is a scholar of religion, and a philosopher, writer, author of fiction, and cultural commentator. He is currently a research associate at the Universi

The myth of machine consciousness makes Narcissus of us all

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2023-05-26 13:00:08

is a scholar of religion, and a philosopher, writer, author of fiction, and cultural commentator. He is currently a research associate at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and his latest books are You Are Gods: On Nature and Supernature (2022) and Tradition and Apocalypse: An Essay on the Future of Christian Belief (2022). His Substack publication is Leaves in the Wind.

According to the best-known version of his story, the young Boeotian hunter Narcissus was at once so beautiful and so stupid that, on catching sight of his own gorgeous reflection in a forest pool, he mistook it for someone else and at once fell hopelessly in love. There he remained, bent over the water in an amorous daze, until he wasted away and – as apparently tended to happen in those days – was transformed into a white and golden flower.

An admonition against vanity, perhaps, or against how easily beauty can bewitch us, or against the lovely illusions we are so prone to pursue in place of real life. Like any estimable myth, its range of possible meanings is inexhaustible. But, in recent years, I have come to find it particularly apt to our culture’s relation to computers, especially in regard to those who believe that there is so close an analogy between mechanical computation and mental functions that one day, perhaps, artificial intelligence will become conscious, or that we will be able to upload our minds on to a digital platform. Neither will ever happen; these are mere category errors. But computers produce so enchanting a simulacrum of mental agency that sometimes we fall under their spell, and begin to think there must be someone there.