Defending what’s really real against the onslaught of AI

 

What’s really real is Mother Nature, our bodies, and our sense of place

Defending what’s really real against the onslaught of AI

Capitalists have been riding roughshod over the natural world since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Now, Silicon Valley technocrats are plunging ahead to gain total dominance over humans by annexing our brains.

Already, high-tech wizards, using Madison Avenue flimflam, have conned us into offloading our memories onto our smartphones and relinquishing our sense of direction to Siri. But that’s only the beginning. The next step is for AI to take over our thinking, making us into machines.

 

Perhaps, if we really lived in a world where everything was relative –as some postmodernists claim – it would be okay to motor through life mindlessly like a machine. But we are not Chevys or Fords held together with mig-welds and epoxy, but living, breathing creatures intimately connected to our community and sense of place.

Not everything is relative!. 

The best person I’ve found to refute that naive notion is Charlene Spretnak, considered "one of the premier visionary feminist thinkers of our time.” In 1997, she wrote one of my favorite books, “The Resurgence of the Real.”^⁠1

Spretnak wrote this book to bring together research that clearly demonstrates humans are not separate, individual atoms drifting aimlessly around, free to alter our identity at will. 

These studies demonstrated that our mind and our body, rather than being separate entities, function together as an integrated unit, dynamically interrelated with nature and other people.^⁠2 From that, she could confidently assert what is “really real:” the innate wisdom of our bodies, our sense of place, and Nature Herself.

Recently, to add fuel to the fire, a new book, “Against the Machine,” has hit the bestseller list. In it, novelist, poet, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth presents a terrifying account of how the technological-cultural matrix is enveloping all of us. 

Kingsnorth is on the same page with Spretnak about what is really real. I applaud him for emphasizing that the modern world is suffering from a spiritual crisis, but he is being decidedly too specific by insisting that the only answer lies in adopting Orthodox Christianity.

In addition, his message is weakened from my point of view because he comes off as a reactionary radical railing against enemies like vaccines and trans people. Despite that, Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist, concedes his basic thesis is correct: “that the world is in the grip of a force…that threatens to rip it asunder.”^⁠3 

Like  Spretnak, Kingsnorth places great importance on having a sense of place, complaining that too many environmentalists show “no sign of any real, felt attachment to any small part of that Earth.” In that regard, he is a man after my own heart, living simply in rural Ireland, planting trees, keeping animals, and cutting his grass with a scythe.

It appears both these authors may agree with my bottom line: there is no separation between our physical body and our mind, and no separation between us and Mother Nature. Essentially, we are all inseparably one organism.

I will close by relating a fantastic bit of deja vu that occurred after Darwin published his ground-breaking book, “The Origin of Species. It comes from an article in Orion Magazine by Maria Popova. She tells the story of a 27-year-old man, John Butler, who wrote an article in response to Darwin’s work, concerned about the future of human consciousness. In it, he had an epiphany: 

“Why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known phases, as the mind of animals is from that of vegetables?”^⁠4 Predating Spretnak and Kingsnorth by 150 years, he predicted that evolution would lead to a new kingdom of life parasitic upon us. 

Popova writes that AI may be on the brink of fulfilling Butler’s prediction: As technocrats assemble their third kingdom of AI, modeling its intelligence after our own, we will soon be its guinea pigs: deconstructed by a force as parasitic and predatory as we are.

We may soon find out to our detriment that Butler’s prophecy will turn out to be more earthshaking than Darwin’s original work.

xxx

¹ The Resurgence of the Real Body, Nature and Place in a Hypermodern World. By Charlene Spretnak Copyright 1999

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlene_Spretnak

³ https://www.the-tls.com/politics-society/social-cultural-studies/against-the-machine-paul-kingsnorth-book-review-bill-mckibben

⁴ https://orionmagazine.org/article/natural-intelligence/

An Epiphany with a Raven Gives Me Hope

photo by author

I’ve enjoyed communing with ravens during trips out West, but especially here in Northwood, where I often meet a pair of ravens who have a nest near my house.

Recently, Russet and I left the house and drove down the dirt road next to us, which my father called the “Wild Hawk Road.” We were heading toward a somewhat distant hike, even though it was late in the day, when I spotted one of my ravens hopping beside the road. When he saw me, he stopped, and we locked eyes. At that moment, a more pleasant and closer hike popped into my mind. I hadn’t considered the possibility before because it was always off-limits, as it was in an active Boy Scout camp. I had forgotten it had recently been shut down.

What transpired between me and the Raven I call mind-reading, while scientists call it a “theory of mind.” That’s according to Christine Webb in her new book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters.^⁠1

You may say I’m imagining my connection to the raven, but I prefer to believe otherwise: I derive pleasure from the way this experience transformed me from a mundane, rational calculator into a sentient creature encountering an unforeseen connection to the natural world. 

