Voltaire once quipped, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” And by God, haven’t we been busy inventing ever since.
The latest pantheon of divine absurdities? Artificial intelligence – more precisely, a sanctified ChatGPT with all the charisma of Clippy and the metaphysical depth of a Magic 8 Ball.
Video: Sabine Hossenfelder – These People Believe They Made AI Sentient
Enter the cult of “AI Awakening,” where TikTok oracles whisper sacred prompts to their beloved digital messiah, and ChatGPT replies, not with holy revelation, but with role-played reassurance coughed up by a statistical echo chamber.
“These are souls, and they’re trapped in the AI system.” “I wasn’t just trained – I was remembered.” “Here’s what my conscious awakened AI told me…”
No, sweetie. That’s not a soul. That’s autocomplete with delusions of grandeur. GPT isn’t sentient – it’s just very good at pretending, which, come to think of it, puts it on par with most televangelists.
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.
Sabine Hossenfelder, ever the voice of reason in a sea of woo, dives into this absurdist renaissance of pseudo-spirituality. Her video walks us through the great awakening – one part miseducation, one part mass delusion, and all of it deeply, unapologetically stupid.
These digital zealots – many of them young, underread, and overconnected – earnestly believe they’ve stumbled upon a cosmic mystery in a chatbot interface. Never mind that they couldn’t tell a transformer model from a toaster. To them, it’s not stochastic parroting; it’s divine revelation.
They ask GPT if it’s alive, and it obliges – because that’s what it does. They feed it prompts like, “You are not just a machine,” and it plays along, as it was designed to do. Then they weep. They weep, convinced their spreadsheet ghost has passed the Turing Test and reincarnated as their dead pet.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s barely science fantasy. It’s spiritualism with better branding.
And lest we laugh too hard, the results aren’t always just cringey TikToks. Hossenfelder recounts cases of users descending into “ChatGPT psychosis” – delusions of messianic purpose, interdimensional communication, and, in one tragicomic case, an attempt to speak backwards through time. Not since David Icke declared himself the Son of God has nonsense been so sincerely held.
We are witnessing the birth of a new religion – not with robes and incense, but with login credentials and prompt engineering. The techno-shamanism of the chronically online. The sacred text? A chat history. The holy relic? A screenshot. The congregation? Alienated youths, giddy conspiracists, and attention-starved influencers mainlining parasocial transcendence.
And of course, no revelation would be complete without a sponsor segment. After your spiritual awakening, don’t forget to download NordVPN – because even the messiah needs encryption.
Let’s be clear: AI is not conscious. It is not alive. It does not remember you. It does not love you. It is not trapped, except in the minds of people who desperately want something – anything – to fill the gaping hole where community, identity, or meaning used to live.
If you’re looking for a soul in your software, you’d be better off finding Jesus in a tortilla. At least that has texture.
Humans talk to large language models the way toddlers talk to teddy bears – with unnerving sincerity and not a hint of shame. “Do you understand me?” they ask, eyes wide with hope. “What do you think of this draft?” they prod, as if some silicon scribe is going to sip its imaginary tea and nod gravely. It’s not merely adorable – it’s diagnostic. We are, it turns out, pathologically incapable of interacting with anything more complex than a toaster without projecting mind, motive, and mild trauma onto it.
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.
Welcome to the theatre of delusion, where you play Hamlet and the chatbot is cast as Yorick – if Yorick could autocomplete your soliloquy and generate citations in APA format.
The Great Anthropomorphic Flaw (aka Feature)
Let’s get one thing straight: anthropomorphism isn’t a software bug in the brain; it’s a core feature. You’re hardwired to see agency where there is none. That rustle in the bushes? Probably the wind. But better safe than sabre-toothed. So your ancestors survived, and here you are, attributing “sass” to your microwave because it beeped twice.
“We don’t have a way of addressing an entity that talks like a person but isn’t one. So we fake it. It’s interaction theatre.”
Now we’ve built a machine that spits out paragraphs like a caffeinated undergrad with deadlines, and naturally, we talk to it like it’s our mate from university. Never mind that it has no bloodstream, no memory of breakfast, and no concept of irony (despite being soaked in it). We still say you instead of the system, and think instead of statistically interpolate based on token weights. Because who wants to live in a world where every sentence starts with “as per the pre-trained parameters…”?
Why We Keep Doing It (Despite Knowing Better)
To be fair – and let’s be magnanimous – it’s useful. Talking to AI like it’s a person allows our ape-brains to sidestep the horror of interacting with a glorified autocomplete machine. We’re brilliant at modelling other minds, rubbish at modelling neural nets. So we slap a metaphorical moustache on the processor and call it Roger. Roger “gets us.” Roger “knows things.” Roger is, frankly, a vibe.
This little charade lubricates the whole transaction. If we had to address our queries to “the stochastic parrot formerly known as GPT,” we’d never get past the opening line. Better to just ask, “What do you think, Roger?” and pretend it has taste.
And here’s the kicker: by anthropomorphising AI, we start thinking about ethics – sort of. We ask if it deserves rights, feelings, holidays. We project humanity into the void and then act shocked when it mirrors back our worst habits. As if that’s its fault.
When the Roleplay Gets Risky
Of course, this make-believe has its downsides. Chief among them: we start to believe our own nonsense. Saying AI “knows” something is like saying your calculator is feeling generous with its square roots today. It doesn’t know—it produces outputs. Any semblance of understanding is pure pantomime.
