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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Power Without Wisdom · This Jungian Life Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: We're not God. And we don't know what it is
0:03
Speaker 1: we're creating when we fashion something in our own likeness
0:10
Speaker 1: to do our work for us, which is essentially what
0:13
Speaker 1: AI is.
0:15
Speaker 2: It's power that is unearned. Our little upstart apprentice who says, hey,
0:20
Speaker 2: you know, I'll say the magic words or I'll Dr. Frankenstein,
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Speaker 2: who says, I'm going to try to create a living being.
0:29
Speaker 2: It's not grounded in the depths that you are human.
0:37
Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life, conversations with Jungian analysts on
0:41
Speaker 1: the unseen forces shaping our lives and what it means
0:45
Speaker 1: to be truly human in today's complex world. I'm Lisa Marciano,
0:50
Speaker 1: and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
0:52
Speaker 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
1:08
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. Before we begin today's episode, we wanted to
1:12
Speaker 1: take a moment to talk with you about something many
1:14
Speaker 1: of you have been asking about for a while, Joseph's
1:17
Speaker 1: absence from the podcast. We've seen your questions and other
1:21
Speaker 1: messages wondering what happened. We very much wanted to address
1:25
Speaker 1: this issue sooner, and we're grateful for everyone's patience. The
1:29
Speaker 1: fact is, there's been an ongoing dispute between Joseph and
1:33
Speaker 1: the two of us in how we work together, which
1:36
Speaker 1: also involves the management of the company that produces this podcast.
1:40
Speaker 2: Earlier this summer, Joseph brought a lawsuit against our company
1:44
Speaker 2: and against each of us individually. Because that matter is
1:48
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1:52
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be appropriate to speak publicly about it, and
1:55
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2:00
Speaker 2: Nothing we say today is meant to characterize Joseph, the
2:03
Speaker 2: management of the company, or the dispute between us in
2:06
Speaker 2: any particular manner. We just felt we needed to address
2:10
Speaker 2: Joseph's absence because of your ongoing questions. We're not going
2:15
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2:17
Speaker 2: issues in the dispute, and we're not asking anyone to
2:20
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2:23
Speaker 2: know why we are not currently working together. Lisa and
2:27
Speaker 2: I are going to continue hosting this podcast together, and
2:31
Speaker 2: we believe Joseph will continue to offer his monthly live
2:34
Speaker 2: event as part of Dream School. The current situation makes
2:39
Speaker 2: us genuinely sad. We know many of you have grown
2:43
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2:46
Speaker 2: that for granted. Despite these changes, we assure you we're
2:51
Speaker 2: committed to continuing to produce high-quality episodes for you all,
2:55
Speaker 2: and we ask, please, for everyone's understanding and continued patience
3:00
Speaker 2: as the legal process plays out.
3:03
Speaker 1: So today we're going to do as we like to
3:06
Speaker 1: do and circumambulate a story. And this is an ancient,
3:10
Speaker 1: ancient story from Egypt long ago that was written down
3:15
Speaker 1: by Lucian. And it's called Eucrates and Pancrates. But I
3:20
Speaker 1: think many of you will recognize it as the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
3:26
Speaker 1: So the original Egyptian story is pretty short. So I'm
3:30
Speaker 1: just going to read that. When I was living in
3:33
Speaker 1: Egypt during my youth, my father had sent me traveling
3:36
Speaker 1: for the purpose of completing my education. I took it
3:40
Speaker 1: into my head to sail up to Koptos and go
3:43
Speaker 1: from there to the statue of Memnon in order to
3:47
Speaker 1: hear it sound that marvelous salutation to the rising sun. Well,
3:53
Speaker 1: what I heard from it was not a meaningless voice,
3:56
Speaker 1: as in the general experience of common people. Memnon himself
4:01
Speaker 1: actually opened his mouth and delivered me an oracle in
4:04
Speaker 1: seven verses. And if it were not too much of
4:08
Speaker 1: a digression, I would have repeated the very verses for you.
