November 5, 2021 • 39 mins
Stanisław Lem was not only a science fiction writer, he was also a futurist and a philosopher.
In this episode, we get to hear from Jakub Gomułka - a Polish philosopher and professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical University of Kraków.
His research is focused on the relationship between culture and technology, as well as the problem of the mind, especially in the context of artificial intelligence. In this context, he has been analyzing and studying the philosophy of Stanisław Lem - as can be understood through his writings. This year, Gomułka released, together with colleagues, the first volume of a two-volume anthology on the philosophy of Lem titled in English: Philosophical Lem: A collection of Stanisław Lem’s texts and their elaboration. There was a lot of interest and discussions in Poland surrounding the publication.
The book is available in Polish at: https://ksiegarnia.pwn.pl/Filozoficzny-Lem,910913671,p.html
Episode host: Adam Reichardt
In this episode, we get to hear from Jakub Gomułka - a Polish philosopher and professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical University of Kraków.
His research is focused on the relationship between culture and technology, as well as the problem of the mind, especially in the context of artificial intelligence. In this context, he has been analyzing and studying the philosophy of Stanisław Lem - as can be understood through his writings. This year, Gomułka released, together with colleagues, the first volume of a two-volume anthology on the philosophy of Lem titled in English: Philosophical Lem: A collection of Stanisław Lem’s texts and their elaboration. There was a lot of interest and discussions in Poland surrounding the publication.
The book is available in Polish at: https://ksiegarnia.pwn.pl/Filozoficzny-Lem,910913671,p.html
Episode host: Adam Reichardt
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to a special podcast series titledExploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy preport and
produced by Toggist and Europe. Thislimited podcast series is being conducted in conjunction
with the Year of Stannis with Lambtwenty twenty one, a special commemoration being
(00:23):
held in Poland. Throughout this series, we will discover, together with experts
and writers, the impact that Stannisof Lamb has had in Poland and abroad.
We will learn more about them's story, his philosophy and some controversist Along
the way, we will also lookat contemporary literature and bring to light some
(00:44):
new Polish authors following in Lamb's footsteps. We invite you to join us on
this journey exploring Polish science fiction andfantasy. In this episode, we get
(01:07):
to hear from Yakub Kmuka, aPolish philosopher and professor at the Institute of
Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical Universityof Krakouf. His research is focused on
the relationship between culture and technology aswell as the problem of the mind,
especially in the context of artificial intelligence. In this context, he has been
(01:29):
analyzing in studying the philosophy of Staniswaf Lem as can be understood through his
writings. This year, Gomuka released, together with his colleagues, the first
volume of a two volume book onthe philosophy of Lem, titled in English
Philosophical Lem, A collection of sanisuwafLem's texts and their elaboration. There was
a lot of interest and discussions inPoland surrounding the publication. To start off
(01:52):
our conversation, I asked Yakoup togive me some background on the two volume
book. How did he come upwith this idea? The whole idea of
philosophical came to my colleagues's mind.It wasn't my idea, it was philipskpla.
So he noticed a publication called FantasticLamb, a collection of the greatest
(02:15):
short stories by Lamb, and realizedthat the world awaits for something that is
philosophical. Lamb that this should beproduced to present Lamb as a philosopher,
because he was a philosopher. Andwell, we met at one of the
(02:37):
conferences I organized. The title wasPhilosophy in in in the States off Lama's
works. So we met at oneof the installments of that conference and he
told me about this project and wedecided to work together upon it, and
(02:57):
this is the first volume. Itcame just one month ago. This is
a two volume project because we believewe can, I mean, we believe
there is much more to present thanjust this humble book, which is not
in fact so humble. It's it'sabout five hundred pages. But anyway,
(03:21):
this volume is devoted to as thesubtitle says, natural or artificial being,
mind and creativity. This is thetitle of the volume one. So the
second time second volume will be devotedto cultural, religion and ethics. So
(03:45):
because stands Lam was a philosopher ofmany philosophical interests, he can be associated
in you know, in from thepopular point of view with easily with the
philosophy of technology and some futurology andso on, but at the same time
(04:06):
and philosophy of science, of course, but at the same time he was
also very skillful humanist, and hewas aware of the importance of such things
that as culture and religions. Sohe developed also very valuable imports to those
(04:29):
to those branches sub branches of philosophylike philosophy of religion and philosophy of culture
and ethics, and also the philosophyof philosophy and the literary criticism. He
developed his own original way of understandingthe process of creativity. So this is
(04:58):
this is also included in the isthis this this this existing volume, because
the next volume will probably appear atthe end of twenty twenty two and it
will cover those remaining topics. Well, it was a book that um that
(05:19):
was very long in the making,but fortunately we have it now. So
I want to say that it isa part of our ongoing project to put
Lamb in their right context within thePolish philosophical or more broader humanistic thought.
(05:45):
I mean, he is, asI believe, one of the greatest thinkers
in the twentieth century and in abit of twenty first century, because he
died in two thousand or six.This is all I can I can say
in general. Throughout the development ofthis publication, Jakub expanded his knowledge of
(06:12):
Lamb's approach to the world and humanity. He uncovered some new threads as well.
