Category: Books

Douglas Coupland on the psychological fallout

As today’s oil crisis unfolds, Douglas Coupland’s Player One (2010) feels less like fiction. He gathers five strangers in an airport bar as an oil shock ripples outward. Flights stall, systems falter, and the world begins to slow. Over a few hours, their lives intersect in moments of confession, doubt, and fragile insight, while a mysterious “Player One” figure hovers at the edge of meaning.

If today’s oil tensions deepen, prices will rise sharply enough to force changes in behaviour. Supply chains falter. Travel narrows. Some goods become unreliable or simply unavailable. The system continues, but with visible gaps and mounting pressure. Politically, governments will be forced into hard choices, divisions will sharpen, and public trust will begin to fracture.

Coupland’s prescience lies in the interior shift. “Player One” is never fully explained. It may be God, an observing intelligence, or the mind reaching for coherence under stress. As the external world frays, so does certainty. The deepest impact is psychological: a thinning of confidence, and a search for meaning as familiar structures begin to feel less real.

“In the garden is where I let myself stand, unknowing of answers.”

In Homing: A Quest to Care for Myself and the Earth, Alice Irene Whittaker offers both a memoir and an investigation into climate-healthy living. She weaves together her younger life as a dancer, her struggles with body image and perfectionism, and her family’s move from an apartment in an Ontario city to a cabin in the woods of Quebec. It was there that I had the privilege of meeting Alice Irene, her husband Nik, and their family—core elements of her story. Over time, I followed the development of her book, heard her speak in her various environmental leadership roles, and attended its launch.

Reading Homing, I learned many things:

Wilderness and Rewilding. The alluring idea of wilderness draws many into rewilding efforts. But Alice Irene reminds us that the concept of wilderness is constructed through the forced removal of Indigenous peoples, excludes racialized people, and perpetuates an imaginary space occupied by whiteness and dominated by men. We imagine wilderness as our true home to forgive ourselves for the problematic modern homes we inhabit.

Regenerative Farming. She explores how farming can become a way to improve the land rather than deplete it—putting carbon back into the soil and working in harmony with nature.

Gift Economies. Learning from the little-known sharing practices of ravens, she engages with local Buy Nothing Groups and the Ottawa Tool Library—models of mutual aid that resist the dominant capitalist paradigm.

Clothing. This is an area I’ve tried to improve myself—buying good quality, ideally local clothes that last long and contain no plastics. Alice Irene goes deeper, meeting and developing relationships with the people who make her clothes, grounding her fibres in connection and care.

Gardening. The garden is a focal point of her story. Planting and relentless weeding challenge her perfectionism. She writes of harvesting vegetables in the rain, pushing herself toward balance and finding nourishment: “In the garden is where I let myself stand, unknowing of answers.”

Ancestors. In a conversation with Chúk Odenigbo, an environmental academic and activist, she learns that first-generation settlers need to form their own bond with the land and strive to become good ancestors for future generations.

Throughout Homing, Alice Irene returns to the story of her family, offering a tender window into their lives. At bedtime, her daughter Owl reflects on a toad they had seen earlier, “He has a sad face.” Sensitive, quiet, and brave, Owl explains, “He was away from his family.” Later, when their big dog Bear dies, I cried with them.

The story, the struggles, and the lessons remind me of The 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, a book deserving of its acclaim and impact. Lovingly and carefully written, Homing is meticulously researched and full of practical advice shaped by the pandemic years. It is a guide for anyone seeking to live in deeper relationship with the Earth. I carry away this line from Jane Goodall in The Shadow of Man: “It is the peace of the forest that I carry inside.”

Dopamine makes promises that it is in no position to keep

Three books have profoundly shaped my understanding of the mind’s duality through the lens of neuroscience. Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary (2009) reveals how the brain’s two hemispheres—holistic and contextual (right) versus analytical and reductionist (left)—define human experience and culture. McGilchrist argues that the modern world is increasingly dominated by the left hemisphere’s narrow focus, creating a fragmented, disconnected society. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) explores this duality through the interplay of two systems of thought—intuitive and automatic (System 1) versus deliberate and analytical (System 2). Kahneman’s work exposes the biases and heuristics that influence human decision-making. Recently, I discovered a third book that complements these perspectives: Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long’s The Molecule of More (2018). It examines dopamine, the chemical of desire and motivation, and its pivotal role in shaping human ambition, creativity, and the tension between future aspirations and present contentment.