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Speaker 1: But on the voyage up, there chanced to be sailing
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Speaker 1: with us a man from Memphis, one of the scribes
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Speaker 1: of the temple, wonderfully learned, familiar with all the culture
4:23
Speaker 1: of the Egyptians. He was said to have lived underground
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Speaker 1: for 23 years in their sanctuaries, learning magic from Isis.
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Speaker 1: You mean Pancrates, said Arachnotus, my own teacher, a holy man,
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Speaker 1: clean-shaven in white linen, always deep in thought, speaking imperfect Greek, tall, flat-nosed,
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Speaker 1: with protruding lips and thinnish legs. That self-same Pancrates, and
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Speaker 1: at first I did not know who he was, but
4:55
Speaker 1: when I saw him working all sorts of wonders wherever
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Speaker 1: we anchored the boat, particularly riding on crocodiles and swimming
5:02
Speaker 1: in company with the beasts while they fawned and wagged
5:06
Speaker 1: their tails, I recognized that he was a holy man,
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Speaker 1: and by degrees, through my friendly behavior, I became his
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Speaker 1: companion and associate so that he shared all his secret
5:18
Speaker 1: knowledge with me. At last he persuaded me to leave
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Speaker 1: all my servants behind in Memphis and go with him
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Speaker 1: quite alone, for we should not lack people to wait
5:28
Speaker 1: upon us. And thereafter we got on in that way.
5:32
Speaker 1: But whenever we came to a stopping place, the man
5:36
Speaker 1: would take either the bar of the door or the
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Speaker 1: broom or even the pestle, put clothes upon it, say
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Speaker 1: a certain spell over it, and make it walk. appearing
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Speaker 1: to everyone else to be a man. It would go
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Speaker 1: off and draw water and buy provisions and prepare meals
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Speaker 1: and in every way deftly serve and wait upon us.
6:04
Speaker 1: Then when he was through with its services, he would
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Speaker 1: again make the broom a broom or the pestle a
6:09
Speaker 1: pestle by saying another spell over it. Though I was
6:14
Speaker 1: very keen to learn this from him, I could not
6:17
Speaker 1: do so for he was jealous. although most ready to
6:20
Speaker 1: oblige in everything else. But one day, I secretly overheard
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Speaker 1: the spell. It was just three syllables, by taking my
6:30
Speaker 1: stand in a dark place. He went off to the
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Speaker 1: square after telling the pestle what it had to do,
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Speaker 1: and on the next day, while he was transacting some
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Speaker 1: business in the square, I took the pestle, dressed it
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Speaker 1: up in the same way, said the syllables over it,
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Speaker 1: and told it to carry water. When it had filled
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Speaker 1: and brought in the jar, I said, Stop! Don't carry
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Speaker 1: any more water. Be a pestle again. But it would
6:59
Speaker 1: not obey me now. It kept straight on carrying until
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Speaker 1: it filled the house with water for us by pouring
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Speaker 1: it in. At my wit's end over the thing, for
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Speaker 1: I feared that Pancrates might come back and be angry,
7:12
Speaker 1: as was indeed the case, I took an axe and
7:15
Speaker 1: cut the pestle in two, but each part took a
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Speaker 1: jar and began to carry water, with the result that
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Speaker 1: instead of one servant, I had now two. Meanwhile, Pancrates
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Speaker 1: appeared on the scene, and comprehending what had happened, turned
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Speaker 1: them into wood again, just as they were before the spell,
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Speaker 1: and then for his own part, left me to my
7:36
Speaker 1: own devices without warning, taking himself off out of sight somewhere.
7:43
Speaker 1: And there ends our story.
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Speaker 2: You know, I have Really intrigued. I did not know
7:50
Speaker 2: that this tale went all the way back to Egypt. And,
7:56
Speaker 2: you know, it really is such a great illustration of
8:01
Speaker 2: how these stories grab us and go forward, you know,
8:08
Speaker 2: across the world and through time and appear as the
8:14
Speaker 2: sorcerer's apprentice. a children's book by Goethe Muller. And then,
8:22
Speaker 2: of course, maybe his most well-known and delightful version, which
8:27
Speaker 2: is the Disney cartoon film, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The images
8:34
Speaker 2: are just so delightful.
