“Misaligned recursive self-improvement”

Ezra Klein: We’re Not Losing Control of A.I. We’re Giving It Away.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000011157772/were-not-losing-control-of-ai-were-giving-it-away.html?smid=url-share&smid=nytcore-ios-share

But on the other hand, Jaron Lanier: https://youtu.be/XMNpjb3LPlY?is=8NEYeQiM5gxeFs1J

The main takeaway: nothing is inevitable. Yet. We can still recapture that 90s Star Trek optimism about the future…

Questions SEP 22

Presentations: [Catch up from those we didn't get to last time... and please be sure to indicate your correct section #]... 22 Kaag 2... Spinoza, Locke, & Reid-LHP 13-14. Rec: FL 15-16. HWT 16-17. - #1 Aiden Kopp-Epictetus & Spinoza.  Zander Gomez-Spinoza or Locke. #2-___.  #3 Eric Chen-Stoicism. Nat Andrews-Locke. Kennedy Lavender-Spinoza

ATTN: Section #2: If you've not yet requested a date/topic, this would be a good one to select. It's wide-open.

LHP

1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______. What do you think of that view?

2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings. Is that how you think about god?

3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion. Do you think it is possible (and consistent) to choose to be a determinist?

4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______.  If Locke's right, what do you think accounts for our ability to learn from our experiences?


5. Locke said _____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall. How do you think you know that you're the same person now that you were at age 3 (for example)? If you forget much of your earlier life in old age, what reassures you that you'll still be you?

6. Locke's articulation of what natural rights influenced the U.S. Constitution? Do you think it matters if we say such rights are discovered rather than invented?

SSHM ch2

1. "Anhedonia" is what?

2. What was Renouvier's definition of free will?

3. Renouvier said an individual's will could break what?

4. What must one frequently do, according to James, to establish reciprocity in a relationship?

5. "Looking on the bright side," though often not objectively warranted, is nonetheless what?

6. Why did James think most of his contemporaries would not have preferred to "expunge" the Civil War?

7. Readiness for war is the essence of what, according to General Lea?

8. James says he devoutly believes in what, and in a future that has outlawed what?

9. Non-military conscription of our "gilded youth" would do what for them, according to James?

HWT
1. What are atman and anatta, and what classical western idea do they both contradict?

2. What was John Locke's concept of self or soul? What makes you you?

3. Shunning rigid essentialized identities, younger people increasingly believe what?

4. What cultural stereotype did Baggini find inaccurate when he went to Japan?

5. What important distinction did Nishida Kitaro draw?

6. What point about individuality did Monty Python make?

7. What is ubuntu?

FL

1. Who wrote a memoir of life on the Kentucky frontier that turned him into a "real-life superhero"? (He's in my family tree, btw.)

2. Who built a cabin by a lake, moved in on the 4th of July, and epitomized a perennial American pastoral fantasy? What do you think he'd say about modern suburbia?

3. What did The New York Sun announce in a week-long "news" story in 1835? Who believed it?

4. Who was P.T. Barnum, and what was his fundamental Fantasyland mindset?

5. Whose touring play marked what key milestone in America's national evolution?

6. Who was Aunt Jemima?

Feb15

 

Irvin Yalom's novel The Spinoza Problem suggests that Epicurus's view of the gods as real but distant was "bold, but not foolhardy"... and that it presaged Spinoza's pantheism. 

 

"I believe in Spinoza's God..." --Albert Einstein, as reported in the New York Times April 1929...

Spinoza the pantheist: "he believed that he believed"...