I asked him what was most surprisingin this exercise. As I was
doing this project, I was alreadyquite familiar with with main threats of stains
of Lamb. Lamb's philosophy, whatsurprises me in it is. The first
(06:38):
thing is that he is a criticof enlightenment. Yes, you can expect
something different from from this person,but in fact he is in inner critic
of Enlightenment. He develops his criticismfrom within the the Enlightenment. He offers
(07:02):
a view according to which we,as a you know, human species soci
as a civilization are very hard toto to to to get better. So
any projects and a civilizational projects toimprove human nature is is doomed, according
(07:25):
to him, and and can bringeven worse results than those calamities they are
they were designed to cope with.So as as he is, of course
a fervent critic of such ideas asas Marxist idea of a new Man,
(07:47):
so he mocks this idea in plentyof his short stories and and some some
novels too. So this is thefirst thing that a reader of this book
can find or not not in factthis book, then the next the next
volume can find unexpected. Yes,but there are also some other strange and
(08:15):
interesting issues, like, for instance, his discussion regarding mind uploading that he
presented in his nineteen fifty seven book. In the middle of fifties, he
(08:37):
already considered such such topics like likemind uploading, that is already considered by
by such philosophers like the like Parfit. And it's also not so science fiction
perspective from our current technological advanced andbecause we already have some technology to to
(09:03):
to to to merge chips silicon chipswith with with brain tissues, so we
are not far from enabling that thatkind of technology. And then he already
considered that in in in the middleof fifties, So this is something that
(09:26):
that can be astonishing, like likeso like he was so out of his
time right because well, he thoughtabout things nobody did in that And the
problem, his great problem was thathe was only translated to German and Russian.
(09:50):
I mean those essays, the philosophicalessays, the dialogues were translated to
English. Well they were, theywere just translated. It is in an
English translation that comes this year inMight Press, So after more than fifty
(10:15):
years, is available his his fundamentaltheoretical work is available for English speaking and
English reading public. So this ishis his problem. I mean, he
considered this as a severe obstacle inhis career that he figured out plenty of
(10:37):
things that we deal today, likefor instance, virtual reality that he called
phantomatics in his sixty four nineteen sixtyfour, yes, nineteen sixty four,
a book Summa Technology that came inEnglish in twenty fourteen. The first English
(11:01):
edition of Summa Technology was was intwenty fourteen. It's Minnesota University Press.
So this is this is the problemof Stanisa lam as a philosopher, because
his intellectual horizons were very broad andgreatly exceeded our Polish mindsets for that time.
(11:22):
As he as he published those books, Lamb was obviously known in the
world for his science fiction, buthe was not known as a philosopher.
What was the reasoning behind his philosophicaltext not being translated and published outside of
(11:43):
Poland. Well, it was adecision of publishers. His essays his philosophical
essays, and he produced four greatphilosophical essays and the first one was a
Fogo mentioned Dialogues, the second,the second was Souma Technology. The third
one, produced in nineteen sixty eight, was Philosophy of Chance. The fourth
(12:11):
one in seventies, in the beginningof seventies was science Fiction and Futuology.
And this latter was in fact translatedbecause it died with basically with science fiction.
It was a part of his projectof presenting certain obligations civilizational obligations of
(12:41):
science fiction writers. Because he wasa futurologist, but he was also a
critic of futurology as a science.He didn't believe in the possibility of making
futuology as a scientific enterprise because ofluck of methods, of correct methods,
(13:01):
and because of that the paradox thatif a futurelogical vision is to include is
to be complete, it should envisagefuture development of science and technology. But
the development of science and technology isunpredictable. There is a very good example.
(13:24):
You can read science fiction like sciencefiction from sixties, seventies, even
eighties, and you will find notrace of mobile phones because it was unthinkable.
And think of mobile phones. Howit changed this It wasn't an invention.
(13:48):
It was just application of what wealready knew. It was more than
than just the gadget. It wassomething that that changed the way of our
communication and even the functioning of thewhole civilized and economy because it enabled micropayments
and so on. So was perfectlyaware of this problem of futuology, And
(14:13):
at the same time he recognized theneed of futuology for our civilization because he
was focused on a project of thecivilization as a self governing process, like
that human beings should have the controlover the civilization. So the problem is
(14:35):
if you don't have any insight intofuture, you don't have the control because
you don't know what your actions canbring about. So this is the reason
why we really need futuology. Andthe problem is that we don't have scientific
futoology. So what can we haveinstead? And he offered a science fiction
(15:00):
He considered himself as an example ofthat. I mean he later in in
in his major stage of his career, he understood his own approach to science
fiction as this as an attempt tomake scientifically informed predictions about future and this
(15:24):
is something he also wanted from sciencefiction per se. And from this point
of view he developed a fervent criticismof the actual science fiction. I believe
if he lived up to today,he wouldn't be so disappointed because we also
(15:48):
have today we have some science fictionauthors who follow, maybe knowingly, maybe
not, this particular project, thisparticular this particular project of of science fiction
as as an enterprise that that isto replace science science of future elogy in
(16:12):
the in the process to to toproject future. The second book, Soma
(16:33):
Technology, was as as the titlesays, an attempt to extrapolate the limits
of our possible technologies. So heum he tried to um just to send
some kind of thinking probes into future, into what we can have as as
(16:59):
we as we developed our technologies.For instance, he predicted the virtual reality.