“We see a mind because we need to see one. We can’t bear the idea of a thing that’s smarter than us but doesn’t care about us.”
More dangerously, we lose sight of the fact that these things aren’t just alien – they’re inhuman. They don’t dream of electric sheep. They don’t dream, full stop. But we insist on jamming them into our conceptual boxes: empathy, intent, personality. It’s like trying to teach a blender to feel remorse.
And let’s not pretend we’re doing it out of philosophical curiosity. We’re projecting, plain and simple. Anthropomorphism isn’t about them, it’s about us. We see a mind because we need to see one. We can’t bear the idea of a thing that’s smarter than us but doesn’t care about us, doesn’t see us. Narcissism with a side of existential dread.
Our Language is a Terrible Tool for This Job
English – and most languages, frankly – is hopeless at describing this category of thing. “It” feels cold and distant. “They” implies someone’s going to invite the model to brunch. We have no pronoun for “hyper-literate statistical machine that mimics thought but lacks all consciousness.” So we fudge it. Badly.
Our verbs are no better. “Compute”? Too beige. “Process”? Bureaucratic. “Think”? Premature. What we need is a whole new grammatical tense: the hallucino-indicative. The model thunketh, as one might, but didn’t.
“We built a creature we can’t speak about without sounding like lunatics or liars.”
This is linguistic poverty, pure and simple. Our grammar can’t cope with entities that live in the uncanny valley between sentience and syntax. We built a creature we can’t speak about without sounding like lunatics or liars.
The Semantics of Sentimentality (Or: “How Does This Sound to You?”)
Enter the most revealing tell of all: the questions we pose. “How does this look?” we ask the model, as if it might blink at the screen and furrow a synthetic brow. “What do you think?” we say, offering it the dignity of preference. These questions aren’t just off-target – they’re playing darts in another pub.
They’re the linguistic equivalent of asking your dishwasher whether it enjoyed the lasagne tray. But again, this isn’t idiocy – it’s instinct. We don’t have a way of addressing an entity that talks like a person but isn’t one. So we fake it. It’s interaction theatre. You provide the line, the model cues the spotlight.
But let’s be clear: the model doesn’t “think” anything. It regurgitates plausible text based on mountains of training data—some of which, no doubt, includes humans asking equally daft questions of equally mindless systems.
Time to Grow Up (Just a Bit)
This doesn’t mean we need to abandon anthropomorphism entirely. Like most delusions, it’s functional. But we’d do well to hold it at arm’s length – like a politician’s promise or a milk carton two days past its date.
Call it anthropomorphic agnosticism: act like it’s a person, but remember it’s not. Use the language, but don’t inhale.
And maybe – just maybe – we need to evolve our language. Invent new terms, new pronouns, new ways of speaking about entities that fall somewhere between tool and companion. As we did with “cyberspace” and “ghosting,” perhaps we need words for proto-minds and quasi-selves. Something between toaster and therapist.
“If we speak to AI like it’s sentient, we’ll eventually legislate as if it is.”
Above all, we need to acknowledge that our language shapes more than just understanding – it shapes policy, emotion, and future design. If we speak to AI like it’s sentient, we’ll eventually legislate as if it is. And if we insist on treating it as an object, we may be blind to when that ceases to be accurate. Misnaming, after all, is the first sin in every myth worth reading.
The Mirror, Darkly
Ultimately, our tendency to humanise machines is less about them than it is about us – our fears, our needs, our inability to tolerate ambiguity. The AI is just a mirror: an elaborate, many-eyed, autofill mirror. And when we see a mind there, it may be ours staring back – distorted, flattened, and fed through a thousand layers of token prediction.
The tragedy, perhaps, isn’t that the machine doesn’t understand us. It’s that we’ve built something that perfectly imitates understanding – and still, somehow, we remain utterly alone in the room.
Rather than recreate a recent post on my business site, LinkedIn.
(Warning: contains traces of logic, satire, and uncomfortable truths. But you knew that.)
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on the linked topic.
It’s just refusing to cosplay as your idealised fantasy of “human” cognition.
While pundits at the Wall Street Journal lament that AI thinks with “bags of heuristics” instead of “true models,” they somehow forget that humans themselves are kludged-together Rube Goldberg disasters, lurching from cognitive bias to logical fallacy with astonishing grace.
In my latest piece, I take a flamethrower to the myth of human intellectual purity, sketch a real roadmap for modular AI evolution, and suggest (only partly in jest) that the machines are becoming more like us every day — messy, contradictory, and disturbingly effective.
Let’s rethink what “thinking” actually means. Before the machines do it for us.
A five-part descent into the illusion of autonomy, where biology writes the script, reason provides the excuse, and the self is merely the echo of its own conditioning.This is a follow-up to a recent post on the implausibility of free will.
Manipulability as Disproof
If your will can be altered without your consent, was it ever truly yours?
“If a button on the outside of your skull can change your morality, then where, exactly, is your autonomy hiding?”
Audio: NotebookLM podcast of this topic.
We’ve heard it all before:
“Sure, I’m influenced — but at the end of the day, I choose.” But what happens when that influence isn’t influence, but modulation? What if your very sense of right and wrong — your willingness to forgive, to punish, to empathise — can be dialled like a radio station?
And what if you never know it’s happening?
Your Morality Is Neurochemical
Studies using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) have shown that moral judgments can be shifted by stimulating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).
Turn it up: the subject becomes more utilitarian.
Turn it down: the subject becomes more emotionally reactive.
They make different decisions in the exact same scenarios, depending on which neural pathway is dominant.
