were willing, like Egginton, to extend and elucidate the philosophical implications of physics in the actual physics classroom, we’d quickly realize much more of the so-called interdisciplinarity that so many of us claim to want. But the mastery of calculations is just easier in the end. To take uncertainty seriously would cede too much ground to the humanist’s conundrum." [See also this followup: https://sarahendren.com/2024/05/20/twofold/ ]]]> sarahendren 2024 uncertaintyprinciple reality borges kant limitations uncertainty philosophy physics interdisciplinary interdisciplinarity knowledge quantummechanics science space time choices relationships wernerheisenberg alberteinstein sight allthesenses senses bertrandrussell williamegginton humans humanism immanuelkant quantumphysics quantumtheory https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:50d2ea92bace/ Against optimization | A Working Library 2024-05-31T00:42:18+00:00 https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/against-optimization robertogrecoBut you can’t optimize systems in a context that’s changing, especially if it’s changing in unpredictable ways. Removing inefficiencies when circumstances are as anticipated means that there isn’t much slack in the system to respond when the unanticipated happens. Optimization is intrinsically brittle, because it’s about closely matching the output to the conditions, which means it’s vulnerable if those conditions change. What we’ll need from our infrastructural systems, more and more, is for them to be resilient, able to absorb uncertainty and changing circumstances either without failing or by failing gracefully and reversibly, rather than unexpectedly or catastrophically. (Emphasis mine.) Chachra is talking about our collective, public infrastructure here—think of the systems that bring water and electricity to our homes—but I will take the message more generally and argue that this conceptualization of optimization applies also to the evergreen calls for managers to optimize their team’s output and to the likewise frequent orders for us to all optimize our own lives. The problem (or at least one of the problems) is that the twin edicts to simultaneously optimize your team and life and to be flexible in light of an uncertain future are in opposition to each other. Optimization presumes a kind of certainty about the circumstances one is optimizing for, but that certainty is, more often than not, illusory. Here’s Chachra, again:
Making systems resilient is fundamentally at odds with optimization, because optimizing a system means taking out any slack. A truly optimized, and thus efficient, system is only possible with near-perfect knowledge about the system, together with the ability to observe and implement a response. For a system to be reliable, on the other hand, there have to be some unused resources to draw on when the unexpected happens, which, well, happens predictably.
Another way to look at this is that you cannot optimize for resilience. Resilience requires a kind of elasticity, an ability to stretch and reach but then to return, to spring back into a former shape—or perhaps to shapeshift into something new if the circumstances require it. Resilience is stretchy where optimization is brittle; resilience invites change where optimization demands continuity. But whether we’re talking about our public infrastructure or our workplaces, our streets or our lives, it’s change we need to be ready for. Whatever is ahead for us, it’s not more of the same."]]> mandybrown 2024 optimization resilience infrastructure debchachra systems systemsthinking ecosystems efficiency certainty uncertainty https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:edb4edd0b6ac/ Alaska RiverTime 2024-04-16T21:16:13+00:00 https://alaskarivertime.org/Clock robertogreco alaska time art philosophy jonathankeats longnow nature rivers morethanhuman timekeeping clocks anchorage seedlab longnowfoundation grantwilson brittanynicolecox juliedecker aaronleggett wallacelundel watershed watersheds americanfootball watches horology schedules scheduling calendars birthdays law legal school schooling money appointments glaciers climatechange water thinking howwethink storytelling narrative indigeneity indigenous seasons wisdom uncertainty schools https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b879209310a1/ My grandfather Paul Tillich, the unbelieving theologian | Aeon Essays 2024-03-27T05:50:18+00:00 https://aeon.co/essays/my-grandfather-paul-tillich-the-unbelieving-theologian robertogreco paultillich tedfarris values beliefs 2024 christianity history philosophy sociology theology religion theism faith authoritarianism god utopia populism idolatry idols humanism humans humanness mortality meaning meaningmaking uncertainty existentialism morality culture theodoradorno maxhorkheimer nazism weimarrepublic erichfromm adolphlowe hannaharendt jrobertoppenheimer erikerikson mirceaeliade karenhorney rollomay verdun paullee atheism pantheism panentheism robertoppenheimer oppenheimer https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1947ddd7a5f6/ Can gratitude save humanity? - UnHerd 2024-03-25T21:26:42+00:00 https://unherd.com/2023/01/can-gratitude-save-humanity/ robertogreco 2023 matthewcrawford surfing gratitude transhumanism nature modernity thomasdezengotita attention life living resentment