"Perhaps the most famous self-proclaimed disciple of Spinoza in the twentieth century was Einstein, who, when asked by a rabbi whether or not he believed in God, replied, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all being, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men." Einstein was probably just being diplomatic when he answered the rabbi. Spinoza's God is, after all, a convenient deity for those who might more accurately be described as non-religious. The "religion" of Spinozism is in fact rather close to modern secularism. It insists that morality has nothing to do with the commands of a supremely powerful being, and that it does not require a priesthood or the threat of an unpleasant afterlife to sustain it. It rejects the idea of a personal God who created, cares about and occasionally even tinkers with the world. It dismisses the notion of the supernatural, and regards religious ceremonies as merely comforting or inspiring, if you like that sort of thing. It advocates freedom of thought in religious matters... And it places its faith in knowledge and understanding—rather than in faith itself—both to improve the circumstances of human life and to make that life more satisfying. The poet Heine, writing in the 1830s, seems to have glimpsed how far ahead of his times Spinoza was in this respect: "There is in Spinoza's writings a certain inexplicable atmosphere, as though one could feel a breeze of the future. Perhaps the spirit of the Hebrew prophets still rested on their late descendant." What would this "God-intoxicated" man have made of his own intellectual descendants? They include many people who openly profess atheism, and even though atheism now carries no stigma in economically developed countries except the United States, it is hard to imagine Spinoza being altogether happy to embrace it. What were for him the most important qualities among those traditionally attributed to God are, in his philosophy, qualities of the universe itself. God is not fictitious; He is all around us. Spinoza's God is admittedly so different from anyone else's that a case can be made for saying that he was an atheist without realising it; but it does appear that he believed that he believed in God. It is sometimes said that the birth of Judaism constituted an intellectual advance over most earlier religions because it reduced a panoply of gods to the one God of monotheism. On this way of thinking, Spinoza may be considered to have continued the work of his distant Hebrew ancestors by performing a further subtraction of the same sort, and reducing the duo of God and world to one."

— The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy by Anthony Gottlieb

The Awesome and Alarming A.I. Visions of Anthropic’s C.E.O.

For lack of a better word?!

“… There’s no question that Dr. Amodei is being sincere. In “Machines of Loving Grace,” he wants people to join the cause because the results, even in the short term, will be so excellent. A.I. over the next couple of years, he wrote, will be like having “a country of geniuses in a datacenter.”  

With A.I., Dr. Amodei added, our bodies for the first time will become entirely malleable. Freedom from disease is merely the start. There’s also biological freedom. This, he said, is: 

“the idea that everyone should be empowered to choose what they want to become and live their lives in the way that most appeals to them.”

In essence, A.I. will allow you to sculpt yourself into something else — to become, for lack of a better word, hot.

For instance, A.I.-accelerated biology will allow control over weight, physical appearance, reproduction and other biological processes, he wrote. Personalities will become tractable too. Diseases like PTSD, depression, schizophrenia and addiction will be effectively treated for the first time…” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/technology/dario-amodei-anthropic-essays-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

If you're sick...

 or for whatever other reason cannot attend class...

No need to notify me in advance that you'll miss class... 

And no need to ask "What did I miss?" Just check the syllabus (or "NEXT")  and the recording (unless we went outside).

When you miss, go ahead and post your comments/questions about the day's reading assignments. You can claim bases on the scorecard for that on the next day's scorecard when you come back to class.

Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81

…She told an excruciating account of a moth that gets stuck in the molten wax of a candle and itself becomes a wick that burns for two hours. Just ahead is the story of a 7-year-old girl she calls Julie Norwich, who gets safely to ground after her father’s light plane clips a line of fir trees on takeoff, only to have her face burned off by a splurt of hot fuel.

Which brings Ms. Dillard once more head-to-head with a question known to religious thinkers as the problem of evil: Could it possibly be that a loving, all-powerful God allows bad things to happen just to make goodness stand out in sharper relief?

…

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/books/annie-dillard-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Questions Sep 17

PRESENTATIONS...

#1 Adedoyin Adeyeni-Descartes. Krish Patel-Pascal. Jeremy Vargas-Machiavelli. #2 Charlie Mayo-Descartes & AI. Brennan Bortz-Machiavelli. Ella Shafer-Pascal. #3 Amanda Maldonado-Montaigne. Aliya-Descartes. Michelle Reyes-Free Will

LHP

1. What state of mind, belief, or knowledge was Descartes' Method of Doubt supposed to establish? OR, What did Descartes seek that Pyrrho spurned? Was his approach more sensible than Pyrrho's? Do you think it's possible to achieve the state of mind Descartes sought?

2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming? Do you ever think you might be?

3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.") Does that specter seem strange or silly to you?

4. Pascal's best-known book is _____. Do you like his aphoristic style?

5. Pascal's argument for believing in God is called ________. Do you find it persuasive or appealing?

6. Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______." Do you agree?