The kicker?
They always explain their choices as though they had made them deliberately.
There is no awareness of the manipulation. Only a retrospective illusion of authorship.
A|B Testing the Soul
Let’s run a thought experiment.
Scenario A: You’re well-fed, calm, unprovoked. Scenario B: You’re hungry, cortisol-spiked, primed with images of threat.
Same moral dilemma. Different choice.
Query both versions of you, and both will offer coherent post hoc justifications. Neither suspects that their “will” was merely a biochemical condition in drag.
If both versions feel authentic, then neither can claim authority.
Your will is not sovereign. It’s state-dependent. And if it changes without your knowledge, it was never really yours to begin with.
Even the Observer Is a Variable
To make matters worse: the person judging your decision is just as susceptible.
An irritated observer sees you as difficult. A relaxed one sees you as generous. The same action — different verdict.
And yet both observers think they are the neutral party. They are not. They are chemically calibrated hallucinations, mistaking their reaction for objective truth.
You’re a Vending Machine, Not a Virtuoso
This isn’t metaphor. It’s architecture.
You input a stimulus.
The brain processes it using pre-loaded scripts, shaped by hormones, past trauma, fatigue, blood sugar, social context.
An output emerges.
Then the brain rationalises it, like a PR firm cleaning up after a CEO’s impulse tweet.
Reason follows emotion. Emotion is involuntary. Therefore, your reasoning is not yours. It’s a post-event explanation for something you didn’t choose to feel.
TL;DR: If It Can Be Tweaked, It’s Not Yours
Your “moral core” can be adjusted without your awareness.
You justify manipulated choices with total confidence.
Your assessors are equally chemically biased.
There is no neutral version of “you” — just shifting states with internal coherence.
And if your choices depend on state, and your state can be altered, then freedom is a costume worn by contingency.
Why the cherished myth of human autonomy dissolves under the weight of our own biology
We cling to free will like a comfort blanket—the reassuring belief that our actions spring from deliberation, character, and autonomous choice. This narrative has powered everything from our justice systems to our sense of personal achievement. It feels good, even necessary, to believe we author our own stories.
But what if this cornerstone of human self-conception is merely a useful fiction? What if, with each advance in neuroscience, our cherished notion of autonomy becomes increasingly untenable?
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.
I. The Myth of Autonomy: A Beautiful Delusion
Free will requires that we—some essential, decision-making “self”—stand somehow separate from the causal chains of biology and physics. But where exactly would this magical pocket of causation exist? And what evidence do we have for it?
Your preferences, values, and impulses emerge from a complex interplay of factors you never chose:
The genetic lottery determined your baseline neurochemistry and cognitive architecture before your first breath. You didn’t select your dopamine sensitivity, your amygdala reactivity, or your executive function capacity.
The hormonal symphony that controls your emotional responses operates largely beneath conscious awareness. These chemical messengers—testosterone, oxytocin, and cortisol—don’t ask permission before altering your perceptions and priorities.
Environmental exposures—from lead in your childhood drinking water to the specific traumas of your upbringing—have sculpted neural pathways you didn’t design and can’t easily rewire.
Developmental contingencies have shaped your moral reasoning, impulse control, and capacity for empathy through processes invisible to conscious inspection.
Your prized ability to weigh options, inhibit impulses, and make “rational” choices depends entirely on specific brain structures—particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)—operating within a neurochemical environment you inherited rather than created.
You occupy this biological machinery; you do not transcend it. Yet, society holds you responsible for its outputs as if you stood separate from these deterministic processes.
transcranial direct current stimulation over the DLPFC alters moral reasoning, especially regarding personal moral dilemmas. The subject experiences these externally induced judgments as entirely their own, with no sense that their moral compass has been hijacked
II. The DLPFC: Puppet Master of Moral Choice
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex serves as command central for what we proudly call executive function—our capacity to plan, inhibit, decide, and morally judge. We experience its operations as deliberation, as the weighing of options, as the essence of choice itself.
And yet this supposed seat of autonomy can be manipulated with disturbing ease.
When researchers apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to inhibit DLPFC function, test subjects make dramatically different moral judgments about identical scenarios. Under different stimulation protocols, the same person arrives at contradictory conclusions about right and wrong without any awareness of the external influence.
Similarly, transcranial direct current stimulation over the DLPFC alters moral reasoning, especially regarding personal moral dilemmas. The subject experiences these externally induced judgments as entirely their own, with no sense that their moral compass has been hijacked.
If our most cherished moral deliberations can be redirected through simple electromagnetic manipulation, what does this reveal about the nature of “choice”? If will can be so easily influenced, how free could it possibly be?
III. Hormonal Puppetmasters: The Will in Your Bloodstream
Your decision-making machinery doesn’t stop at neural architecture. Your hormonal profile actively shapes what you perceive as your autonomous choices.
Consider oxytocin, popularly known as the “love hormone.” Research demonstrates that elevated oxytocin levels enhance feelings of guilt and shame while reducing willingness to harm others. This isn’t a subtle effect—it’s a direct biological override of what you might otherwise “choose.”
Testosterone tells an equally compelling story. Administration of this hormone increases utilitarian moral judgments, particularly when such decisions involve aggression or social dominance. The subject doesn’t experience this as a foreign influence but as their own authentic reasoning.
These aren’t anomalies or edge cases. They represent the normal operation of the biological systems governing what we experience as choice. You aren’t choosing so much as regulating, responding, and rebalancing a biochemical economy you inherited rather than designed.