In a word, it made my day!

It shifted my mind from its small-minded fixation on relentless human dominance – controlling every facet of our lives –to the ethic Webb proposes, based on humility and reciprocity with the rest of nature.

For Webb, human arrogance is an ideology that has done us a grave harm. Because we have long viewed our species as special, as God’s gift to the Earth, we have been conditioned to believe everything we do is privileged, an inescapable result of divine intent.. Like the patriarchy, which I think is a related ideology, it denies participation to anyone not belonging to the dominant group.

But, in reality, we are but one small cog, among countless others, in a vast interconnected web. So then, what does it really mean to be human, Webb  asks: “Our first hint might come from the word “human” itself—which derives from the root word humus, meaning “earth.” To be human thus means to be of the earth, not apart from or better than any of the other beings with whom we share this planet.”^⁠2

Webb urges us to switch from our usual, small-minded, egotistic self to an Earth-based version where all species are  interconnected as one. This can lead to a secondary benefit: a spontaneous eruption of awe, difficult to describe because it transcends our ordinary experience. 

According to Peter Wehner in Atlantic Magazine, research shows that “awe provides us with a greater sense of purpose and meaning. It encourages an appreciation for beauty and creativity. It can improve our mood and sense of well-being, make us more curious and less self-occupied.”  When we see ourselves in the context of wonder, it makes us humbler.^⁠3

Wehner cites the clinical psychologist David Elkins, who rhapsodizes, “Awe is a lightning bolt that marks in memory those moments when the doors of perception are cleansed and we see with startling clarity what is truly important in life.” 

That’s what the lightning flash was between that bird and me: my sudden epiphany that all life on Earth is kin,  that we are all multiple intelligences on a spectrum. The fact that life is more mysterious than we usually believe is a reason for hope, Webb writes.

She would agree with Robecca Solnit, who has written: “Optimism says that everything will be fine no matter what, just as pessimism says that it will be dismal no matter what. Hope is a sense of the grand mystery of it all, the knowledge that we don’t know how it will turn out, that anything is possible.”⁠^⁠4  

And she’s right!

¹ Webb, Christine. The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters (p. 4).. Kindle Ed

² Ibid, p.262-263.

³ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/awe-wonder-political-emotion-darkness-overcome/684209/

⁴ https://www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-the-arc-of-justice-and-the-long-run/

 

Can we live a good and dignified life in these chaotic and uncertain times?

Max Ernst, The Fireside Angel (1937)

This has been a traumatic week for our country with the killing of conservative icon Charlie Kirk, the latest in an escalating series of violence against our political leaders from both sides of the aisle. 

The core of a democracy relies on our ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. Alarmingly, we may be on the brink of losing that. Some predict a return to the political violence of the 1960s when MLK, JFK, RFK, among others, were killed. Others warn of a second Civil War.

By chance, I am reading a book by Steven Batchelor that suggests a solution, “Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times.” Batchelor is a Buddhist whose focus is on how to live a good, fulfilling life in the here-and-now, not angling for a faraway, promised land called nirvana.

The seeds for Batchelor’s new work germinated when he decided to study the roots of Hellenic Greek philosophy because of similarities he discerned with Buddhism. While I knew the Buddha’s revolutionary teachings transformed Asia and Socrates laid the foundations of Western philosophy, I had no inkling that the Buddha and Socrates both walked the earth at the same time.

Both these exemplary thinkers play a prominent role in his new book because, although they never met, each addressed “in a radically new and surprisingly similar way the core questions of how to lead a good, just, and dignified life amid turbulence and violence.”^⁠1

Both men shared a commitment to an ‘ethics of uncertainty and focused on how to lead a good life in this world, by questioning everything and embracing productive doubt. Both men stressed that “[t]o embark on a path of human flourishing requires the creativity to imagine another way of living in this world…creativity was not a quality that some gifted people possessed and others did not; it was available to everyone. Creativity is the art of solving problems.”^⁠2

 It is these qualities of creativity and imagination – often dismissed as squishy by hardheaded pragmatists - that are critical to living a moral life. It is precisely these attributes that enable us to empathize with others, envision the consequences of our actions, and picture potential futures.

Batchelor shows us how these facilities are crucial for an ‘ethics of uncertainty,’ allowing individuals to envision alternative ways of living and respond in ways that are appropriate, principled, and peaceful.^⁠3

***

The Buddha and Socrates lived during turbulent, violent, and deeply uncertain times, much like our own. Philosophers and religious teachers emerged to explore ways of responding to the novel situations in which people found themselves. “The philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term “axial age” to describe this fervent and creative moment in human history.^⁠4”

Today, who can doubt that we now live in a new “axial age,” marked, once again, by rampant uncertainty, violence, and unrest? During the last axial age, philosophers and religious leaders stepped up. That won’t be enough today. This time, it will be necessary for us all to step up and put our shoulders to the wheel.