But also something that is that hecalled auto evolution of man of human
beings. So this is something thatis all that is also quite popular today
(17:23):
under the label of post humanism ortrans humanism. So trans humanist movement aims
at reshaping human beings in their bodiesand minds. So this was also something
that that stains off them predicted andas he predicted that, he was also
(17:45):
a critic of that because he recognizedsome some threats that can appear on the
road of this this improvement, thisthis this project of improvement of human beings.
He was always a very cautious atleast very caucious regarding any attempt to
(18:14):
improve either human being or the humansociety. So he was we can we
can say it he was a traditionalist, so this is also quite unexpected,
as you can imagine imagine stands ofLamb as a science fiction writer. The
Second World War and the communist realitycertainly had a role in the development of
(18:38):
Lamb's attitude towards humanity, which mayhave also impacted this traditionalist approach that was
mentioned by Yakup. He was notnot only a spectator of the twenties century
catastrophes, but also some well avictim of them. He was, as
(19:00):
you probably know, a Jew.His survival during the Nazi occupation of Lviv
was well, very dramatic, buthis further life in a communist Poland was
also full of well, it wasnot as dramatic, but it was rather
(19:22):
full of plenty little obstacles that thisregime created on and this was something that
made him very hostile towards I guessit was one of the of the reasons,
but also some others like well,he thought very similarly to Carl Popper
(19:48):
in his social thinking, in hissocial philosophy. The Dialogues very strange book
because not because of how it isrelated to the author, but because how
it is related to the times itwas published. The last parts of this
book contain a very straightforward criticism ofreal socialism, and the fact that it
(20:18):
was published by a legal publisher incommunist Poland was something very unexpected to Lamb's
friends, even that that read thatpeace before publication. It was very similar
in spirit to what Harp Popper saidin his Poverty of Historicism, and this
(20:42):
is probably something that that shaped hismindset regarding the social thinking and clu and
philosophy of culture. His philosophy ofculture is rather traditionalist. One may say
it is a philosoph fee of culturethat is that is already outdated because he
(21:03):
presented organismical view of culture like thisis a system that has a certain central
cential body that overlooks everything, likelike a filter of values, and and
the culture is is works properly whenit is united. So I believe this
(21:30):
way of seeing culture is frankly,uh not not correct. I mean,
there is we can have narratives aboutsuch views of cultures of our past,
but in fact there was always somethingthat was you know, on the on
(21:51):
the frontiers and some not non mainstreamtrends of culture in the Middle Ages,
in the ancient times. So thisis something that I mean this place is
Lamb and his view of culture inthe long tradition of conservative thinkers like like
(22:12):
Plato and the critics of um ofEuropean culture like Spangler. I believe this
is very um. It has somesimilarities affinities to such a way of understanding
(22:33):
of what culture is and what isthere the meaning and the goal of culture.
But nevertheless it is quite still quiteinteresting a way of looking at the
problem of culture from from a perspectivethat that can be seen as a post
cybernetic perspective of culture, because thecybernetics is something that that he learned in
(23:02):
late forties as he came to crackfrom from view. He had the opportunity
to read kind contemporary publications from thistopic because there was a man called Ynowski
who who organized a seminar and andan organized import of ideas from from Western
(23:29):
countries import of books. He disseminatedthose books in through Polish over Polish Polish
libraries, university libraries. Unfortunately thisoperation ended with the Stalinist time. But
anyway, Lamb was able to readquite new books of of of the fathers
(23:55):
of of cybernetics and and this shapedhis approach to plenty of issues like like
culture, literary work, and andso on, so and human being,
human mind as well. So acouple of years later he realized that that
(24:15):
that cybernetics is a flawed project.It doesn't bring you what it expects,
what it promises. But nevertheless,this was something that is a formative idea
for for his his overall thought,not only philosophy, but also um also
(24:37):
his his his fiction. Returning tothe two value publication of Philosophical lamp I
asked Yakup if they analyze not onlyhis nonfiction writings and essays, but if
they were able to identify Lamb's philosophicalapproach through his science fiction writing as well,
and what does his science fiction writingssay about his philosophy. This volume
(25:00):
is not, in fact not somuch analytical, but it is mostly a
kind of anthology because what we havehere are eight eight fragments of stains of
Lamb's essayistic works. I would saythat we also have one fragment of Yes,
(25:23):
we also have one fragment of sciencefiction novel Golem the Fourties. This
is very strange book because it wasalready in the in the later later stage
of his career. He stopped writingbooks writing novels science fiction novels actually in
(25:45):
the seventies, but he produced somein the in the in the early eight
eighties because of money problem, mostlyand golem. The fourteens is is a
collection of lectures of artificial super intelligencethat is produced by accident during the arm
(26:11):
race between the United States and SovietUnion in two thousand and twenty four.
I believe so he in in seventies. He didn't predict the collapse of Soviet
Union and the end of Cold War, but he believed that the arm race
(26:36):
will switch to not not from fromfrom the from weapons to the artificial controlling
systems. So this race that isdepicted as just you know, one side
race that Soviets didn't allegedly participate inthat only on the Americans, and they
(27:02):
tried to to develop more and moreadvanced artificial intelligent commanders of their armies.