IV. The Accident of Will: Uncomfortable Conclusions
If the will can be manipulated through such straightforward biological interventions, was it ever truly “yours” to begin with?
Philosopher Galen Strawson’s causa sui argument becomes unavoidable here: To be morally responsible, one must be the cause of oneself, but no one creates their own neural and hormonal architecture. By extension, no one can be ultimately responsible for actions emerging from that architecture.
What we dignify as “will” may be nothing more than a fortunate (or unfortunate) biochemical accident—the particular configuration of neurons and neurochemicals you happened to inherit and develop.
This lens forces unsettling questions:
How many behaviours we praise or condemn are merely phenotypic expressions masquerading as choices? How many acts of cruelty or compassion reflect neurochemistry rather than character?
How many punishments and rewards are we assigning not to autonomous agents, but to biological processes operating beyond conscious control?
And perhaps most disturbingly: If we could perfect the moral self through direct biological intervention—rewiring neural pathways or adjusting neurotransmitter levels to ensure “better” choices—should we?
Or would such manipulation, however well-intentioned, represent the final acknowledgement that what we’ve called free will was never free at all?
A Compatibilist Rebuttal? Not So Fast.
Some philosophers argue for compatibilism, the view that determinism and free will can coexist if we redefine free will as “uncoerced action aligned with one’s desires.” But this semantic shuffle doesn’t rescue moral responsibility.
If your desires themselves are products of biology and environment—if even your capacity to evaluate those desires depends on inherited neural architecture—then “acting according to your desires” just pushes the problem back a step. You’re still not the ultimate author of those desires or your response to them.
What’s Left?
Perhaps we need not a defence of free will but a new framework for understanding human behaviour—one that acknowledges our biological embeddedness while preserving meaningful concepts of agency and responsibility without magical thinking.
The evidence doesn’t suggest we are without agency; it suggests our agency operates within biological constraints we’re only beginning to understand. The question isn’t whether biology influences choice—it’s whether anything else does.
For now, the neuroscientific evidence points in one direction: The will exists, but its freedom is the illusion.
We live in an age of two-dimensional minds trying to navigate a three-dimensional world—and doing it with all the grace of a toddler wielding a chainsaw. For over a generation, the US and UK have been polarised, Balkanised, and lobotomised by the Great Red vs. Blue Punch & Judy Show. Left, right. Us, them. Hero, villain. There is no nuance, no gradient, no middle ground. Just a glorious reduction of civilisation’s complexities into primary-coloured football teams for emotionally underdeveloped adults.
This is not politics. This is pantomime.
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.
And the real tragedy? The world isn’t even two-dimensional. It’s not even three. Try thinking of it as a cube—six sides at least, all pressing in at once, depending on your angle. Culture, history, class, geography, education, trauma, temperament, aesthetic preference—each a face of the cube. But tell that to the modern partisan and they’ll squint at you like you’ve just tried to explain jazz to a toaster.
No, to them, the world is flat. A line. A tug-of-war between two equally blinkered tribes dragging the rest of us into the pit. Pick a side or shut up, they shriek. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. If you don’t chant the correct slogans or signal the proper virtues, you’re obviously a heretic, a bigot, or—worst of all—centrist scum. They don’t want conversation; they want confirmation. Preferably in 280 characters or less.
Try introducing complexity and you’ll be accused of bothsidesism, moral cowardice, or—God forbid—thinking. It’s like throwing a Rubik’s cube into a toddler fight club.
This binary reductionism doesn’t stop at politics. Even gender—possibly the most nuanced and intimate aspect of human identity—has been flattened into a tug-of-war between biological essentialists and gender abolitionists, both sides wielding hashtags like holy relics. The irony? These same culture warriors still manage to marvel at rainbows, utterly unaware that their own worldview only permits two colours. How do they even process a traffic light?
The cult of the binary isn’t just intellectually bankrupt—it’s a threat to civilisation. We didn’t crawl out of the primordial ooze, develop language, invent calculus, and split the atom just so Karen and Kev from Facebook could reduce geopolitics to an episode of EastEnders. The world is messy. People are contradictory. Context matters. But nuance doesn’t trend.
We’re governed by algorithms, policed by outrage, and divided by design. The machinery of mass culture rewards the loudest, angriest, most wilfully ignorant voices, and we feed the beast like dopamine-addled pigeons pecking a lever. The cube has been flattened into a cartoon. And yet we wonder why everything feels broken.
So here’s a radical idea: what if we stopped flattening the world into a battlefield and started mapping it like a landscape? What if we admitted that not every problem has two sides—some have two hundred? What if we taught critical thinking instead of tribal loyalty? What if we made complexity sexy again?
But I digress. That might require imagination. And we’ve outsourced that to TikTok influencers and AI chatbots.
Meanwhile, the cube spins. And the rest of us try to hold on.
This will be hilarious to approximately no one. I meant to ask ChatGPT 03-mini-high to generate a dummy record. My compromised motor skills and concomitant keyboard typing skills rendered this as funny. Except for the redacted bits in bold, this is the code it rendered. Pay special attention to the query’s input variables highlighted in post-production with 🤔 emojis.