7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets. Is that right?


Weiner-

1. Why doesn't Eric "buy" Epicurus's dismissal of death as a worry? Do you agree?
2.  What's the best Montaigne thinks we can do to find truth? Do you think he was trying to build a "tower of certainty"?
3. How did Montaigne reverse himself on what we learn from philosophizing? But is it really a reversal?
4. What was Montaigne's experience of his equestrian accident? Do you share his newfound confidence that nature will make dying comfortable and easy? Is this a form of "denial" (notwithstanding his likely disapproval of our culture's form of denial)?
5. What did Horace say to persuade yourself of? Is that a good idea?
6. Montaigne's philosophy boils down, says Eric, to trust, surprise, responsibility, and ___? And what other four words sum up his philosophy and way of life?

(See more Montaigne bonus questions below*)

Montaigne's tower

SSHM ch1

SSHM ch1

1. Calvinism set out, for Henry James Sr., what impossible task?

2. Kaag thinks the Civil War gave WJ his first intimation that what?

3. WJ's entire life had been premised on what expectation?

4. What did WJ say (in 1906, to H.G. Wells) about "SUCCESS"?

5. What Stoic hope did young WJ share with his friend Tom Ward?

6. What thought seeded "the dilemma of determinism" for WJ?

7. As WJ explicated determinism in 1884, the future has no what?

8. WJ found what in Huxley's evolutionary materialism alarming?

9. Determinism has antipathy to the idea of what?

10. To the "sick soul," what seems blind and shallow?

HWT

1. What familiar western distinction is not commonly drawn in Islamic thought? 

2. According to Sankara, the appearance of plurality is misleading. Everything is ____.

3. The Islamic concept of unity rules out what key western Enlightenment value, and offers little prospect of adopting modern views on what?

4. What Calvinist-sounding doctrine features heavily in Islamic thought?

5. What deep philosophical assumption, expressed by what phrase, has informed western philosophy for centuries? To what concept did Harry Frankfurt apply it?

* BONUS QUESTIONS 

Also recommended: (How to Live, ch1); LISTEN Sarah Bakewell on Michel de Montaigne (PB); A.C. Grayling on Descartes' Cogito (PB); WATCH Montaigne(SoL); Descartes (HI)

• Sarah Bakewell says Montaigne's first answer to the question "How to live?" is: "Don't worry about _____."
• What was Montaigne's "near death experience," and what did it teach him?
• Montaigne said "my mind will not budge unless _____."
• What pragmatic American philosopher was Descartes' "most practical critic"?
• (T/F) A.C. Grayling thinks that, because Descartes was so wrong about consciousness and the mind-body problem, he cannot be considered a historically-important philosopher.
• What skeptical slogan did Montaigne inscribe on the ceiling of his study?

FL

1. Conspiratorial explanations attempt to make what kinds of connections?

2. What was the Freemasons' grand secret, according to Franklin?

3. What conspiracy did Abe Lincoln allege in his famous "House Divided" speech in 1858?

4. Why did many northerners think the Civil War went badly for them early on?

5. What did the narrator of a popular 1832 work of fiction say about the slaves?

Feb 10 

==

Will machines ever say "I think, therefore I am"?

Something to consider when we talk about Descartes... [I had a chat with ChatGPT about reality and related matters. It may not be conscious but it does simulate the appearance of consciousness pretty impressively...]

We had a serious and sober conversation in Environmental Ethics about the difference between living longer vs. living better, between a life of many years vs. a life of completion and earned satisfaction. I was encouraged by the maturity and wisdom of the young people in the room, whose acceptance of mortality stands in striking contrast to that of futurologist/transhumanist Raymond Kurzweil. 

Ray's the guy who pioneered optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology etc., and then went to work for Google to help Larry and Sergei figure out how to conquer aging and the biological restrictions of mortal life. He's the very antithesis, in this regard, of Wendell Berry.

I first became aware of Ray when I read his The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, which audaciously and (we should see now) prematurely, if not ludicrously, predicted that we'd have self-conscious machines "before 2030"... We'll talk about this in CoPhi soon, when we turn to Descartes.