And at the end of this processthey developed something that simply didn't want to
serve the goals because it was toointelligent. So so this is how golden
(27:30):
the fourteens it was. It wasthe name of the supercomputer that decided to
give lectures to the humanity. Sothe volume Golden the fourties fourteens, that
is I don't I don't remember ifit is translated to English in whole,
because I know there are some fragments. It is only a novel. From
(27:53):
the you know, from it appearsto be novel, but in fact it
is an extended as a or infact two essays, because that it is
just a monologue of that supercomputer.Two monologues, the first one and the
last one. So the last oneis included in this volume. And because
(28:15):
it depicts very I would say courageousvision of certain natural limitations over over the
development of mind. Lamb assumes thatwe have a certain natural laws. We
(28:37):
have some natural laws of that regulatehow we can develop our minds. I
mean, of course, not we, because we are just humble biological creatures
with very limited power. But aswe as we enter into the path of
(28:59):
artificial minds, the artificial minds willhave will encounter certain limitations, certain layers
of spheres of silence that can thatthat that have to be overcom and and
so this this process is not certain. Some some some computers will probably that
(29:27):
their minds will be dissolved within withinthis process. And that he also presents
an ultimate goal of this process.That is, and I believe, and
I wrote it in this book becauseI present, I will commented this this
this text, that ultimate goal ofany artificial intelligence is in fact the ultimate
(29:55):
goal of humanity as such. Andthis goal is cognitive because it is to
have a complete knowledge about the existinguniverse. The problem is if we can
get this knowledge still being in thatuniverse. And and what the protagonist of
(30:17):
this of Golem the forties says isthat we will probably not we, but
our machines, our national intelligence willhave to you know, somehow get out
of this universe to to get theactual knowledge of it, through probably the
black hole. And this is somethingthat is well very I believe it should
(30:45):
be understood as some serious proposal.It should not be seen as just science
fiction idea, because well, aswe think of the CVS a civilization as
a whole, Yeah, what whatwhat can we? What can we do?
(31:06):
In fact, of course, wehave plenty to do with our our
healthly living. We have to dealwith hunger and inequalities and so on,
and climate crisis, and we haveto in fact fight for our survival as
a species and life in on thisplanet. But as we overcome those difficulties
(31:30):
and well the stains of lamps assumptionwas that we can do this, and
I believe he's right, we canif we if we try what awaits us
in the future, as we aswe get it, Yeah, we will
have the civilization that will provide everywell everything we want as as single human
(32:00):
beings. So what then, yeah, uh, And the answer is of
course knowledge. Yeah, we willtry to to get some more knowledge about
about the universe. Maybe we willencounter some you know, extra terrestrials,
but they will have the same problem. Yeah, because if if they have
(32:22):
a well developed civilization that will providethem this and living, they will also
have the problem of of of ofthe aim of their existence. So we
will probably find those uh teachers,and and you know, we can join
efforts in this, in this projectto to to you know, to learn
(32:45):
about about our world and the endof it is the infamous theory of everything.
But well, maybe this is it. Maybe this is what we what
we should aim at, the theoryof our universe. And it is possible
(33:07):
that to get such a theory wewill have to somehow transport ourselves out of
this world and we will see anotherdimension and other meta universe that will also
have some mysteries, some secrets.So maybe this endeavor is you know,
(33:30):
never ending. Lamb's philosophy is deep, penetrating and complex. I asked Yakup
to break it down for me.What is the single most important idea which
comes out from his writings? Whatidea is most prevalent and reveals Lamb's way
(33:51):
of thinking. I believe this isthe idea of technological determinism. It appears
in many of his essays and book, and it simply says that we cannot
predict, as I told you before, we cannot predict the development of science
and technology. But on the otherhand, both science and technology shapes our
(34:12):
cultures. So this is something thatpolls a threat to to to to human
culture, any culture, and therapid development of technology, especially the rapid
development can even destroy the culture.And he sees it as he sees this
as an existential threat to civilization.And this have some This this idea has
(34:38):
some affinities with with Marxist thought because, as you probably know, Marx had
a version of determinism and historical determinism, butter realistic determinism. We don't have
materialistic determinism slains of land, butwe have this determinism that that says that
(34:59):
our technology that is out of ourcontrol, that is uncontrolled by culture,
Well, it is a factor thatinfluences the culture. So this is something
I would say his point is sosome extent too strict. I mean,
I would say that we do havesome some cultural tools to control technology,
(35:25):
and we sometimes make use of thosetools. For instance, well, there's
no serious and properly financed research ofhuman brain in a way that can be
done for on brains of monkeys forinstance, So you cannot have experiments that
(35:52):
would examine the way human brain worksin like VV section. So you cannot
open the skull and put some electrodesand and you know, make some experiments
with a living human being. Thisis something we could that way of of
(36:16):
of of of of dealing with humanbrain would bring us a lot of new
information. The science of the cognitivescience would would thrive if we if we
had the possibility of conducting such experience, But of course we don't because it's
(36:38):
it's outrageous. This is an exampleof of of a culture limiting culture and
ethics limiting our science and technology.And I believe that there are even there
are some more examples like well,we don't have we can't experiment on fittusis
(37:02):
on human fittasis. So this isthis is something that well contacticts that that
such strict understanding of Lamb's point.But at the same time I believe that
he has some point. I meanthat technological technological determinism reveals something about about
(37:28):
the mutual relationship between between science andtechnology and culture and civilization. So and
this is this is why I putit forward because this is also main the
main reason, the main argument usedby Lamb to to ground his specimism,
(37:53):
because he sees that we should bein control of our civilization and culture,
but we don't. And the problemis that that we shouldn't expect much of
the future. And this is thisis what what he perceives it. Thank
(38:29):
you for listening to this episode ofExploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy. The
podcast is prepared, research, recorded, and produced by Adam Reihart and Matchi
Mkulski of Tagistan Europe. The seriesis supported by a grunt from the Polish
Ministry of Culture, National Heritage andSport under the ground program promotion of Polish
(38:49):
culture abroad. You would like tolearn more about Newiston Nebrop podcasts, visit
www. Newist and Europe That EU
Welcome to a special podcast series titledExploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy preport and
produced by Toggist and Europe. Thislimited podcast series is being conducted in conjunction
with the Year of Stannis with Lambtwenty twenty one, a special commemoration being
(00:23):
held in Poland. Throughout this series, we will discover, together with experts
and writers, the impact that Stannisof Lamb has had in Poland and abroad.