A good role model is Spike Lee, and the example he sets in his new movie, “Highest 2 Lowest.” It is about a movie mogul who risks everything by choosing to make caring, ethical choices in a life-or-death situation, rather than succumbing to the mandate of today’s selfish, cut-throat culture.

The entire plot is structured around this central moral dilemma, with the film's climax and ending reinforcing the importance of integrity over profit. We need to do more to reward such virtuous models. 

Charlie Kirk said it all: “What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.”^⁠5

xxx

¹ Blurb from Amazon’s promo of the book

² Batchelor, Stephen. Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times (p. 119).  Kindle Ed.

³ https://tricycle.org/podcast/stephen-batchelor-ethics/

⁴ Batchelor, Stephen. Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times  Kindle Edition. Page 3.

⁵ https://nypost.com/2025/09/10/opinion/charlie-kirk-was-all-about-debate-this-killing-is-an-attack-on-free-speech-itself/

Stillness

A pitch-dark rock nestling into the sand at the swirling edge
 of the surf in Kittery this week

Something about this stone enthralled me, taking me to a place of stillness beyond thought. As Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr has written: “Silence is a kind of thinking that is not thinking. It is a kind of thinking that sees.” It’s not surprising, then, that I can best capture this feeling with a photograph, not words.

If I could crystallize the spirit of such stillness with words, it would be in the form of a myth. Although not a mythologist, I tried composing the initial stanza of such a fable: 

“Long ago, when the ocean still believed itself master of all things, there appeared a stone on the shore: small, black as obsidian, smooth as if it had been polished by centuries of hands. Where other stones were swallowed, this one endured. It did not resist with brute force but with patience, nestling deeper in the sand, shifted subtly with the tide but always returning unharmed.”

Joan Halifax, the Buddhist anthropologist, tells us that indigenous people live this myth every day of their lives.  As such, they provide us with a proven guide on how to repair our falling-apart world. “This wisdom cannot be told, but it is to be found by each of us in the direct experience of silence, stillness, solitude, simplicity…and vision. [They understand] our interconnectedness with all of creation. They know as well as I do that these words are intellectual concepts until this self is directly experienced.^⁠⁠1

Seeking silence has been crucial in maintaining my sanity during these chaotic times, as our democracy teeters along with much of life on our precious little blue planet. I believe that acknowledging the wisdom displayed by indigenous people could be a lifesaver for us, serving as a bridge to a new spirituality—one that is able to heal not only our hearts but also our society and the natural world.

 

The Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr considers silence to be “the very foundation of all reality. He tells us it is from stillness that all being comes and to which all things return.” Unless we learn to live there, “the rest of things—words, events, relationships, identities—all become rather superficial, without depth or context.^⁠”^⁠2

In the religious world, God is considered to be “the foundation of all reality.” Some view God as universal consciousness. I believe Buddhists have always held this view. Here’s what  Larry Rosenberg recently wrote in Tricycle, a Buddhist publication: When the mind becomes silent, it becomes preconceptual, beyond words. In this state of being present, “we channel the energy that animates the whole universe.”^⁠3 

In what seems like an unlikely twist, over the last hundred years, science has been converging on the same conclusion. It started with Max Planck, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918 for radically changing our understanding of matter and energy by laying the foundation for quantum mechanics. 

Sounding like the Priest Richard Rohr  I quoted above, Planck issued the following declaration: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”^⁠4

Since then, Planck’s position has been steadily endorsed by more scientists.. In a recent book, complexity theorist Neil Theise provides us with a poetic description of this new view: “Our brains aren't fleshy computers that create consciousness but, instead, act like transducers that connect us to a single, all-encompassing consciousness in the same way my tiny transistor radio could link up to a rock and roll radio station when I was a teenager.^⁠”^⁠5

I’d say that’s a strong statement in support of spirituality. It aligns with the indigenous worldview that through stillness, we enter a world where we are all connected. I believe that it is this preconceptual wisdom that must be incorporated into a new myth if we are to prosper as a species.

xxx

¹ Joan Halifax. The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom (Kindle Locations 1417-1421). Kindle Edition.

² Rohr, Richard. Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (pp. 1-2). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.

³ https://tricycle.org/article/a-few-words-about-silence/

⁴ The Observer (25 January 1931) (via Wikiquote)

⁵ Theise, Neil. Notes on Complexity (p. 153). Spiegel & Grau. Kindle Edition.