Lieberman and Long explain the brain’s division of the world into two domains—peripersonal space (what is within immediate reach) and extrapersonal space (what lies beyond). Peripersonal space is regulated by chemicals tied to present-moment awareness, fostering contentment and connection. Extrapersonal space, however, is dopamine’s realm, focused on anticipation, ambition, and the pursuit of what could be. Evolutionarily, this split was critical. Immediate resources like food or shelter required urgent action, while extrapersonal resources demanded exploration and strategic planning. Dopamine ensured survival by driving humans to seek novelty and improvement.

Desire originates deep within the ventral tegmental area, a dopamine-rich structure that scans the environment for potential opportunities—be they food, shelter, or social connections. When dopamine is triggered, it signals the brain to “wake up and pay attention,” sparking a sense of excitement. This response is automatic, beyond conscious control, yet it is not synonymous with pleasure. Dopamine is the molecule of anticipation, not satisfaction. It thrives on the unexpected, propelling us toward uncertainty and novelty. Classic experiments, such as B.F. Skinner’s studies on variable reward schedules, highlight dopamine’s role in addictive behaviors like gambling, as well as its influence on the design of video games, which capitalize on progress and anticipation.

Happiness in the dopamine framework lies not in achieving a goal but in the pursuit itself. Once a desired object is attained, dopamine activity wanes, leaving a sense of emptiness. This dynamic explains why chasing a goal often feels more rewarding than reaching it. To savor the present, the brain must shift from dopamine-driven anticipation to the “here-and-now” (H&N) chemicals, such as serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. These neurotransmitters enable us to experience pleasure through relationships, sensory engagement, and mindfulness.

Dopamine’s love of novelty also explains the waning excitement in long-term relationships. Early in a partnership, unpredictability triggers dopamine-fueled attraction. As familiarity grows, dopamine subsides, often leaving individuals restless or searching for new excitement. Yet, this same neurochemical underpins creativity. Artists and scientists frequently describe the act of creation as their most euphoric experience, fueled by dopamine’s capacity to bypass inhibitions and spark originality. Fascinatingly, dopamine-boosting medications, such as those for Parkinson’s disease, have been linked to increased creativity. Lieberman and Long share the case of a poet who, after beginning Parkinson’s treatment, wrote an award-winning poem despite no prior history of creative writing. Similarly, painters on dopamine therapies increased their use of vivid color.

This phenomenon resonates with me personally. After my Parkinson’s diagnosis this year, I began treatment with levodopa, which converts to dopamine in the brain. I marked an improvement in my mental clarity and creative drive. It felt as though I had reclaimed my younger mind. My hobby of writing, neglected for a few years, became a passion again. My neurologist said this effect is not commonly reported, but Lieberman and Long’s observations align with my experience. A similar effect is reported in an episode of the Parkinson’s podcast, Movers and Shakers.

Dopamine’s influence shapes political ideologies. Liberals, often dopamine-driven, focus on progress, innovation, and solving systemic problems. Conservatives, more grounded in H&N chemicals, emphasize stability and tradition, valuing the present over the uncertain future. These neurological differences fuel polarization, as each group struggles to comprehend the other’s perspective. Interestingly, research suggests that small interventions—such as reducing vulnerability—can temporarily shift conservative leanings toward liberalism by enhancing dopamine activity.

Dopamine is both a blessing and a challenge. It has propelled humanity forward, enabling remarkable achievements in science, art, and culture. Yet its insatiable nature demands balance. To avoid the trap of perpetual dissatisfaction, individuals must engage the H&N chemicals that anchor them in the present. These neurochemical systems offer the contentment and joy needed to appreciate life as it is, not as it could be. In this interplay between dopamine and the present lies the secret to balancing ambition with fulfillment, ensuring that humanity continues to progress without losing sight of what truly matters.