We will learn more about them's story, his philosophy and some controversist Along
the way, we will also lookat contemporary literature and bring to light some
(00:44):
new Polish authors following in Lamb's footsteps. We invite you to join us on
this journey exploring Polish science fiction andfantasy. In this episode, we get
(01:07):
to hear from Yakub Kmuka, aPolish philosopher and professor at the Institute of
Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical Universityof Krakouf. His research is focused on
the relationship between culture and technology aswell as the problem of the mind,
especially in the context of artificial intelligence. In this context, he has been
(01:29):
analyzing in studying the philosophy of Staniswaf Lem as can be understood through his
writings. This year, Gomuka released, together with his colleagues, the first
volume of a two volume book onthe philosophy of Lem, titled in English
Philosophical Lem, A collection of sanisuwafLem's texts and their elaboration. There was
a lot of interest and discussions inPoland surrounding the publication. To start off
(01:52):
our conversation, I asked Yakoup togive me some background on the two volume
book. How did he come upwith this idea? The whole idea of
philosophical came to my colleagues's mind.It wasn't my idea, it was philipskpla.
So he noticed a publication called FantasticLamb, a collection of the greatest
(02:15):
short stories by Lamb, and realizedthat the world awaits for something that is
philosophical. Lamb that this should beproduced to present Lamb as a philosopher,
because he was a philosopher. Andwell, we met at one of the
(02:37):
conferences I organized. The title wasPhilosophy in in in the States off Lama's
works. So we met at oneof the installments of that conference and he
told me about this project and wedecided to work together upon it, and
(02:57):
this is the first volume. Itcame just one month ago. This is
a two volume project because we believewe can, I mean, we believe
there is much more to present thanjust this humble book, which is not
in fact so humble. It's it'sabout five hundred pages. But anyway,
(03:21):
this volume is devoted to as thesubtitle says, natural or artificial being,
mind and creativity. This is thetitle of the volume one. So the
second time second volume will be devotedto cultural, religion and ethics. So
(03:45):
because stands Lam was a philosopher ofmany philosophical interests, he can be associated
in you know, in from thepopular point of view with easily with the
philosophy of technology and some futurology andso on, but at the same time
(04:06):
and philosophy of science, of course, but at the same time he was
also very skillful humanist, and hewas aware of the importance of such things
that as culture and religions. Sohe developed also very valuable imports to those
(04:29):
to those branches sub branches of philosophylike philosophy of religion and philosophy of culture
and ethics, and also the philosophyof philosophy and the literary criticism. He
developed his own original way of understandingthe process of creativity. So this is
(04:58):
this is also included in the isthis this this this existing volume, because
the next volume will probably appear atthe end of twenty twenty two and it
will cover those remaining topics. Well, it was a book that um that
(05:19):
was very long in the making,but fortunately we have it now. So
I want to say that it isa part of our ongoing project to put
Lamb in their right context within thePolish philosophical or more broader humanistic thought.
(05:45):
I mean, he is, asI believe, one of the greatest thinkers
in the twentieth century and in abit of twenty first century, because he
died in two thousand or six.This is all I can I can say
in general. Throughout the development ofthis publication, Jakub expanded his knowledge of
(06:12):
Lamb's approach to the world and humanity. He uncovered some new threads as well.
I asked him what was most surprisingin this exercise. As I was
doing this project, I was alreadyquite familiar with with main threats of stains
of Lamb. Lamb's philosophy, whatsurprises me in it is. The first
(06:38):
thing is that he is a criticof enlightenment. Yes, you can expect
something different from from this person,but in fact he is in inner critic
of Enlightenment. He develops his criticismfrom within the the Enlightenment. He offers
(07:02):
a view according to which we,as a you know, human species soci
as a civilization are very hard toto to to to get better. So
any projects and a civilizational projects toimprove human nature is is doomed, according
(07:25):
to him, and and can bringeven worse results than those calamities they are
they were designed to cope with.So as as he is, of course
a fervent critic of such ideas asas Marxist idea of a new Man,
(07:47):
so he mocks this idea in plentyof his short stories and and some some
novels too. So this is thefirst thing that a reader of this book
can find or not not in factthis book, then the next the next
volume can find unexpected. Yes,but there are also some other strange and
(08:15):
interesting issues, like, for instance, his discussion regarding mind uploading that he
presented in his nineteen fifty seven book. In the middle of fifties, he
(08:37):
already considered such such topics like likemind uploading, that is already considered by
by such philosophers like the like Parfit. And it's also not so science fiction
perspective from our current technological advanced andbecause we already have some technology to to
(09:03):
to to to merge chips silicon chipswith with with brain tissues, so we
are not far from enabling that thatkind of technology. And then he already
considered that in in in the middleof fifties, So this is something that
(09:26):
that can be astonishing, like likeso like he was so out of his
time right because well, he thoughtabout things nobody did in that And the
problem, his great problem was thathe was only translated to German and Russian.