Descartes’s famous dictum “I think, therefore I am” has often been cited as emblematic of Western rationalism. This view interprets Descartes to mean “I think, that is, I can manipulate logic and symbols, therefore I am worthwhile.” But in my view, Descartes was not intending to extol the virtues of rational thought. He was troubled by what has become known as the mind-body problem, the paradox of how mind can arise from non-mind, how thoughts and feelings can arise from the ordinary matter of the brain. Pushing rational skepticism to its limits, his statement really means “I think, that is, there is an undeniable mental phenomenon, some awareness, occurring, therefore all we know for sure is that something—let’s call it I—exists.” Viewed in this way, there is less of a gap than is commonly thought between Descartes and Buddhist notions of consciousness as the primary reality. Before 2030, we will have machines proclaiming Descartes’s dictum. And it won’t seem like a programmed response. The machines will be earnest and convincing. Should we believe them when they claim to be conscious entities with their own volition?

Ask that again when they make that claim. If they do. 

At least Ray has inspired entertaining films like Her, Ex Machina, Transcendence...

But his desperate quest to "live long enough to live forever"-- see the Wired Magazine feature story on Ray,wherein it was revealed that he'd daily been popping upwards of 200 pill supplements and downing oceans of green tea every day in hopes of beating the Reaper (lately he's cut back to just 90)-- really does look sad and shallow, alongside the mature view we've explored in The World-Ending Fire and that I was gratified to hear echoed by my fellow mortals in class yesterday.

==

The World Is Waiting to Be Discovered. Take a Walk.

…Study after study after study have proved what we feel, intuitively, in our gut: Walking is good for us. Beneficial for our joints and muscles; astute at relieving tension, reducing anxiety and depression; a boon to creativity, likely; slows the aging process, maybe; excellent at prying our screens from our face, definitely. Shane O'Mara, a professor of experimental brain research in Dublin, has called walking a "superpower," claiming that walking, and only walking, unlocks specific parts of our brains, places that bequeath happiness and health.

I have no beef with any of this, but I believe we have it backward. We are asking what we can get out of a walk, rather than what a walk can get out of us. This might seem like a small distinction, a matter of semantics. But when we begin to think of walking in terms of the latter, we change the way we navigate and experience — literally and figuratively — the world around us... nyt

An M.I.T. Report Warns A.I. Is Causing ‘Cognitive Surrender.’ Universities Are in a Bind.

… It may seem clear that submitting chatbot-generated text is cheating, while using a chatbot to revise one’s own writing is allowed. [No!]

But the line between those two capabilities is thin, and much A.I. use lies in an ethical gray zone.

Many educators “don’t even know where to start,” said Annie Chechitelli, chief product officer at TurnItIn, a company that makes software that can detect plagiarism and track and guide A.I use. “What is OK? What’s not OK?”

Many instructors have already moved to on-paper assignments in the classroom, or locked-down computer browsers that limit A.I. misuse. Others report success in using A.I. detection software, which has recently improved in its ability to flag chatbot-written text while avoiding false positives.

Some see A.I. as a crucial partner for thinking and writing and put few limits on how students use the technology. Others subscribe to the notion of “A.I. literacy,” assigning students to use chatbots to produce an essay or poem, for example, and then critique and try to improve the output...

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/us/universities-ai-warnings-enthusiasm.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Chris Borland walked away from the NFL at the age of 24…

With one in four players suffering permanent brain injury, according to a recent report, maybe we all should. 

"I quit the NFL over concerns of brain damage when I was 24. It was the most difficult and consequential decision of my life. And there was no way of knowing what would come next.

My retirement in 2015 became a lightning rod in the debate over football. Within days, I went from being a linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers to being a guest on “Face the Nation.”
The public response was polarized. I was alternately cast as a coward and lauded as a hero. Some pundits saw my decision as an inflection point for the sport. The NFL dismissed it as an anomaly.

I didn’t know what to think.

Suddenly, I was a poster boy for CTE. At the same time, I was young and just wanted to figure out what to do next. I wrestled with that dilemma for years.