Posthumanism invites us to embrace the plurality of being: I am they; we are they

The term “posthuman” may initially evoke unease. After all, human values, rights, and humanity have long been central in our struggles against the forces of greed and mechanization. The word “posthuman” suggests a movement beyond the human, hinting at something dystopian or even apocalyptic. However, posthumanism is a philosophical inquiry that challenges the centrality of humanity in the 21st century. It critiques anthropocentrism—our human-centric worldview—and deconstructs human identity in relation to others, to nature, and even to technology. Francesca Ferrando’s The Art of Being Posthuman is a helpful guide for unpacking this complex and sometimes unsettling concept. While it acknowledges dark possibilities, it also illuminates liberating and enlightening ones.

The question of identity

Like anyone, I’ve wrestled with the question of identity, beginning with my upbringing among Dutch immigrants and their religious worldview. It provided a sense of belonging and purpose. Family, faith, work, and politics were interwoven into a tightly bound system of identity. Over the decades, all of it frayed, challenged by the complexity of being.

Studying psychology introduced me to various theories of personality, all proposing ideas of a stable self and identity. As I delved deeper into economics and social justice, I learned how the systemic oppressions of sexism, racism, and classism impose identity on people to sustain capitalism.

Posthumanism challenges these oppressive frameworks by deconstructing identity. Ferrando writes, “Philosophical posthumanism reveals how the universalization of the notion of the human has benefited only some humans, sustaining the oppression of others.” Disidentifying with narrow definitions of “human” is key to dismantling these systems of power.

Resonance with Buddhism

I studied Buddhism and practiced meditation for several years. Posthumanism resonates with aspects of Buddhism, which teaches that the self is an illusion—the root cause of suffering. Buddhism posits that clinging to any limited identity leads to suffering, and meditation can help alleviate this by fostering focus, emotional balance, clarity, and insight. However, traditional Buddhism is burdened by ideas of reincarnation, a hierarchy of beings, and mystical notions of enlightenment requiring multiple lifetimes. Posthumanism, in contrast, is less encumbered. It extends the Buddhist deconstruction of self, reframing human identity into a broader ecological and technological existence, while avoiding mysticism.

Body, species, and animism

Am I my body, an individual organism with the genetic type of the human species? Biologically, a human is an ecosystem. As Ferrando reminds us: “Bodies are universes, with all the life they contain. They are multiverses; bodies within bodies, one and many, separated and united, inextricably intra-related, necessarily (hyper-)connected: biotic inter-being. Human bodies are made of the same quantity of microbial cells (including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea) as ‘human’ cells, if not more.”

Homo sapiens are not superior to other species. Humans, as part of the Earth, are an ecology of beings. This perspective opens the door to animism—the belief that all things, from rocks to rivers, are alive. While often dismissed as primitive, animism offers a healthy lens for understanding and addressing the climate crisis.

Relationship with technology

Posthumanism also interrogates our relationship with technology. Traditional sentiocentric ethics, which extend dignity to beings capable of suffering or intelligence, still impose a hierarchy, privileging beings with human-like traits. Posthumanism rejects these limits, affirming the dignity of all entities—biotic and abiotic—without human-centered biases.

Are rocks alive? If aliens had visited Earth five billion years ago, they might have said there was nothing here but rocks. If they visited again today, they might think the rocks had evolved into complex life. Would they be wrong? Is evolution still occurring? From rocks come minerals like silicon from which computers are made. The tech giants fancy themselves inventors of AI, but perhaps intelligence is a cosmic ordering principle, using these corporations to express itself anew in AI. Ferrando’s work challenges us to think beyond binaries of superiority and inferiority, especially concerning artificial intelligence.

Posthumanism views being as a continuation of natural processes: from rocks to microbes, from animals to AI. Quoting Martin Heidegger, technology is poiēsis—a creative act that reveals existence itself. Posthumanism liberates us from seeing technology as mere tools or potential threats. Instead, it envisions technological entities as partners in the existential flow. AI may not exist to serve us, nor will it necessarily seek dominion. It could, just as plausibly, serve the collective good of all earthlings—human and non-human alike.