entitlement grievance psychology mentalhealth conservatism ideology politics suffering rationalism society confidence nietzsche gnosticism paulkingsnorth nslyons wildlife plants predation disease death maryharrington irismurdoch self humanwill will music technology math mathematics giambattistavico descartes johanhuizinga risks risktaking uncertainty homoludens play civilization mickeymouse donaldduck skills agency kellyslater ericvoegelin michaeloakeshott https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d3fc6175a508/ The Fairy-Tale Promises of Montessori Parenting - The Atlantic 2024-03-04T08:27:44+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/02/montessori-parenting-advice/677568/ robertogreco katecray messiness parenting children childhood marketing montessori uncertainty control organization https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4dad9796fef0/ Look to your neighbors | everything changes 2024-02-20T18:32:46+00:00 https://everythingchanges.us/blog/look-to-your-neighbors/ robertogrecoWe’ve come through 75 years where having neighbors was essentially optional: if you had a credit card, you could get everything you needed to survive dropped off at your front door. But the next 75 years aren’t going to be like that; we’re going to need to return to the basic human experience of relying on the people around you. This has been on my mind as I talk to folks who are contemplating a change in their work, and wondering about a related question: where should I work? Most people can name a few places where they know enough about the ground conditions to dismiss it as a possibility—places that are too hot or too toxic or where the risk of floods and storms is far too high. But then I watch as they scan all the other locales and contemplate if any of them are safe, or see their face fall as they imagine how to evaluate the relative safety of one place over another. We’ve all either lived long enough to experience more than one unsafe workplace, or else we’ve heard the stories from our elders. Even the seemingly healthy places aren’t immutable, aren’t immune to the rigors of capitalism and investor brain worms. You might find that the flexible, friendly atmosphere evaporates the moment the c-suite sees clouds in the market. You might show up one day to discover that your boss has been replaced by three interest rates in a trench coat mumbling about declining productivity. You might find that you are the boss reading from a script about severance while your soul scrambles to exit your body. (I know, because I’ve been there.) You might suddenly realize that the product you were eager to work on is actually doing more harm than good, or that the fundraisers are using your org to launder filthy reputations. You might despair when you realize that the path to changing things for the better is guarded by a coterie of demons cloaked as financial instruments. I’m inclined to agree with McKibben: no place is safe. And yet. We can return to the basic human experience of relying on the people around us. We can get to know our neighbors and colleagues and users; we can orient our work and our lives towards them and away from the inhuman and unliving systems that want us to behave like machines. We may not be able to stop a storm from coming, but we can get together to line up sandbags and buckets, to organize mutual aid, to create places for people to talk and share their needs, to laugh and cry and howl at each clap of thunder. We may not be able to stop a layoff or exorcise the CFO but we can sure as hell take care of each other. This is where I’m wont to say you deserve a union, and that’s true. But even more than that, you deserve to be fully human, interdependent with the people around you and the more-than-human world. The greatest lie that capitalism ever told was that risk is a solitary affair. But we can never bear the risks of work (or climate change) on our own, because we have never actually been alone. What I’ve learned, over and over in my own work and with the people I work with, is that the only thing that saves us from uncertain and capricious futures is each other. This is not to say that you shouldn’t contemplate where you want to work, any less than you should consider where you want to live. It is to say that with whom is the more important question. It is to say that asking how do you want to be? may be the trick that gets you past the demons at the head of the path. Those demons are expecting you to show up head bowed and alone, because alone they know how to deter you. But just watch what happens when you show up with a crowd."]]> mandybrown 2024 billmckibben belonging unions humanism humans community mutualaid workplace safety neighbors neighborliness climatechange globalwarming uncertainty interconnected interconnectedness interconnectivity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5e46a8ea25f4/ "Writing should give access to the world." | Writer Benjamín Labatut | Louisiana Channel - YouTube 2024-02-01T02:44:40+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohsQ3WtdWoM robertogreco 2022 benjamínlabatut writing literature fiction nonfiction science howwewrite research wonder fascination reality robertobolaño pascalquignard eliotweinberger williamburroughs wgsebald form uncertainty singularity magic nothingness void mystery blackholes uncertaintyprinciple art war quantummechanics awe survival understanding knowledge mysteries truth truths mathematics experience wisdom sensemaking makingsenses wernerheisenberg difference diversity realism howwethink thinking philosophy brain brains existence canon nature universe life living quantumphysics singularitarianism quantumtheory makingsense https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:78aeab664a9f/ Stanley cup: What is the craze really about? It's not hydration. 