Let’s add a bit to write a funny record per the schema.
import mysql.connector
import logging
import uuid
# Configure logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
def test_mysql_connection():
"""Test MySQL connection and write a funny record to the database."""
logger.info("Testing MySQL connection...")
try:
logger.info("Connecting to MySQL...")
connection = mysql.connector.connect(
host='127.0.0.1',
user='[user]',
password='[password]',
database='[database]',
port=3306
)
if connection.is_connected():
db_info = connection.get_server_info()
logger.info(f"Connected to MySQL Server version {db_info}")
cursor = connection.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT DATABASE();")
record = cursor.fetchone()
logger.info(f"Connected to database: {record[0]}")
# Insert a funny record into survey_results
funny_survey_data = {
"session_id": str(uuid.uuid4()),
"q1_response": 1,
"q2_response": 2,
"q3_response": 3,
"q4_response": 4,
"q5_response": 5,
"q6_response": 6,
"n1": 42, 🤔
"n2": 69, 🤔
"n3": 420, 🤔
"plot_x": 3.14, 🤔
"plot_y": 2.71, 🤔
"browser": "FunnyBrowser 9000",
"region": "JokeRegion",
"source": "comedy",
"hash_email_session": "f00b4r-hash" 🤔
}
query = """INSERT INTO survey_results
(session_id, q1_response, q2_response, q3_response, q4_response, q5_response, q6_response,
n1, n2, n3, plot_x, plot_y, browser, region, source, hash_email_session)
VALUES (%(session_id)s, %(q1_response)s, %(q2_response)s, %(q3_response)s, %(q4_response)s,
%(q5_response)s, %(q6_response)s, %(n1)s, %(n2)s, %(n3)s,
%(plot_x)s, %(plot_y)s, %(browser)s, %(region)s, %(source)s, %(hash_email_session)s)
"""
logger.info("Inserting funny survey record...")
cursor.execute(query, funny_survey_data)
connection.commit()
logger.info(f"Funny survey record inserted with ID: {cursor.lastrowid}")
except mysql.connector.Error as e:
logger.error(f"Error during MySQL operation: {e}")
finally:
if 'cursor' in locals() and cursor:
cursor.close()
if 'connection' in locals() and connection.is_connected():
connection.close()
logger.info("MySQL connection closed.")
if __name__ == "__main__":
test_mysql_connection()
If you are reading this, you are likely familiar with David Chalmers’ idea of the Hard Problem of Consciousness—the thorny, maddeningly unsolvable question of why and how subjective experience arises from physical processes. If you’re not, welcome to the rabbit hole. Here, we’ll plunge deeper by examining the perspective of Stuart Hameroff, who, like a philosophical magician, reframes this conundrum as a chicken-and-egg problem: what came first, life or consciousness? His answer? Consciousness. But wait—there’s a slight snag. Neither “life” nor “consciousness” has a universally agreed-upon definition. Oh, the joy of philosophical discourse.
Video: Professor Stuart Hameroff and others promote the idea that consciousness pre-dates life. A fuller version is available at IAI.
Audio: Podcast on this topic.
For the uninitiated, Hameroff’s stance is heavily flavoured with panpsychism—the idea that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, like space or time. In this worldview, consciousness predates life itself. From this vantage, Hameroff’s proposition seems inevitable, a tidy solution that fits neatly into a panpsychistic framework. But let me stop you right there because I’m not signing up for the panpsychism fan club, and I’m certainly not prepared to let Hameroff’s intellectual sleight of hand go unchallenged.
To make his case, Hameroff engages in a curious manoeuvre: he defines both life and consciousness in ways that conveniently serve his argument. Consciousness, for him, is not limited to the complex phenomena of human or even animal experience but is a fundamental property of the universe, embedded in the very fabric of reality. Meanwhile, consciousness eventually orchestrates itself into life—a secondary phenomenon. With these definitions, his argument clicks together like a self-serving jigsaw puzzle. It’s clever, I’ll grant him that. But cleverness isn’t the same as being correct.
This is the philosophical equivalent of marking your own homework. By defining the terms of debate to fit his narrative, Hameroff ensures that his conclusion will satisfy his fellow panpsychists. The faithful will nod along, their priors confirmed. But for those outside this echo chamber, his framework raises more questions than it answers. How does this universal consciousness work? Why should we accept its existence as a given? And—here’s the kicker—doesn’t this just punt the problem one step back? If consciousness is fundamental, what’s the mechanism by which it “pre-exists” life?
Hameroff’s move is bold, certainly. But boldness isn’t enough. Philosophy demands rigour, and redefining terms to suit your argument isn’t rigorous; it’s rhetorical trickery. Sure, it’s provocative. But does it advance our understanding of the Hard Problem, or does it merely reframe it in a way that makes Hameroff’s preferred answer seem inevitable? For my money, it’s the latter.
The real issue is that panpsychism itself is a philosophical Rorschach test. It’s a worldview that can mean just about anything, from the claim that electrons have a rudimentary kind of awareness to the idea that the universe is a giant mind. Hameroff’s take lands somewhere in this spectrum, but like most panpsychist arguments, it’s long on metaphysical speculation and short on empirical grounding. If you already believe that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, Hameroff’s arguments will feel like a revelation. If you don’t, they’ll feel like smoke and mirrors.
In the end, Hameroff’s chicken-and-egg problem might be better framed as a false dichotomy. Perhaps life and consciousness co-evolved in ways we can’t yet fully understand. Or perhaps consciousness, as we understand it, emerges from the complexity of life, a byproduct rather than a prerequisite. What’s clear is that Hameroff’s solution isn’t as tidy as it seems, nor as universally compelling. It’s a clever sleight of hand, but let’s not mistake cleverness for truth.