Plurality: I am they

If “I” and “we” are not limited to being human, who are we? Posthumanism reminds us that identity is dynamic and relational. Humans are not fixed beings but fluid participants in a web of existence that encompasses individuals, societies, species, and the cosmos.

Ferrando writes, “Posthumanism, as a philosophy of the 21st century, approaches humans (in all of their diversities), non-human animals, technology, and ecology relationally.” This perspective transcends planetary crises and technological upheavals. It invites us to embrace the plurality of being: I am they; we are they.

From Google to ChatGPT — How AI is Shaping Our Web Experience

Remember Your First Google Search?
Do you remember the first time you used the Google search engine? Before then, web search was often a frustrating experience using platforms like Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves, delivering mixed-quality results. When Google launched in 1997, it revolutionized the search experience. The clean, ad-free interface was simple, and the results were surprisingly relevant. It was a groundbreaking moment in web user experience.

Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, detailed their creation in the paper The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Google’s innovation lay in how it ranked pages based on the number of links pointing to them, harnessing collective human intelligence to gauge relevance. This was one of the early steps in shaping Web 2.0—the social web. Google’s search engine dominated the digital landscape until recently, when Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged to reshape our online interactions.

ChatGPT: An Elaborate Autocomplete Application
Enter ChatGPT, the generative AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. Unlike traditional search engines, ChatGPT can engage in natural language conversations, whether about poetry, business, or debugging code. It is a reading and writing machine capable of tailoring responses to any length, format, style, or level of analysis.

Ethan Mollick, in his book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, traces the development of AI toward the seminal 2017 paper “Attention is All You Need” by Google researchers. This paper introduced the now-famous transformer architecture, which revolutionized deep learning by using attention mechanisms to process and understand language. Though initially created for machine translation, the paper laid the groundwork for large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, which perform tasks such as question answering, text generation, and more. This architecture has since become a cornerstone in the rise of generative AI.

ChatGPT indexes a vast amount of text from online sources, learning patterns in how language is structured. When asked a question, it generates a coherent response based on likely word sequences. In a sense, it functions as an advanced autocomplete application.

AI at Work: A Moment of Realization
AI’s practical use became clear to me during a team meeting. We were stuck in an hours-long discussion, struggling to produce a cost-benefit analysis for a new product. Pressed for time, I turned to ChatGPT for help, requesting a generic analysis of similar products. Within seconds, it provided a solid draft that we quickly tailored for our presentation. I was sold on the power of AI.

Mollick imagines how LLMs can supercharge our productivity. He describes a system in which every aspect of our work is monitored and controlled by AI. It would track activities, behaviors, outputs, and outcomes of workers and managers. It would set goals and targets, assign tasks and roles, evaluate performance and dispense rewards. “AI’s ability to act as a friendly adviser could sand down the edges of algorithmic control, covering the Skinner box in bright wrapping paper. But it would still be the algorithm in charge. If history is a precedent, this is a likely path for many companies.”

AI, please take my job before this dystopian nightmare becomes a reality. ChatGPT has become integrated in my work, and I am grateful for the productivity it gives me. I have no intention, however, to be subject to an algorithm, repurposing my liberated time for maximum efficiency. The benefit is the freedom from low-level cognitive work. I can finally escape the keyboard, go for a walk outdoors, and engage in creative and holistic thought, inventing new work for the AI to execute. Consider too the accessibility improvements, allowing everyone to participate in a workplace that does not require years of training to perform mundane information tasks. That’s where I want to work.

The Role of AI in Writing and Judgment
I pointed ChatGPT to a collection of my online writing and blushed to hear its assessment of my writing style. “Your writing style is reflective, intellectual, and often philosophical, exploring deep questions about art, culture, and human experience. You blend personal insight with broader commentary, using precise language and a contemplative tone.” It went on with its praise. No doubt an AI hallucination. As Mollick observes, “LLMs work by predicting the most likely words to follow the prompt you gave it based on the statistical patterns in its training data. It does not care if the words are true, meaningful, or original. It just wants to produce a coherent and plausible text that makes you happy.”