(09:50):
I mean those essays, the philosophicalessays, the dialogues were translated to
English. Well they were, theywere just translated. It is in an
English translation that comes this year inMight Press, So after more than fifty
(10:15):
years, is available his his fundamentaltheoretical work is available for English speaking and
English reading public. So this ishis his problem. I mean, he
considered this as a severe obstacle inhis career that he figured out plenty of
(10:37):
things that we deal today, likefor instance, virtual reality that he called
phantomatics in his sixty four nineteen sixtyfour, yes, nineteen sixty four,
a book Summa Technology that came inEnglish in twenty fourteen. The first English
(11:01):
edition of Summa Technology was was intwenty fourteen. It's Minnesota University Press.
So this is this is the problemof Stanisa lam as a philosopher, because
his intellectual horizons were very broad andgreatly exceeded our Polish mindsets for that time.
(11:22):
As he as he published those books, Lamb was obviously known in the
world for his science fiction, buthe was not known as a philosopher.
What was the reasoning behind his philosophicaltext not being translated and published outside of
(11:43):
Poland. Well, it was adecision of publishers. His essays his philosophical
essays, and he produced four greatphilosophical essays and the first one was a
Fogo mentioned Dialogues, the second,the second was Souma Technology. The third
one, produced in nineteen sixty eight, was Philosophy of Chance. The fourth
(12:11):
one in seventies, in the beginningof seventies was science Fiction and Futuology.
And this latter was in fact translatedbecause it died with basically with science fiction.
It was a part of his projectof presenting certain obligations civilizational obligations of
(12:41):
science fiction writers. Because he wasa futurologist, but he was also a
critic of futurology as a science.He didn't believe in the possibility of making
futuology as a scientific enterprise because ofluck of methods, of correct methods,
(13:01):
and because of that the paradox thatif a futurelogical vision is to include is
to be complete, it should envisagefuture development of science and technology. But
the development of science and technology isunpredictable. There is a very good example.
(13:24):
You can read science fiction like sciencefiction from sixties, seventies, even
eighties, and you will find notrace of mobile phones because it was unthinkable.
And think of mobile phones. Howit changed this It wasn't an invention.
(13:48):
It was just application of what wealready knew. It was more than
than just the gadget. It wassomething that that changed the way of our
communication and even the functioning of thewhole civilized and economy because it enabled micropayments
and so on. So was perfectlyaware of this problem of futuology, And
(14:13):
at the same time he recognized theneed of futuology for our civilization because he
was focused on a project of thecivilization as a self governing process, like
that human beings should have the controlover the civilization. So the problem is
(14:35):
if you don't have any insight intofuture, you don't have the control because
you don't know what your actions canbring about. So this is the reason
why we really need futuology. Andthe problem is that we don't have scientific
futoology. So what can we haveinstead? And he offered a science fiction
(15:00):
He considered himself as an example ofthat. I mean he later in in
in his major stage of his career, he understood his own approach to science
fiction as this as an attempt tomake scientifically informed predictions about future and this
(15:24):
is something he also wanted from sciencefiction per se. And from this point
of view he developed a fervent criticismof the actual science fiction. I believe
if he lived up to today,he wouldn't be so disappointed because we also
(15:48):
have today we have some science fictionauthors who follow, maybe knowingly, maybe
not, this particular project, thisparticular this particular project of of science fiction
as as an enterprise that that isto replace science science of future elogy in
(16:12):
the in the process to to toproject future. The second book, Soma
(16:33):
Technology, was as as the titlesays, an attempt to extrapolate the limits
of our possible technologies. So heum he tried to um just to send
some kind of thinking probes into future, into what we can have as as
(16:59):
we as we developed our technologies.For instance, he predicted the virtual reality.
But also something that is that hecalled auto evolution of man of human
beings. So this is something thatis all that is also quite popular today
(17:23):
under the label of post humanism ortrans humanism. So trans humanist movement aims
at reshaping human beings in their bodiesand minds. So this was also something
that that stains off them predicted andas he predicted that, he was also
(17:45):
a critic of that because he recognizedsome some threats that can appear on the
road of this this improvement, thisthis this project of improvement of human beings.