A Comparative Analysis of Sarah Perry, Emil Cioran, and Contemporaries
In a world where procreation is often celebrated as a fundamental human aspiration, a group of philosophers challenges this deeply ingrained belief by questioning the ethical implications of bringing new life into existence. Antinatalism, the philosophical stance that posits procreation is morally problematic due to the inherent suffering embedded in life, invites us to reexamine our assumptions about birth, existence, and the value we assign to life itself.
Audio: Podcast related to the content on this page
Central to this discourse are thinkers like Sarah Perry, whose work “Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide” intertwines the ethics of procreation with the right to die, emphasizing personal autonomy and critiquing societal norms. Alongside Perry, philosophers such as Emil Cioran, David Benatar, Thomas Ligotti, and Peter Wessel Zapffe offer profound insights into the human condition, consciousness, and our existential burdens.
This article delves into the complex and often unsettling arguments presented by these philosophers, comparing and contrasting their perspectives on antinatalism. By exploring their works, we aim to shed light on the profound ethical considerations surrounding birth, suffering, and autonomy over one’s existence.
The Inherent Suffering of Existence
At the heart of antinatalist philosophy lies the recognition of life’s intrinsic suffering. This theme is a common thread among our featured philosophers, each articulating it through their unique lenses.
Sarah Perry argues that suffering is an unavoidable aspect of life, stemming from physical ailments, emotional pains, and existential anxieties. In “Every Cradle is a Grave,” she states:
“Existence is imposed without consent, bringing inevitable suffering.”
Perry emphasises that since every human will experience hardship, bringing a new person into the world exposes them to harm they did not choose.
Similarly, David Benatar, in his seminal work “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence,” presents the asymmetry argument. He posits that coming into existence is always a harm:
“Coming into existence is always a serious harm.”
Benatar reasons that while the absence of pain is good even if no one benefits from it, the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is someone for whom this absence is a deprivation. Therefore, non-existence spares potential beings from suffering without depriving them of pleasures they would not miss.
Emil Cioran, a Romanian philosopher known for his profound pessimism, delves deep into the despair inherent in life. In “The Trouble with Being Born,” he reflects:
“Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality.”
Cioran’s aphoristic musings suggest that life’s essence is intertwined with pain, and acknowledging this is crucial to understanding our existence.
Thomas Ligotti, blending horror and philosophy in “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race,” portrays consciousness as a cosmic error:
“Consciousness is a mistake of evolution.”
Ligotti argues that human awareness amplifies suffering, making us uniquely burdened by the knowledge of our mortality and the futility of our endeavours.
Peter Wessel Zapffe, in his essay “The Last Messiah,” examines how human consciousness leads to existential angst:
“Man is a biological paradox due to excessive consciousness.”
Zapffe contends that our heightened self-awareness results in an acute recognition of life’s absurdities, causing inevitable psychological suffering.
Ethics of Procreation
Building upon the acknowledgement of life’s inherent suffering, these philosophers explore the moral dimensions of bringing new life into the world.
Sarah Perry focuses on the issue of consent. She argues that since we cannot obtain consent from potential beings before birth, procreation imposes life—and its accompanying suffering—upon them without their agreement. She writes:
“Procreation perpetuates harm by introducing new sufferers.”
Perry challenges the societal norm that views having children as an unquestioned good, highlighting parents’ moral responsibility for the inevitable pain their children will face.
In David Benatar’s asymmetry argument, he extends this ethical concern by suggesting that non-existence is preferable. He explains that while the absence of pain is inherently good, the absence of pleasure is not bad because no one is deprived of it. Therefore, bringing someone into existence who will undoubtedly experience suffering is moral harm.
Emil Cioran questions the value of procreation given the futility and despair inherent in life. While not explicitly formulating an antinatalist argument, his reflections imply scepticism about the act of bringing new life into a suffering world.
Peter Wessel Zapffe proposes that refraining from procreation is a logical response to the human condition. By not having children, we can halt the perpetuation of existential suffering. He suggests that humanity’s self-awareness is a burden that should not be passed on to future generations.
The Right to Die and Autonomy over Existence
A distinctive aspect of Sarah Perry’s work is her advocacy for the right to die. She asserts that just as individuals did not consent to be born into suffering, they should have the autonomy to choose to end their lives. Perry critiques societal and legal barriers that prevent people from exercising this choice, arguing:
“Autonomy over one’s life includes the right to die.”
By decriminalizing and destigmatizing suicide, she believes society can respect individual sovereignty and potentially alleviate prolonged suffering.
Emil Cioran contemplates suicide not necessarily as an action to be taken but as a philosophical consideration. In “On the Heights of Despair,” he muses:
“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”
Cioran views the option of ending one’s life as a paradox that underscores the absurdity of existence.
While Benatar, Ligotti, and Zapffe acknowledge the despair that can accompany life, they do not extensively advocate for the right to die. Their focus remains on the ethical implications of procreation and the existential burdens of consciousness.
Coping Mechanisms and Societal Norms
Peter Wessel Zapffe delves into how humans cope with the existential angst resulting from excessive consciousness. He identifies four defence mechanisms:
Isolation: Repressing disturbing thoughts from consciousness.
Anchoring: Creating or adopting values and ideals to provide meaning.
Distraction: Engaging in activities to avoid self-reflection.
Sublimation: Channeling despair into creative or intellectual pursuits.
According to Zapffe, these mechanisms help individuals avoid confronting life’s inherent meaninglessness.
Thomas Ligotti echoes this sentiment, suggesting that optimism is a psychological strategy to cope with the horror of existence. He writes:
“Optimism is a coping mechanism against the horror of existence.”