Hallucination is often cited as a flaw in AI systems. However, misinformation has always plagued traditional information systems, summed up by the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” Given the enormous size of its training set, the web, the accuracy of ChatGPT is impressive. More problematic is how its answers blend truth and falsehood, and its limited ability to give references. It answers like a human.

Mollick stresses that despite AI’s growing role in cognitive work, we must remain “the human in the loop,” exercising judgment over AI-driven outputs. While we can delegate tasks to AI, the ultimate responsibility for decisions stays with us.

I’m Feeling Lucky
The Google Search page traditionally had a second button, entitled, “I’m Feeling Lucky.” It invited our trust in it to return the right answer with one click. It was a gamble, simply returning the first result of a Google search, usually not a bad choice, but often insufficient. The button was rarely used and variously dropped from the interface.

The I’m Feeling Lucky button is what AI claims to deliver, a complete and satisfactory answer with one click. It could be revolutionary for user experience. Endless clicking, reading, analyzing, and summarizing are cognitive tasks currently performed by humans at desks with computers, keyboards and monitors. We could make all the technology and drudgery disappear into the background. We could just ask the computer the answer, like the Star Trek computer. Will it work? I’m feeling lucky.

Our universe may have started as a hack in a physicist’s lab

Why is there something rather than nothing? Any world view worth its salt needs an answer to this question. I recently read two books on the subject: Why Does the World Exist by Jim Holt, and A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss. Of the two, I preferred Holts existential detective story because of its humbler, broader approach.

There are creation myths, Christian and otherwise. A creator brings the world into being out of nothing or out of chaos. People generally think creation myths are just nice stories, but any move to take them literally invokes quick criticism. There is a problem with creation theories. Where did the creator come from? Self-created of course, or eternal, but then why can’t the universe be self-created or eternal?

A logical person might argue, look, there is either going to be nothing or something. When there is nothing, there’s nobody there to notice. Something is bound to turn up sooner or later. See, there’s something. A Buddhist would not agree. Is there something, really? One does not get something from nothing. The substance of things is an illusion. The universe never came into being.

Does nothing exist? Heidegger said you can’t use the verb, is, when it comes to nothing, as in, nothing is. As usual, he invented a new word, noths, nothing noths. It may be nonsensical to try to talk or think about nothing. Logical positivists preferred formal logic and empiricism to account for the world. One of Wittgenstein’s main propositions is poetical and wise, Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Physics proposes a new answer. Our knowledge of the universe has expanded. We have empirical proof that there was a big bang, a point in time when the universe began, likely from a random quantum fluctuation. If the sum of energy in the universe can be accounted for, there is no need to invoke a creator. This answer introduces the notion of the multiverse, the possibility that many different universes can exist, each with its own set of physical laws and constants. I am intrigued by the cheeky suggestion that our universe may have started as a hack in a physicist’s lab in another universe, initialized with values then launched for expansion.

I begin to think of physics as religion, only better because it can be proven. Consider entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, energy always dissipates, nothing lasts. Its a good explanation of just about everything, the fate of the universe and my balding head.

Of course, each solution sets up its own problem. If our universe came into being because of a hack in another universe, where did the first universe come from? We circle back to the beginning. Does it even make sense to talk about other universes? Doesn’t the definition of universe necessarily include everything? Recursion is the trick and curse of origin questions.

Each Generation Must Go Through the Hard Work of Learning to Read

Early into Reading in the Brain I knew I had found a very good book. It is packed with research and informed insight. As I continued to read it, however, I noticed something odd. I was struggling with the e-book edition I had purchased. I found myself wanting to physically grapple with the device more than the buttons would allow. The book contains diagrams that are useful to consult when reading the text, but I could not easily cross-reference them. The book is lengthy, and I found it difficult to track progress without the thickness of a print book. I had already enjoyed a few novels on my e-reader without this problem. This material was more challenging. I have read many similar scientific books before but always in print. For analytical reading the absence of tangible pages felt like a phantom pain. What was happening? Dehaene’s book was compelling enough, and the digital challenge troublesome enough, to merit a second purchase of the more expensive print edition. The completed reading answered my question.