He was always a very cautious atleast very caucious regarding any attempt to
(18:14):
improve either human being or the humansociety. So he was we can we
can say it he was a traditionalist, so this is also quite unexpected,
as you can imagine imagine stands ofLamb as a science fiction writer. The
Second World War and the communist realitycertainly had a role in the development of
(18:38):
Lamb's attitude towards humanity, which mayhave also impacted this traditionalist approach that was
mentioned by Yakup. He was notnot only a spectator of the twenties century
catastrophes, but also some well avictim of them. He was, as
(19:00):
you probably know, a Jew.His survival during the Nazi occupation of Lviv
was well, very dramatic, buthis further life in a communist Poland was
also full of well, it wasnot as dramatic, but it was rather
(19:22):
full of plenty little obstacles that thisregime created on and this was something that
made him very hostile towards I guessit was one of the of the reasons,
but also some others like well,he thought very similarly to Carl Popper
(19:48):
in his social thinking, in hissocial philosophy. The Dialogues very strange book
because not because of how it isrelated to the author, but because how
it is related to the times itwas published. The last parts of this
book contain a very straightforward criticism ofreal socialism, and the fact that it
(20:18):
was published by a legal publisher incommunist Poland was something very unexpected to Lamb's
friends, even that that read thatpeace before publication. It was very similar
in spirit to what Harp Popper saidin his Poverty of Historicism, and this
(20:42):
is probably something that that shaped hismindset regarding the social thinking and clu and
philosophy of culture. His philosophy ofculture is rather traditionalist. One may say
it is a philosoph fee of culturethat is that is already outdated because he
(21:03):
presented organismical view of culture like thisis a system that has a certain central
cential body that overlooks everything, likelike a filter of values, and and
the culture is is works properly whenit is united. So I believe this
(21:30):
way of seeing culture is frankly,uh not not correct. I mean,
there is we can have narratives aboutsuch views of cultures of our past,
but in fact there was always somethingthat was you know, on the on
(21:51):
the frontiers and some not non mainstreamtrends of culture in the Middle Ages,
in the ancient times. So thisis something that I mean this place is
Lamb and his view of culture inthe long tradition of conservative thinkers like like
(22:12):
Plato and the critics of um ofEuropean culture like Spangler. I believe this
is very um. It has somesimilarities affinities to such a way of understanding
(22:33):
of what culture is and what isthere the meaning and the goal of culture.
But nevertheless it is quite still quiteinteresting a way of looking at the
problem of culture from from a perspectivethat that can be seen as a post
cybernetic perspective of culture, because thecybernetics is something that that he learned in
(23:02):
late forties as he came to crackfrom from view. He had the opportunity
to read kind contemporary publications from thistopic because there was a man called Ynowski
who who organized a seminar and andan organized import of ideas from from Western
(23:29):
countries import of books. He disseminatedthose books in through Polish over Polish Polish
libraries, university libraries. Unfortunately thisoperation ended with the Stalinist time. But
anyway, Lamb was able to readquite new books of of of the fathers
(23:55):
of of cybernetics and and this shapedhis approach to plenty of issues like like
culture, literary work, and andso on, so and human being,
human mind as well. So acouple of years later he realized that that
(24:15):
that cybernetics is a flawed project.It doesn't bring you what it expects,
what it promises. But nevertheless,this was something that is a formative idea
for for his his overall thought,not only philosophy, but also um also
(24:37):
his his his fiction. Returning tothe two value publication of Philosophical lamp I
asked Yakup if they analyze not onlyhis nonfiction writings and essays, but if
they were able to identify Lamb's philosophicalapproach through his science fiction writing as well,
and what does his science fiction writingssay about his philosophy. This volume
(25:00):
is not, in fact not somuch analytical, but it is mostly a
kind of anthology because what we havehere are eight eight fragments of stains of
Lamb's essayistic works. I would saythat we also have one fragment of Yes,
(25:23):
we also have one fragment of sciencefiction novel Golem the Fourties. This
is very strange book because it wasalready in the in the later later stage
of his career. He stopped writingbooks writing novels science fiction novels actually in
(25:45):
the seventies, but he produced somein the in the in the early eight
eighties because of money problem, mostlyand golem. The fourteens is is a
collection of lectures of artificial super intelligencethat is produced by accident during the arm
(26:11):
race between the United States and SovietUnion in two thousand and twenty four.
I believe so he in in seventies. He didn't predict the collapse of Soviet
Union and the end of Cold War, but he believed that the arm race
(26:36):
will switch to not not from fromfrom the from weapons to the artificial controlling
systems. So this race that isdepicted as just you know, one side
race that Soviets didn't allegedly participate inthat only on the Americans, and they
(27:02):
tried to to develop more and moreadvanced artificial intelligent commanders of their armies.