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Speaker 1: So Goethe took this story and turned it into, you know,
8:42
Speaker 1: a fairly substantial poem about And then the French composer
8:46
Speaker 1: Dukas took it, made it into sort of a musical poem.
8:51
Speaker 1: And the music is wonderful. I love that piece. And then,
8:54
Speaker 1: of course, that's the piece of music that Disney set
8:58
Speaker 1: to images in Fantasia. Yeah, it's a very gripping story
9:02
Speaker 1: about how something just gets really out of control. And
9:06
Speaker 1: there are fairy tale versions. There's a very similar version
9:11
Speaker 1: called Sweet Porridge and Grimms. My kids grew up with
9:16
Speaker 1: the story of Strega Nona, who, where instead of what
9:21
Speaker 1: was carrying water, there was a magical pasta pot, bubble, bubble,
9:25
Speaker 1: pasta pot. And if you didn't know the magic word,
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Speaker 1: it just kept bubbling pasta and pasta and pasta, and
9:31
Speaker 1: then you had to eat your way through it. So
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Speaker 1: it's a common kind of archetypal theme of something that
9:41
Speaker 1: is magic, that's tricky and subverts the normal process of,
9:49
Speaker 1: let's say, labor. It's kind of a shortcut, but it
9:53
Speaker 1: can take on a life of its own and kind
9:56
Speaker 1: of get us into trouble. And of course, it's also
9:58
Speaker 1: related to the Jewish legend of the golem. A story
10:04
Speaker 1: that grew out of the ghetto in Prague that there
10:07
Speaker 1: was a golem created from clay to protect the Jewish people.
10:10
Speaker 1: And when you put a scroll in its ear, it
10:12
Speaker 1: came to life and it would kind of do your bidding.
10:15
Speaker 1: But if you didn't keep it busy, you got into trouble.
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Speaker 1: So I think that this can be an image that
10:22
Speaker 1: has just a lot of potential psychological interpretations.
10:29
Speaker 2: It seems like the story of be careful what you
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Speaker 2: wish for, the story about a power complex, let's take
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Speaker 2: the shortcut, say the magic words, and forever having to
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Speaker 2: learn better. I was going to say I hardly dare
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Speaker 2: to do this, but of course I do. I'm wondering
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Speaker 2: about AI. Yeah, well, that's... Oh, say the magic words
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Speaker 2: and it will write my thesis for me.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think AI is definitely something I want to
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Speaker 1: talk about. But framing it up just a little bit
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Speaker 1: broadly before we're going there, all of these stories, what
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Speaker 1: they have in common is about a person arrogating kind
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Speaker 1: of divine power to himself. or themselves, you know, with
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Speaker 1: the golem and the ghetto, and how that's dangerous. So
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Speaker 1: there's something kind of Promethean about it, too. When you
11:29
Speaker 1: steal fire from the gods, when you use magic to
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Speaker 1: make something kind of in the shape of a person,
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Speaker 1: you know, which I think is a really interesting thing
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Speaker 1: about the Egyptian story is, you know, he turns the
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Speaker 1: broom or the pestle or whatever, it looks like a
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Speaker 1: person to everyone else. And so there's something about using
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Speaker 1: a trick or technology, if it were, to kind of
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Speaker 1: create life, to do labor for us, whether that's the
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Speaker 1: golem or the broom that carries the water. It is
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Speaker 1: arrogating kind of a divine power, and it's dangerous because
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Speaker 1: it could get out of control. So this, I think, actually,
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Speaker 1: this little story belongs in the very fascinating and expansive
12:18
Speaker 1: category of stories about the creation challenging the creator, shall
12:24
Speaker 1: we say? I'm thinking of Frankenstein. I'm thinking of the golem.
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Speaker 1: I'm thinking of, oh, I don't know, Terminator.
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Speaker 2: I'm thinking about the motivation around it. And it seems
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Speaker 2: that maybe a common denominator is simply the human power complex. Mm-hmm. Yep.
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Speaker 1: I like that.
12:58
Speaker 2: And in the story, the version that I had by
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Speaker 2: Gerda Muller, which is a charming children's book. You can
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Speaker 2: tell from the cover how, you know, it's really sweet.