The Reading Paradox

Dehaene begins with the reading paradox. Our brains evolved over millions of years without writing. How is it that we can read? The hardware of our brains has not evolved in the mere 5000-year history of writing. New studies repeatedly show that the brain is more plastic that we thought but no so plastic as to invent new structures for reading. Dehaene explains that reading became possible for humans because we had the good fortune to inherit cortical areas that could link visual elements to speech sounds and meanings. Our limited plasticity allowed us to recycle existing brain circuitry.

Learning to read still takes years of training. It starts with visual recognition of shapes, e.g., “T” and “L”. The brain learns to detect subtle differences in words, e.g., “eight” vs “sight” while ignoring big ones, e.g., “eight” vs “EIGHT”. We do not scan words letter by letter from left to right like a computer program, but instead encode units of meaning for easy look-up, e.g., the morpheme, “button” in “unbuttoning”. The brain uses two pathways in parallel, sound and meaning, to reconstruct the pronunciation of the word. With sufficient training and practice reading seems virtually effortless.

We are not born to read. The only evolution that occurred was cultural – we optimized reading over the centuries to suit the brain. One more thing is needed. Why are cultural phenomena like reading so uniquely developed in humans? Dehaene attributes it the evolution of our prefrontal cortex. “My proposal is that this evolution results in a large-scale ‘neuronal workspace’ whose main function is to assemble, confront, recombine, and synthesize knowledge.” The workspace allowed us to exploit the cognitive niche made possible by neuronal recycling.

My Brain Needs Re-training for Reflective Reading of E-books

I was struck by the tight coupling of brain structures with their physical counterparts in the world. Learning to read, the brain becomes encoded with the specific shapes and sounds of words. The aim of reading is still to reconstruct the original physical speech utterances. The skills required for processing text should be mostly transferable from print to digital books. After all, the text is still there. Indeed, I find the reading of light or familiar material to be nearly equivalent on an e-reader.

When words are less familiar some slowness is to be expected. As Dehaene explains, we perform extra processing to decipher letters for rare or novel words before attempting to access their meaning. When words, sentences and paragraphs combine to express complex ideas much more processing is required. Reduced reading speed can be expected for reading abstract and challenging material regardless of the medium. To be sure, I wrestle with print books, snapping pages when I am unconvinced, wearing the binding from too much turning, attacking the text with a pen. I experienced this with the print edition of Reading in the Brain. I experienced a greater challenge when using the e-reader. How come?

I speculate a connection between reading technology and access to the neuronal workspace. Dehaene argues that literacy changed to suit the structures of the brain. The print book, the codex, is two thousand years old, a design that surpassed the scroll. It is an evolution of technology, finely tuned to our neurons to optimize reading. I can compel its knowledge. We assume the e-reader represents an advance on print because it embodies digital technology. Integrated with the web, it is easier to discover, purchase, search and link to other material. The text is readily ported to an e-reader and I can adjust its font-size for readability or play it aloud for listening. However, the mental struggle with a complex text suggests the e-reader is inferior for global analysis functions, the most obvious differences being parallel access to pages, easy turning and cross-referencing across any two points. These are reflective reading functions that are used to “assemble, confront, recombine, and synthesize knowledge,” the functions served by the neuronal workspace. If you think I am cutting too fine a point, recall the tight coupling between brain structures and the world.

I am certain that my brain is already being reprogrammed to work more efficiently with e-books. It is happening to all readers. This phase of re-training explains some of the fourty-year delay in the popular adoption of e-books. If my speculation is correct, e-reader design must evolve again if it is to compete equally with the print book for complex texts. What would an advanced digital e-reader look like? I offer a suggestion. The print book has facing pages, a feature that serves forward and back-referencing. Attempts have been made at a dual pane e-reader, but the feature could be amplified digitally using multiple tabs like modern browsers, available at once for parallel processing, still bound within the reading device.