More time has now passed since I left football than I ever spent playing the game. That realization has caused me to reflect..."

 https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7574837/2026/09/09/chris-borland-nfl-lessons-retirement/?unlocked_article_code=1.BFE.wb6K.sqGDv7Q1x9zk&source=user_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share

Midterm report presentations

 Starting Sep 10 you can indicate your preference (in the comments' space of this post) for the topic and date of your report presentation. It can be on any relevant topic of your choice that you can relate to the reading assignments (required or recommended) on the corresponding date. Presentations will begin on the 15th. We'll do two or three presentations per class, hoping to finish before Fall Break. I'll give you a free base or two on the scorecard if you volunteer to present on the 15th.

Take a look ahead at the coming syllabus assignments (reprinted below). Scan the assigned texts and select your topic accordingly. You do not have to cover everything, just anything you can plausibly relate to something in that day's assigned material. Also scan the lists of recommended books in the right sidebar, to see if you would like to use any of them as a basis for your report. If the library does not have the text(s) you choose, go to the circulation desk and request via interlibrary loan.

Have fun with the project. Be creative. Consider using the podcast/video resources in the library's MakerSpace to prepare your presentation. Plan to present for about 10 minutes, with the goal of teaching us something we wouldn't have learned merely reading the assignment. Then lead a brief class discussion. Don't stress, you'll get all 25 available points if you fulfill these minimal criteria.

15 Kaag prologue - SSHM... Midterm report presentations begin. Machiavelli, Hobbes-LHP 9-10. Rec: FL 11-12. HWT 11-13. #1 Austin Vance-Machiavelli. #2 Max Lynch-___.  Fena-Hobbes.  #3David Vandelay-Hobbes. Alex Daniel-Epicurus

17 Kaag 1... Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal-LHP 11-12. Weiner 14. Rec: FL 13-14. HWT 14-15. - #1 Adedoyin Adeyeni-Descartes. Krish Patel-Pascal. Jeremy Vargas-Machiavelli. #2 Charlie Mayo-Descartes & AI. Brennan Bortz-Machiavelli. Ella Shafer-Pascal. #3 Amanda Maldonado-Montaigne. Aliya-Descartes. Michelle Reyes-Free Will

22 Kaag 2... Spinoza, Locke, & Reid-LHP 13-14. Rec: FL 15-16. HWT 16-17. - #1 Aiden Kopp-Epictetus & Spinoza.  Zander Gomez-Spinoza or Locke. #3 Eric Chen-Stoicism. Nat Andrews-Locke. Kennedy Lavender-Spinoza

24 Kaag 3... Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, & Rousseau-LHP 15-18. Weiner 3. Rec: FL 17-18. HWT 18-19. #1 Avery Evans-Berkeley/. #2 Violet Smith-Rousseau

29 Kaag 4... Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer-LHP 19-23. Weiner 5. Rec: FL 19-20. HWT 20-22. -#1 Vi Nobles-Schopenhauer & Indian philosophy. Zane-Hegel. Lanisa-Bentham. #2 Geena Caprio-Happiness. Lindsey Eavey-Kant. Tyler Scherr-Hegel. Nev Herzog-Bentham. #3 Young Zhang-Hegel. Spencer Hebel-Kant. Thomas Hemstalk-Bentham

OCT

1 Kaag 5-6... Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Marx-LHP 24-27. Rec: FL 21-22. HWT 23-24.#1 Amariah Woods-J.S. Mill. #1 Brian Hussels-Mill Darwin. Charlie Glendowne-Marx. #2 Robert Orr-Darwin. #3 Will Shelton-Marx. Alex stover-Mill. Ethan Licea Gonzalez-Darwin. Cecile-Katya McKenna-Kierkegaard

2 Meet the author: Applied Philosophy Lyceum Friday Oct 2, 5 pm, COE 164. John Kaag, The Digital Cave" Reading, Thinking, and Dwelling in the Age of the Algorithm. Catered reception follows. Attendance expected.

6 Exam 1.

8 Peirce & James, Nietzsche, Freud-LHP 28-30. Weiner 11. Rec: FL 23-24. HWT 25-26.

Russell, Ayer, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus-LHP 31-33. Weiner 13. Rec: FL 25-26. HWT 27-28. - #_ Camryn Noel-Philosopher Queens. @1 Baker Kilmartin-Freud. #2 erik angelo-Freud. Wyatt Coleman-Nietzsche. #3 Alivia Bond-Nietzsche

Fall Break

MTSU remembers 9/11