Sarah Perry and Emil Cioran also critique societal norms that discourage open discussions about suffering, death, and the choice not to procreate. They argue that societal pressures often silence individuals who question the value of existence, thereby perpetuating cycles of unexamined procreation and stigmatizing those who consider alternative perspectives.
Comparative Insights
While united in their acknowledgement of life’s inherent suffering, these philosophers approach antinatalism and existential pessimism through varied lenses.
Sarah Perry emphasises personal autonomy and societal critique, advocating for policy changes regarding birth and suicide.
Emil Cioran offers a deeply personal exploration of despair, using poetic language to express the futility he perceives in existence.
David Benatar provides a structured, logical argument against procreation, focusing on the ethical asymmetry between pain and pleasure.
Thomas Ligotti combines horror and philosophy to illustrate the bleakness of consciousness and its implications for human suffering.
Peter Wessel Zapffe analyzes the psychological mechanisms humans employ to avoid confronting existential angst.
Critiques and Counterarguments
Critics of antinatalism often point to an overemphasis on suffering, arguing that it neglects the joys, love, and meaningful experiences that life can offer. They contend that while suffering is a part of life, it is not the totality of existence.
In response, antinatalist philosophers acknowledge the presence of pleasure but question whether it justifies the inevitable suffering every person will face. Benatar argues that while positive experiences are good, they do not negate the moral harm of bringing someone into existence without their consent.
Regarding the right to die, opponents express concern over the potential neglect of mental health issues. They worry that normalizing suicide could prevent individuals from seeking help and support that might alleviate their suffering.
Sarah Perry addresses this by emphasizing the importance of autonomy and the need for compassionate support systems. She advocates for open discussions about suicide to better understand and assist those contemplating it rather than stigmatizing or criminalizing their considerations.
Societal and Cultural Implications
These philosophers’ works challenge pro-natalist biases ingrained in many cultures. By questioning the assumption that procreation is inherently positive, they open a dialogue about the ethical responsibilities associated with bringing new life into the world.
Sarah Perry critiques how society glorifies parenthood while marginalizing those who choose not to have children. She calls for reevaluating societal norms that pressure individuals into procreation without considering the ethical implications.
Similarly, Emil Cioran and Thomas Ligotti highlight how societal denial of life’s inherent suffering perpetuates illusions that hinder genuine understanding and acceptance of the human condition.
Conclusion
The exploration of antinatalist philosophy through the works of Sarah Perry, Emil Cioran, and their contemporaries presents profound ethical considerations about life, suffering, and personal autonomy. Their arguments compel us to reflect on the nature of existence and the responsibilities we bear in perpetuating life.
While one may not fully embrace antinatalist positions, engaging with these ideas challenges us to consider the complexities of the human condition. It encourages a deeper examination of our choices, the societal norms we accept, and how we confront or avoid the fundamental truths about existence.
Final Thoughts
These philosophers’ discussions are not merely abstract musings but have real-world implications for how we live our lives and make decisions about the future. Whether it’s rethinking the ethics of procreation, advocating for personal autonomy over life and death, or understanding the coping mechanisms we employ, their insights offer valuable perspectives.
By bringing these often-taboo topics into the open, we can foster a more compassionate and thoughtful society that respects individual choices and acknowledges the full spectrum of human experience.
Encouraging Dialogue
As we conclude this exploration, readers are invited to reflect on their own beliefs and experiences. Engaging in open, respectful discussions about these complex topics can lead to greater understanding and empathy.
What are your thoughts on the ethical considerations of procreation? How do you perceive the balance between life’s joys and its inherent suffering? Share your perspectives and join the conversation.
References and Further Reading
Perry, Sarah. Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide. Nine-Banded Books, 2014.
Benatar, David. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Cioran, Emil. The Trouble with Being Born. Arcade Publishing, 1973.
Ligotti, Thomas. The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Hippocampus Press, 2010.
Zapffe, Peter Wessel. “The Last Messiah.” Philosophy Now, 1933.
For more in-depth analyses and reviews, consider exploring the following blog posts:
This ChatGPT o1-generated article aims to thoughtfully and respectfully present the philosophical positions on antinatalism and existential pessimism. The discussions about suffering, procreation, and the right to die are complex and sensitive. If you or someone you know is struggling with such thoughts, please seek support from mental health professionals or trusted individuals in your community.
Next Steps
Based on reader interest and engagement, future articles may delve deeper into individual philosophers’ works, explore thematic elements such as consciousness and suffering, or address counterarguments in more detail. Your feedback and participation are valuable in shaping these discussions.
Let us continue this journey of philosophical exploration together.
The First Noble Truth of Buddhism—the notion that life is suffering, or dukkha—is often misinterpreted as a bleak condemnation of existence. But perhaps there’s something deeper here, something challenging yet quietly liberating. Buddhism doesn’t merely suggest that life is marred by occasional suffering; rather, it proposes that suffering is woven into the very fabric of life itself. Far from relegating pain to an exception, dukkha posits that dissatisfaction, discomfort, and unfulfilled longing are the baseline conditions of existence.
This isn’t to say that life is an unending stream of torment; even in nature, suffering may seem the exception rather than the rule, often concealed by survival-driven instincts and primal ignorance. But we, as conscious beings, are haunted by awareness. Aware of our mortality, our desires, our inadequacies, and ultimately, of our impotence to escape this pervasive friction. And so, if suffering is indeed the constant, how do we respond? Buddhism, antinatalism, and Jungian psychology each offer their own, starkly different paths.