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Speaker 2: It's a little boy who, in this version, simply wants
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Speaker 2: to get out of doing the chores. He's the sorcerer's apprentice,
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Speaker 2: and he doesn't want to have to chop the wood
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Speaker 2: and carry the water and, you know, do all those chores.
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Speaker 2: So he says the magic words and Same thing happens.
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Speaker 2: The water keeps coming and coming, and he can't stop it,
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Speaker 2: and the whole village floods. There's no real honorable purpose
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Speaker 2: except me getting my way, to put it that way.
13:46
Speaker 2: I want out of my chores. The creation of the
13:50
Speaker 2: Golem was for protection. We want safety. The jump is
13:56
Speaker 2: over to Prometheus. who at least wanted to benefit humankind
14:03
Speaker 2: and defied the gods in order to do it. But
14:07
Speaker 2: at least he had a purpose beyond his own welfare.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a good point. These stories are
14:16
Speaker 1: all related, but there is a sense of I'm doing
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Speaker 1: it because I can. You know, I have the power
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Speaker 1: to do it. And I think that that That may
14:27
Speaker 1: speak to our modern technological dilemma because it's like, well,
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Speaker 1: I can do this thing. I'm not going to stop
14:35
Speaker 1: to ask if I should. I am thinking very directly
14:39
Speaker 1: here of AI. I mean, these companies have put just
14:42
Speaker 1: an unimaginable amount of money into creating this technology. And
14:50
Speaker 1: no one has really said, should we be doing this?
14:54
Speaker 1: What are the consequences of this? And more importantly, which
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Speaker 1: I think is very relevant to the story, is we
15:01
Speaker 1: know how to start it, but we don't have any
15:05
Speaker 1: idea how to stop it.
15:09
Speaker 2: It's scary. And, you know, in all the stories, the
15:14
Speaker 2: master comes back.
15:16
Speaker 1: Right.
15:17
Speaker 2: You know, in other words, the parental figure, the wise person, and...
15:23
Speaker 2: quickly says the magic words, and things are restored to
15:27
Speaker 2: the way that they were. Although I don't know that
15:32
Speaker 2: that's the case in the story of Prometheus, and neither
15:37
Speaker 2: is it the case in the story of Frankenstein. I
15:41
Speaker 2: think Frankenstein just exits stage left and goes tromping around
15:46
Speaker 2: in the Arctic forevermore. Whereas we do have a wonderful
15:51
Speaker 2: parallel with AI and the how do you stop it.
15:57
Speaker 2: The other parallel, of course, I'm thinking about is the
16:00
Speaker 2: story of King Midas, who wants the power to turn
16:04
Speaker 2: things to gold and is granted that power. And he
16:10
Speaker 2: turns living things such as his daughter into gold. And
16:15
Speaker 2: I think in some versions, that's the way it is.
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Speaker 2: And in other versions, he's granted an act of mercy
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Speaker 2: and is able to relinquish the power.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's something in that story about greed. But
16:30
Speaker 1: I think you're really right about this being about a
16:33
Speaker 1: power complex. And again, this wish to sort of find
16:39
Speaker 1: the easy way, which is so human. I mean, I
16:43
Speaker 1: think about, for example, the mill. So when people started
16:47
Speaker 1: using water, mills that were water-powered mills to grind the weed.
16:53
Speaker 1: Marie-Louise von Franz talks about this, and it's very interesting.
16:57
Speaker 1: She said that a lot of fairy tales feature millers,
17:01
Speaker 1: partly because there was something about the miller in the town.
17:03
Speaker 1: He was the only one who didn't earn his living
17:06
Speaker 1: kind of by the sweat of his own labor. he
17:10
Speaker 1: was harnessing either the wind or the water. And there
17:13
Speaker 1: was something a little bit trickstery about that, something a
17:16
Speaker 1: little bit devilish. And that's why it's often, you know,
17:19
Speaker 1: it's the miller's daughter who has her encounter with Rumpelstiltskin.