Reading is Always at Risk

Dehaene’s book focuses my attention on two serious concerns. First, we are not born to read. The alphabet and literacy are cultural inventions finely tuned to our brains. Each generation must go through the hard work of learning to read. The internet does not offer a shortcut to knowledge. Second, the invention of reading re-purposed existing neural circuitry. Dehaene suggests the mental “letterbox” we use for recognizing letters may have once been used for identifying animal tracks, a skill we have lost. Cortical reorganization is a competition, a zero-sum game. As we re-train our brains for digital technology what skills will be lost? The capacity for long-form reflective reading, perhaps. Reading is always at risk.

Spiritual Enlightenment is Post-Literate

The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham is the story of Laurence “Larry” Darrell, a young man who returned from war existentially troubled by the death of a comrade. Larry leaves his fiancé, Claire, for a year in Paris where he believes he can think through his troubled thoughts to their end. On his small veteran’s pension, he rents a quiet room and studies, learning Greek to read classics in their original tongue, living a life of the spirit. Originally published in 1944, I have a 1946 hard cover with double-spaced sentences. I reveled in every yellowed page of this monastic fantasy.

When Claire comes to Paris to fetch Larry after his year away, he declares his intention to continue. “’But Larry’, she smiled. ’People have been asking those questions for thousands of years. If they could be answered, surely they’d have been answered by now’”. Larry thinks she has said something shrewd. “But on the other hand you might say that if men has been asking them for thousands of years it proves that they can’t help asking them and have to go on asking them.” Larry goes on travelling, ultimately finding his way to a monastery in India.

There is a movie adaptation by John Byram in 1984, starring Bill Murray in a rare serious role. The movie added a defining moment for me. It is not the moment of Larry’s enlightenment, not the shuddering of his head as he awakens, and not the mountain vista as he fathoms the interconnectedness of all things. It was his action just after his enlightenment that stuck with me, the moment when Larry burns his spiritual books.

I think often about books and their role in enlightenment. I think traditional literacy is essential in learning and scientific enlightenment. I also feel that spiritual enlightenment is post-literate. I wanted to read more on this matter, but it was not in the novel. Byrum might have added the burning scene for its visual effect on the screen, but I think there is more to it.

The road to enlightenment has traditionally been a literary one. In The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian begins his journey after being troubled by “the book in his hand”. Chris McCandless’ pilgrimage to Alaska had its start and finish in literature.

The print version of The Razor’s Edge is narrated by the author, Maugham, serving as a messenger between the different worlds of Larry and Claire, and providing a more mature frame of reference. In the movie, Maugham’s character is absent. The powerful functions of Maugham, including the final dreadful confrontation with Claire, are assumed by Larry himself. This shift in focus away from the literary figure underscores my view that spiritual enlightenment is post-literate.

(There is also a 1946 movie adaptation by Edmund Goulding that I could barely finish watching. While both movies did a disservice to the sexuality of Claire, and to the implied homosexuality of the character Elliott, the 1946 movie did a worse job of it. It also cleansed Sophie, and in so doing killed her character more tragically than the story.)

Is there a difference between knowing time in your head and from a watch?

Say the word, “cyborg,” and people imagine the fictional Borg from Star Trek, people implanted with technology, penetrating their skulls to enhance their brains. Frightening. We consider it perfectly acceptable, however, to extend our intelligence and abilities by using technology outside our bodies, everything from speech to pen and paper to computers. Is there a difference? Andy Clark, author of Natural-Born Cyborgs does not think so. “We are, in short, in the grip of a seductive but quite untenable illusion: the illusion that the mechanisms of mind and self can ultimately unfold only on some privileged stage marked out by the good old-fashioned skin-bag. My goal is to dispel this illusion, and to show how a complex matrix of brain, body, and technology can actually constitute the problem-solving machine that we should properly identify as ourselves.”

Clark knows his Heidegger – humans are technological to the core. We readily project feeling and sensation beyond the shell of our bodies, e.g., the cane of a blind person. In a neat demonstration of visual memory, he shows how we only store outlines and make errors when pressed for details. We store metadata but interpolate baseline data. It demonstrates our dependence on external storage devices. We are born to do this, argues Clark. Our brains are plastic, adjusting to our tools. As our tools become more intelligent, we can make more intelligent tools, bootstrap style.