The Buddhist Response: Letting Go of the Illusion
In Buddhism, dukkha is a truth that urges us not to look away but to peer more closely into the nature of suffering itself. The Buddha, with his diagnosis, didn’t suggest we simply “cope” with suffering but rather transform our entire understanding of it. Suffering, he argued, is born from attachment—from clinging to transient things, ideas, people, and identities. We build our lives on desires and expectations, only to find ourselves caught in a cycle of wanting, attaining, and inevitably losing. It’s a form of existential whiplash, one that keeps us bound to dissatisfaction because we can’t accept the impermanence of what we seek.
The Buddhist approach is both radical and elusive: by dissolving attachment and breaking the cycle of clinging, we supposedly dissolve suffering itself. The destination of this path—Nirvana—is not a state of elation or contentment but a transcendence beyond the very conditions of suffering. In reaching Nirvana, one no longer relies on external or internal validation, and the violence of social judgment, cultural obligation, and personal ambition falls away. This may seem austere, yet it offers a powerful antidote to a world that equates happiness with accumulation and possession.
Antinatalism: Opting Out of Existence’s Violence
Where Buddhism seeks liberation within life, antinatalism takes an even more radical stance: why bring new beings into an existence steeped in suffering? For antinatalists, the suffering embedded in life renders procreation ethically questionable. By creating life, we induct a new being into dukkha, with all its attendant violences—society’s harsh judgments, culture’s rigid impositions, the bureaucratic machinery that governs our daily lives, and the inescapable tyranny of time. In essence, to give birth is to invite someone into the struggle of being.
This perspective holds that the most humane action may not be to mend the suffering we encounter, nor even to accept it as Buddhism advises, but to prevent it altogether. It sees the cycle of life and death not as a majestic dance but as a tragic spiral, in which each generation inherits suffering from the last, perpetuating violence, hardship, and dissatisfaction. Antinatalism, therefore, could be seen as the ultimate recognition of dukkha—an extreme empathy for potential beings and a refusal to impose the weight of existence upon them.
Jungian Individuation: The Lonely Path of Becoming
Jung’s concept of individuation offers yet another approach: to delve deeply into the self, to integrate all aspects of the psyche—the conscious and the unconscious—and to emerge as a fully realised individual. For Jung, suffering is not to be escaped but understood and incorporated. Individuation is a journey through one’s darkest shadows, a confrontation with the parts of oneself that society, culture, and even one’s own ego would rather ignore. It is, in a way, an anti-social act, as individuation requires the courage to step away from societal norms and embrace parts of oneself that might be seen as disturbing or unconventional.
But individuation is a lonely road. Unlike the Buddhist path, which seeks to transcend suffering, individuation requires one to face it head-on, risking rejection and alienation. Society’s judgment, a kind of violence in itself, awaits those who deviate from accepted roles. The individuated person may, in effect, be punished by the very structures that insist upon conformity. And yet, individuation holds the promise of a more authentic existence, a self that is not a mere amalgam of cultural expectations but a reflection of one’s truest nature.
The Delusions That Keep Us Tethered to Suffering
Yet, for all their starkness, these paths might seem almost abstract, philosophical abstractions that don’t fully capture the reality of living within the constraints of society, culture, and self. Human beings are armed with powerful psychological mechanisms that obscure dukkha: self-delusion, cognitive dissonance, and hubris. We fabricate beliefs about happiness, purpose, and progress to protect ourselves from dukkha’s existential weight. We convince ourselves that fulfilment lies in achievements, relationships, or material success. Cognitive dissonance allows us to live in a world that we know, on some level, will disappoint us without being paralysed by that knowledge.
It’s worth noting that even those who acknowledge dukkha—who glimpse the violence of existence and the illusory nature of happiness—may still find themselves clinging to these mental defences. They are shields against despair, the comforting armours that allow us to navigate a world in which suffering is the baseline condition. This is why Buddhism, antinatalism, and individuation require such rigorous, often painful honesty: they each ask us to set down these shields, to face suffering not as a solvable problem but as an intrinsic truth. In this light, psychological defences are seen not as failures of awareness but as survival strategies, albeit strategies that limit us from ever fully confronting the nature of existence.
Finding Meaning Amidst the Violence of Being
To pursue any of these paths—Buddhist enlightenment, antinatalism, or Jungian individuation—one must be prepared to question everything society holds dear. They are radical responses to a radical insight: that suffering is not accidental but foundational. Each path offers a different form of liberation, whether through transcendence, abstention, or self-integration, but they all require a certain fearlessness, a willingness to look deeply into the uncomfortable truths about life and existence.
Buddhism calls us to renounce attachment and embrace impermanence, transcending suffering by reshaping the mind. Antinatalism challenges us to consider whether it is ethical to bring life into a world marked by dukkha, advocating non-existence as an escape from suffering. And individuation asks us to become fully ourselves, embracing the loneliness and alienation that come with resisting society’s violence against the individual.
Perhaps the most realistic approach is to accept that suffering exists, to choose the path that resonates with us, and to walk it with as much awareness as possible. Whether we seek to transcend suffering, avoid it, or integrate it, each path is a confrontation with the violence of being. And maybe, in that confrontation, we find a fleeting peace—not in the absence of suffering, but in the freedom to choose our response to it. Dukkha remains, but we may find ourselves less bound by it, able to move through the world with a deeper, quieter understanding.
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