17:24
Speaker 1: And it's the miller who sells his daughter to the
17:29
Speaker 1: devil in The Girl with No Hands. And so we've
17:34
Speaker 1: always been interested in finding that shortcut. And we've always
17:39
Speaker 1: had a little bit of healthy skepticism about that. One
17:44
Speaker 1: of the other things that you bring up that I
17:47
Speaker 1: just want to build on, Deb, is this idea that
17:50
Speaker 1: the master comes back. And in a lot of versions
17:54
Speaker 1: of the stories, including the one I just read, you know,
17:55
Speaker 1: like a master had spent, what was it, 23 years
17:58
Speaker 1: living underground, studying and learning. And the idea is that, yes,
18:03
Speaker 1: these are kind of God-like abilities. I mean, essentially, he creates...
18:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to say he creates a kind of like
18:10
Speaker 1: humanoid robot, if you'll allow me to use that language
18:14
Speaker 1: in talking about this ancient story. But that's what he does.
18:18
Speaker 1: He creates a labor-saving device that looks like a human.
18:21
Speaker 1: Does that sound familiar? But it's kind of okay because
18:27
Speaker 1: his actions are situated in a sort of sacred context.
18:31
Speaker 1: He is a holy man. He's spent all this time learning...
18:37
Speaker 1: you know, about the magic of Isis, he is sort
18:42
Speaker 1: of knows his place in the cosmos. What happens to
18:47
Speaker 1: the apprentice is the apprentice is an upstart and thinks, haha,
18:52
Speaker 1: I can do that too, without having that deep, deep
18:56
Speaker 1: grounding and sort of ethics and spirituality. And I think
19:01
Speaker 1: it also speaks very much to our modern dilemmas, because
19:06
Speaker 1: the Sam Altmans of the world have not spent 23
19:13
Speaker 1: years underground studying ritual magic at the feet of Isis.
19:18
Speaker 1: That's for sure.
19:20
Speaker 2: Well, I like that this original sorcerer spent all these
19:27
Speaker 2: years underground and that has been a motif in myth
19:33
Speaker 2: and tale forever as as a way of learning in
19:40
Speaker 2: the unconscious, learning of the unconscious.
19:44
Speaker 1: There's a reverence implied.
19:47
Speaker 2: And a real commitment to seeing darkness, encountering shadow, and
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Speaker 2: enduring that time underground. What it takes in terms of patience, receptiveness, suffering, humility.
20:09
Speaker 2: You know, as you wend your way through these dark places, labyrinths, mazes,
20:16
Speaker 2: all of those kinds of things, that it's not simply
20:20
Speaker 2: an intellectual endeavor. It's not simply about mechanics and real-world operations.
20:31
Speaker 2: So it's power that is unearned. our little upstart apprentice
20:37
Speaker 2: who says, hey, you know, I'll say the magic words.
20:40
Speaker 2: Or Dr. Frankenstein who says, yeah, I have a good idea.
20:44
Speaker 2: I think I can create, I'm going to try to
20:47
Speaker 2: create a living being. It's not grounded in the depths
20:53
Speaker 2: where wisdom and respect and especially knowing one's place, that
21:03
Speaker 2: you are human. You're not a god.
21:06
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
21:08
Speaker 2: It has to be really earned in ways that have
21:14
Speaker 2: been told forever in stories. And then here is, here's
21:18
Speaker 2: the other side. And if you don't do it that way,
21:23
Speaker 2: you too can be the sorcerer's apprentice and unleash a
21:26
Speaker 2: power that will be destructive because you were arrogant. And
21:33
Speaker 2: you thought that ego alone was all you needed.
21:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love that unearned power. I think that's
21:41
Speaker 1: just perfect. And of course, what we're talking about is
21:44
Speaker 1: psychological inflation. Exactly. And I, you know, I do love,
21:51
Speaker 1: I enjoy the Disney version, although I will have to
21:56
Speaker 1: say that my very first exposure to the story and
21:59
Speaker 1: to Dukas music, I can remember I was in the
22:02
Speaker 1: second grade and we had a film strip. So remember
22:06
Speaker 1: film strips? This was the 70s, okay? So the music
22:10
Speaker 1: would play and then someone would have to like advance
22:12
Speaker 1: the film strip. And the illustrations were so magical. I
22:17
Speaker 1: just remember they were like super color saturated and there
22:20
Speaker 1: was kind of like that like that venom green and
22:23
Speaker 1: then like purple. And I was like so captivated. And,
22:28
Speaker 1: you know, I would love to find that filmstrip again
22:31
Speaker 1: because it really was like one of those things from
22:33
Speaker 1: my childhood that really stayed with me. And then and
22:36
Speaker 1: so I have to say, like, in comparison, the Disney
22:39
Speaker 1: version is kind of a disappointment to me. But in
22:41
Speaker 1: any case, I do still love it. And And the
22:44
Speaker 1: Disney version, like it makes it really clear. Like if
22:47
Speaker 1: you watch it, like it's, you know, it's so great
22:49
Speaker 1: because it's not just one. It's not, he doesn't just
22:52
Speaker 1: chop it in half once, right? He goes after it
22:54
Speaker 1: in every single splinter. And I'm not sure if that's
22:58
Speaker 1: in the Goethe version or not. I'm not, I didn't
23:00
Speaker 1: read the Goethe version for this, but every single splinter,
23:04
Speaker 1: you know, picks up a bucket. And so pretty soon
23:07
Speaker 1: you have a whole parade of hundreds of these automatons basically,
23:13
Speaker 1: dumping water and dumping water and the whole lab gets
23:17
Speaker 1: filled with water and everything's a swirl and it's about,
23:21
Speaker 1: you know, he's about to drown and it's really an
23:25
Speaker 1: emergency and it's gotten completely out of control. So it really,
23:29
Speaker 1: it's quite dramatic. But I think it does really illustrate
23:37
Speaker 1: the way that we don't, we're not God, and we
23:41
Speaker 1: don't know what it is we're creating when we fashion
23:45
Speaker 1: something in our own likeness to do our work for us,
23:50
Speaker 1: which is essentially what AI is, right? I mean, AI
23:54
Speaker 1: is anthropomorphized. It's supposed to think, supposed to think like us.
24:00
Speaker 1: It's supposed to sound like us. It's supposed to engage
24:04
Speaker 1: like another human, which I I actually think is very dangerous,
24:07
Speaker 1: but that's what we've got. And what are the potential
24:10
Speaker 1: consequences of that?
24:12
Speaker 2: What I'm also thinking about is in the tales, whoever
24:18
Speaker 2: the arrogant, ego-driven, power complex little upstart is, learns the
24:26
Speaker 2: folly of his ways in pretty dramatic ways. It doesn't
24:33
Speaker 2: end well. And so it's a little morality play. See,
24:38
Speaker 2: you learn your lesson. Okay, I got it. I'm sorry.
24:43
Speaker 2: But what I'm more curious about, especially in the context
24:47
Speaker 2: of AI, but that's not the only context, is what
24:51
Speaker 2: is really lost if we even take it back to
24:56
Speaker 2: our sorcerer's apprentice? What has he lost by not chopping
25:03
Speaker 2: the wood and grinding the corn and doing the chores
25:07
Speaker 2: where we would say, well, there's nothing of inherent value
25:11
Speaker 2: in grinding corn or chopping wood. If you can get
25:17
Speaker 2: somebody to do that for you, go ahead, be my guest.
25:22
Speaker 2: But what has really been lost is a certain kind
25:27
Speaker 2: of humility and a kind of integrity. This is what
25:32
Speaker 2: it means to be human. In a time when fires
25:38
Speaker 2: required wood and wood needed to be chopped, that there's
25:43
Speaker 2: a diminution of reality here. As if it would be
25:48
Speaker 2: good for you, let's say it worked. Let's say it'd
25:52
Speaker 2: be good for you to be able to sit on
25:56
Speaker 2: a cushion and have a robot. Do all the household chores.
26:03
Speaker 1: It's coming. It's coming. I want one.
26:06
Speaker 2: Will it cook me dinner?
26:08
Speaker 1: Yes.
