Matt Segall on Culture as The Lifeblood of The Machine Economy

This week I dialogue with Matthew David Segall, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute, and author of the Footnotes To Plato blog as well as numerous books on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Friedrich Schelling. In it, we wrangle with some very fundamental questions, such as:

* What distinguishes the organismal and machinic?

* How can we support vital cultural activity without reducing the measure of our humanity to our economic productivity?

* What if we’re looking for mind in AI in the wrong places, and instead treat both technology and human consciousness as unified within one unfolding process of cosmic self-discovery?

We welcome your feedback and reflections — here, or in the Future Fossils Discord Server — and to join us in the inquiry about what lies beyond modernity, and how to nourish the collective imagination we need to thrive there!

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Pardon the delay: inexplicable technical issues forced me to re-render this episode half a dozen times. Hopefully you appreciate the “staying up until 1 am to try and ship on time”!

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Project Links

Read the project pitch & planning docDig into the full episode and essay archivesJoin the open online commons for Wisdom x Technology on DiscordContact me about partnerships, consulting, your life, or other mysteries

Chapters

0:00:00 - Teaser0:01:32 - Intro0:08:18 - About Matt0:15:19 - Nouns & Verbs, Machines & Organisms0:24:24 - Emergence & Epistemic Humility0:36:55 - The Relationship Between Cultures & Markets0:49:21 - What Are Markets & Can They Play?0:58:30 - Our Responsibility To What We Make1:06:42 - Is Conscious AI A Hyperobject?1:17:43 - Outro

Mentions

Matt’s Website & TwitterMatt Segall & O.G. Rose - Re-thinking Economics & The Meaning of ValueBrendan Graham Dempsey & Matt Segall - Physics, Metaphysics, Meta-MetaphysicsMatt Segall & Tim Jackson - The Blind Spot (2024): A Critical and Reconstructive ReviewFuture Fossils 223 - Timothy Morton on A New Christian Ecology & Systems Thinking BlasphemyMichael Garfield -