2024-01-27T21:02:24+00:00 https://slate.com/technology/2024/01/stanley-cup-tumbler-reusable-water-bottle-target.html robertogreco water reuse environment consumerism consumption stanleycub waterbottles us 2024 trends health heatherschwedel megduff darylaustin fnnch lead safety control uncertainty overhydration bodies tiktok cults carbonemissions sustainability fashion https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:268e4057eaa2/ In Search of Anti-Work Time: Mapping the Anti-Serial Impulse - Post45 2024-01-12T16:26:14+00:00 https://post45.org/2024/01/in-search-of-anti-work-time-mapping-the-anti-serial-impulse/ robertogreco madelinelane-mckinley television tv time carollopate ameliahorgan matthewball work labor capitalism rogerhagedorn temporalities davidbuxton serials narrative howwewrite worklife davidchase atlanta highmaintenance easy anniemcclanahan reservationdogs russiandoll 2019 picaresque collectivity collectivism experience society socialpractice amandalotz anti-seriality anti-work uncertainty temporary fluidity 2024 sopranos thesopranos https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:27e0a489dde2/ Rethinking Economics and (maybe) Rethinking China - YouTube 2023-07-08T23:27:52+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQiM4xKIoiY robertogreco rethinkingeconomics 2023 yuanyang economics china politics philosophy math mathematics purpose debate rote schooliness schooling academia highered highereducation orthodoxy reality criticalthinking education businessasusual economicsasusual greatrecession globalfinancialcrisis social society policy discourse currentevents curriculum politicization neoliberalism liberalism technocracy econocracy theoryofchange econometrics ideology values government governance democracy teaching howweteach pedagogy socialsciences politicalscience pluralism naturalsciences physics science models modelselection conceptualframework theory behavioraleconomics falsification history rigot historicknowledge data primarysources probabilitytheory power realworld people journalism economicsjournalism michelfoucault poststructuralism language jargon communication perspective carework labor work framework gdp macroeconomics thewhy epidemiology research coronavirus covid-19 pandemic supplychains pandemics groupthink outsiders livedexperie https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:95a679e6deb5/ Massimo on Twitter: "The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries." 2023-06-18T20:50:36+00:00 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1637177203405344770 robertogreco freemandyson science truth truths mysteries curiosity education schools schooling children howwelearn knowledge knowing schooliness unschooling deschooling certainty uncertainty https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8789a152d830/ Neoliberal Keywords: Creative, Passionate, Confident - Public Books 2023-06-13T20:29:05+00:00 https://www.publicbooks.org/neoliberal-keywords-creative-passionate-confident/ robertogrecoEverything Is Fine: A Toolkit for Surviving and Thriving in Grad School … Register for our Empowered Educator Online Conference … Leverage technology to increase students’ digital literacy and career readiness … The most important thing you will do in this role (and maybe your entire career!) is be a part of building the future of education for your area of domain expertise. You will design a program to teach traditional school subjects but in a non-traditional way. If you are a passionate subject matter expert who believes that technology—not teachers—is the key to unlocking students’ full learning potential, then this job is for you. There is something so banal, even embarrassing, in the aggressive positivity and predictable cant of these emails. Such exhortations have become ubiquitous on the corporatized university campus, where a diverse cast of players—administrators, student clubs, brand ambassadors, Christian ministries, military recruiters, corporate employers, fitness organizations, test prep companies—coalesce around a shared set of keywords. But when did we all become so empowered, passionate, and self-enterprising? And how did having those qualities get to be so important? Three new books address those questions, each dismantling a core myth of neoliberal discourse. In The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History, Samuel W. Franklin uncovers the contemporary premium placed on “creativity” as a product of postwar US anxiety. Passionate Work: Endurance After the Good Life, by Renyi Hong, critiques the contemporary idea of “passion” for one’s work as an affective tool for managing the disappointments, alienation, and injustices of labor under late capitalism. And in Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill contend that the contemporary discourse of self-empowerment directed at women—both a “culture” and a “cult”—represents a neoliberal strand of feminism that makes the individual responsible for improving her own circumstances rather than addressing systemic and institutional injustices. Together, these books provide historical context for some of neoliberalism’s most persistent idioms: grit, resilience, initiative, innovation, positive mindset, and self-improvement. The books also remind us of the stakes of language in all this. When we continue to rely on such keywords, we obscure the structural reality—and political urgency—of issues like worker precarity and widening economic inequality. Our linguistic repetition reinforces the unquestioned “truth” of the words themselves, and we thus naturalize political problems as personal ones."]]