And at the end of this processthey developed something that simply didn't want to
serve the goals because it was toointelligent. So so this is how golden
(27:30):
the fourteens it was. It wasthe name of the supercomputer that decided to
give lectures to the humanity. Sothe volume Golden the fourties fourteens, that
is I don't I don't remember ifit is translated to English in whole,
because I know there are some fragments. It is only a novel. From
(27:53):
the you know, from it appearsto be novel, but in fact it
is an extended as a or infact two essays, because that it is
just a monologue of that supercomputer.Two monologues, the first one and the
last one. So the last oneis included in this volume. And because
(28:15):
it depicts very I would say courageousvision of certain natural limitations over over the
development of mind. Lamb assumes thatwe have a certain natural laws. We
(28:37):
have some natural laws of that regulatehow we can develop our minds. I
mean, of course, not we, because we are just humble biological creatures
with very limited power. But aswe as we enter into the path of
(28:59):
artificial minds, the artificial minds willhave will encounter certain limitations, certain layers
of spheres of silence that can thatthat that have to be overcom and and
so this this process is not certain. Some some some computers will probably that
(29:27):
their minds will be dissolved within withinthis process. And that he also presents
an ultimate goal of this process.That is, and I believe, and
I wrote it in this book becauseI present, I will commented this this
this text, that ultimate goal ofany artificial intelligence is in fact the ultimate
(29:55):
goal of humanity as such. Andthis goal is cognitive because it is to
have a complete knowledge about the existinguniverse. The problem is if we can
get this knowledge still being in thatuniverse. And and what the protagonist of
(30:17):
this of Golem the forties says isthat we will probably not we, but
our machines, our national intelligence willhave to you know, somehow get out
of this universe to to get theactual knowledge of it, through probably the
black hole. And this is somethingthat is well very I believe it should
(30:45):
be understood as some serious proposal.It should not be seen as just science
fiction idea, because well, aswe think of the CVS a civilization as
a whole, Yeah, what whatwhat can we? What can we do?
(31:06):
In fact, of course, wehave plenty to do with our our
healthly living. We have to dealwith hunger and inequalities and so on,
and climate crisis, and we haveto in fact fight for our survival as
a species and life in on thisplanet. But as we overcome those difficulties
(31:30):
and well the stains of lamps assumptionwas that we can do this, and
I believe he's right, we canif we if we try what awaits us
in the future, as we aswe get it, Yeah, we will
have the civilization that will provide everywell everything we want as as single human
(32:00):
beings. So what then, yeah, uh, And the answer is of
course knowledge. Yeah, we willtry to to get some more knowledge about
about the universe. Maybe we willencounter some you know, extra terrestrials,
but they will have the same problem. Yeah, because if if they have
(32:22):
a well developed civilization that will providethem this and living, they will also
have the problem of of of ofthe aim of their existence. So we
will probably find those uh teachers,and and you know, we can join
efforts in this, in this projectto to to you know, to learn
(32:45):
about about our world and the endof it is the infamous theory of everything.
But well, maybe this is it. Maybe this is what we what
we should aim at, the theoryof our universe. And it is possible
(33:07):
that to get such a theory wewill have to somehow transport ourselves out of
this world and we will see anotherdimension and other meta universe that will also
have some mysteries, some secrets.So maybe this endeavor is you know,
(33:30):
never ending. Lamb's philosophy is deep, penetrating and complex. I asked Yakup
to break it down for me.What is the single most important idea which
comes out from his writings? Whatidea is most prevalent and reveals Lamb's way
(33:51):
of thinking. I believe this isthe idea of technological determinism. It appears
in many of his essays and book, and it simply says that we cannot
predict, as I told you before, we cannot predict the development of science
and technology. But on the otherhand, both science and technology shapes our
(34:12):
cultures. So this is something thatpolls a threat to to to to human
culture, any culture, and therapid development of technology, especially the rapid
development can even destroy the culture.And he sees it as he sees this
as an existential threat to civilization.And this have some This this idea has
(34:38):
some affinities with with Marxist thought because, as you probably know, Marx had
a version of determinism and historical determinism, butter realistic determinism. We don't have
materialistic determinism slains of land, butwe have this determinism that that says that
(34:59):
our technology that is out of ourcontrol, that is uncontrolled by culture,
Well, it is a factor thatinfluences the culture. So this is something
I would say his point is sosome extent too strict. I mean,
I would say that we do havesome some cultural tools to control technology,
(35:25):
and we sometimes make use of thosetools. For instance, well, there's
no serious and properly financed research ofhuman brain in a way that can be
done for on brains of monkeys forinstance, So you cannot have experiments that
(35:52):
would examine the way human brain worksin like VV section. So you cannot
open the skull and put some electrodesand and you know, make some experiments
with a living human being. Thisis something we could that way of of
(36:16):
of of of of dealing with humanbrain would bring us a lot of new
information. The science of the cognitivescience would would thrive if we if we
had the possibility of conducting such experience, But of course we don't because it's
(36:38):
it's outrageous. This is an exampleof of of a culture limiting culture and
ethics limiting our science and technology.And I believe that there are even there
are some more examples like well,we don't have we can't experiment on fittusis
(37:02):
on human fittasis. So this isthis is something that well contacticts that that
such strict understanding of Lamb's point.But at the same time I believe that
he has some point. I meanthat technological technological determinism reveals something about about
(37:28):
the mutual relationship between between science andtechnology and culture and civilization. So and
this is this is why I putit forward because this is also main the
main reason, the main argument usedby Lamb to to ground his specimism,
(37:53):
because he sees that we should bein control of our civilization and culture,
but we don't. And the problemis that that we shouldn't expect much of
the future. And this is thisis what what he perceives it. Thank
(38:29):
you for listening to this episode ofExploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy. The
podcast is prepared, research, recorded, and produced by Adam Reihart and Matchi
Mkulski of Tagistan Europe. The seriesis supported by a grunt from the Polish
Ministry of Culture, National Heritage andSport under the ground program promotion of Polish
(38:49):
culture abroad. You would like tolearn more about Newiston Nebrop podcasts, visit
www. Newist and Europe That EU
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