Phantom pain shows that the body is a transitory construct. If mind does not stop at the skin, what exactly is a self? I agree with Clark’s alignment of self with our narrative, our story, projects and intentions. If we wear special goggles and gloves that allow us to see and operate mechanical arms elsewhere, our sense of self is carried along. Clark poses a “soft self”. I compare it with the Buddhist teaching that there is no permanent self. I wonder though if technological augmentation will compound the illusion of self?

He predicts “new waves of almost invisible, user-sensitive, semi-intelligent, knowledge-based electronics and software … perfectly posed to merge seamlessly with individual biological brains.” He foresees a future of ubiquitous invisible computing, allowing us to pluck answers on demand from the ether. Published in 2003, his vision seems close at hand with wearable tech and augmented reality.

The vision is compelling for efficiency but notice a shift in the locus of intelligence. Technology externalizes our minds, making people smarter, but not the person. Clark says there is no difference between knowing the time in your head and being able to retrieve it quickly from a watch. There is a difference, I say, regarding personal control but it is less obvious with a watch than, say, a sandwich board where the information is entirely public. Information in our heads has a private personal perspective, if only a soft self. The personal perspective is needed observe and evaluate ideas.

Clark prefers transparent or invisible technologies, ones that are always on and do not make the user think. He contrasts these with tangible technologies with a noticeable edge, an off button. If technology is going to do more thinking for us, it will become more difficult to critically evaluate it. Perhaps all technologies should be scheduled for occasional shutdown and evaluation.

The angel, naked, tiptoes off, weary, content, maybe limping

“To discover now, after twenty-two years of Zen training, that I was still susceptible to otherworldly visions …. Ah, well.”  The narrator has written a book, Against Angels, protesting all the popular attention given to angels in recent years, and rationally discussing the facts known about angels. Now, he sees an angel.

The fictional book has enough substance to have been worth writing. It contains a section with six pictures depicting a maturing understanding of angels. The chief theme is that angels are a projection of our spiritual selves; it is important to stop seeing angels.

1. Longing for the angel. The young man looks to the sky for angels, shading his eyes from the sun. He is open to possibilities but still thinks freedom belongs to somebody else.

2. Seeing the angel. The young man is kneeling and trembling. Perched on a rock, a fierce angel stares down at him. He has seen the angel, but the beauty makes him weak and confused.

3. Wrestling with the angel. The young man stands wrestling with the angel. The wingless angel strains but has a hint of a smile. “At last! He has come to grips with the essential point. There is neither heaven nor earth, holy nor unholy, just the mysterious other, bearing down on him with all its might. He has no choice now. It is not a question of victory or defeat. As long as he is grappled by an other, he is grappled by a self. And though he may not be aware of it during their sweaty embrace, the other wants nothing more than to be defeated.”

4. Letting go of the angel. The young man sits comfortably, gazing into the distance, holding a flute. The angel, naked, tiptoes off, weary, content, maybe limping. The struggle is over; he no longer remembers who won. The light of creation shines from him.

5. No angel, no self. Both angel and man have vanished. The angel is integrated; the man has no one left to confront. He has stopped looking inside or outside. “He has hung out a shingle on his front door that says, “Vacancy: come on in.”

6. Entering the marketplace with angelic hands. The young man is middle-aged, bearded, and smiling. He holds a basket of goodies for children. He has graduated from spiritual practice, from obligations, from enlightenment. He acts for pure pleasure, the benefit of all beings. But all beings are already saved. Open his basket, you will find as much or as little as you need.

Upon seeing the angel, he allows it to teach him angelic sex, and guide him on a tour of the heavens. He learns that the sorrow of humanity is a special thing, the opposite pole of the joy of the angels, a necessary experience to understand others, to truly have love and compassion. “You can love only where you enter.” It is for this reason that when angels meet humans, the help they can offer is so limited. “Actually, our greatest service is to stand before you as clear mirrors. The compassion that a human may feel coming from us is his own mirrored compassion. The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.”

Nothing flakey about this book. It has survived many weedings of my book collection.