> language highered highereducation education 2023 creativity labor positivity neoliberalism precarity work grit resilience initiative innovation positivemindset mindset self-improvement ianarobitaille samuelfranklin renyihong shaniorgad rosalindgill anxiety capitalism copropratization universities colleges administration management keywords discourse rhetoric passion confidence culture disappointment alienation injustice latecapitalism rossalindgill self-empowerment women gender cults feminism individualism systems systemicinjustice institutions growth growthmindset structures reality politics urgency inequality linguistics truth ubiquity business psychology academia policy collusion industry ideology workplace us coldwar joypaulguilford calvintaylor economics lifestyle labororganizing eugenics aesthetics equity williamshockley davidogilvy belllabs entrepreneurialism progress class classdistinction technology autonomy fulfillment leisure workculture exploitation emotionalfulfillment cynicism uncertainty depri https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4db7ecbee9dd/ Buddhism Without Beliefs - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 2023-06-04T20:45:52+00:00 https://tricycle.org/magazine/buddhism-without-beliefs/ robertogreco "This is not a process of self- or world-transcendence, but one of self- and world-creation." [via: https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/lit-up-like-a-sparkler/ ]]]> buddhism belief unknowing notknowing ignorance 1997 stephenbatchelor agnosticism dharma humility knowledge religion faith learning zen buddha transiency transience science scientism ambiguity worldview change conformism tradition orthodoxy freedom engagement unfinished ongoing absorption exploitation insecurity disorder aimlessness refuge creativity imagination conservatism institutions autonomy greed adaptability flexibility lightnessoftouch canon living life responsibility individualism transcendence nirvana compassion commitment accomplishment praxis consolation confrontation practice skepticism religiosity anguish isms socrates philosophy method reason certainty uncertainty thhuxley consumerism atheism creeds creed secularism worship idols anarchism anarchy elites elitism monks experts expertise history politics autocracies community environment security structure fear aggression changemaking utopia direction totalitarianism action peace peacefulness self-creation mind siddharthagautama awakening problems https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:20b93fa2aeab/ Benjamín Labatut interview: When We Cease to Understand the World - Vox 2022-07-14T16:08:20+00:00 https://www.vox.com/culture/23005220/benjamin-labatut-interview-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world robertogreco constancegrady 2022 science reality philosophy thinking curiosity noamhassenfeld howwewrite writing learning howwelearn perspective uncertainty howwethink understanding wisdom form narrative stories storytelling time space blackholes quantummechanics benjamínlabatut epiphanies physics mathematics math religion belief life living ideas mind bodies body wonder dread psychology being existence context seeing perception whatmatters importance sensemaking reinvention interconnected interconnectedness perceiving mysticism magic esotericism shinichimochizuki alexandergrothendieck františekvláčil annecarson robertocalasso howweread reading juanforn eliotweinberger luissagasti netflix novels structure interconnectivity quantumphysics quantumtheory makingsense https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:66dc8e5ab568/ A novel by Benjamín Labatut explores the dark side of science — and the color blue - Los Angeles Times 2022-07-14T15:55:06+00:00 https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/newsletter/2022-07-09/benjamin-labatut-when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-novel-essential-arts robertogreco carolinamiranda benjamínlabatut 2021 books blue color history writing chile poetry howwewrite science singularity blackholes epiphanies quantummechanics physics mathematics math religion belief uncertainty stories narrative storytelling life living ideas mind bodies body wonder dread psychology philosophy being existence context seeing perception whatmatters importance sensemaking reinvention learning howwelearn reality form interconnected interconnectedness perceiving mysticism magic esotericism shinichimochizuki alexandergrothendieck interconnectivity quantumphysics singularitarianism quantumtheory makingsense https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7b8f89558b5e/