26:08
Speaker 2: I want it to cook dinner. But what gets lost
26:13
Speaker 2: when we don't do things with our hands, with our bodies,
26:20
Speaker 2: have those opportunities for... you know, whatever reflections and reveries
26:25
Speaker 2: we may have in doing it, that we lose or
26:29
Speaker 2: forfeit those kinds of grounded capabilities and necessities. What have
26:38
Speaker 2: we lost? It feels like just good labor-saving device.
26:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it certainly can be.
26:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very happy for my dishwasher and my
26:48
Speaker 1: washing machine and my other labor-saving devices. But you're absolutely right.
26:53
Speaker 1: And there's a reason. I mean, I was thinking about
26:54
Speaker 1: this a few weekends ago. I spent the entire weekend
26:58
Speaker 1: at a sourdough bread baking class. It was really, really great.
27:04
Speaker 1: And I just, you know, I'd been doing all of
27:06
Speaker 1: this reading about AI and everything, and It was just
27:10
Speaker 1: so nice to be in this place where it was
27:14
Speaker 1: actually all about being deeply connected with the ingredients. We
27:19
Speaker 1: were learning about using locally grown and milled grains. And boy,
27:25
Speaker 1: what a difference. What a totally different thing. And I,
27:29
Speaker 1: as many listeners may know, I am a sourdough baker,
27:34
Speaker 1: as cliched as that hobby is. But it is very...
27:40
Speaker 1: It is very satisfying because it's exactly the opposite of
27:44
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, right? It's like, there's no labor saving.
27:48
Speaker 1: There's no shortcut. There's no way to fabricate it. I mean, listen,
27:56
Speaker 1: part of what I really enjoy about sourdough, I mean,
27:59
Speaker 1: it's just a fun hobby, but also like the bread
28:02
Speaker 1: actually tastes amazing and you cannot replicate that. You just,
28:07
Speaker 1: it tastes so much better than, just about anything that
28:10
Speaker 1: you can buy.
28:12
Speaker 2: I'm thinking that you ought to be offering some tastes
28:17
Speaker 2: of this bread to our listeners.
28:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to do it at scale. That's
28:23
Speaker 1: another thing, right? You don't do it at scale. You
28:26
Speaker 1: make a couple of loaves a weekend and that's it,
28:29
Speaker 1: you know? People talk about friction, you know, how much
28:32
Speaker 1: friction is there in creating something and you know, the
28:37
Speaker 1: marketers and stuff want to reduce friction. They want to
28:39
Speaker 1: reduce friction when you buy something. And we all are
28:43
Speaker 1: very aware of that friction. But that the friction, in
28:48
Speaker 1: some sense, that's where the life is. And for example,
28:51
Speaker 1: in terms of the creative process, especially, you know, when
28:56
Speaker 1: I sit down to try to write something and I
28:59
Speaker 1: have something I think I want to write for just
29:03
Speaker 1: an essay that I want to write, and I'm thinking
29:06
Speaker 1: about it and I'm getting excited about it. But boy,
29:07
Speaker 1: when I tell you, when I sit down and face
29:09
Speaker 1: that blank page, it's going to be painful. Now, I
29:14
Speaker 1: could go over to chat GPT and I could say,
29:16
Speaker 1: you know, or Claude or something, I could say, here's
29:19
Speaker 1: my idea. I think it's a really good idea. I'm
29:21
Speaker 1: excited to try my hand at it. And it will
29:25
Speaker 1: frictionlessly write something for me. But I think to your point,
29:32
Speaker 1: what will I have missed? First of all, I don't
29:36
Speaker 1: trust it to actually capture the essence of what I
29:39
Speaker 1: want to communicate. And I don't think it would be
29:41
Speaker 1: as interesting as what I hope to write. But I
29:45
Speaker 1: also would have missed the process, which when you're creating something,
29:51
Speaker 1: that is so satisfying and enriching. It's not so much
29:57
Speaker 1: about the product. I mean, it is. But the process
30:02
Speaker 1: matters too, like to me. And to miss out on
30:06
Speaker 1: all of that would be, I would miss something. And
30:09
Speaker 1: then over time, I would also stop being able to
30:13
Speaker 1: do it. And then I would be impoverished.
30:17
Speaker 2: Yes. We will lose function. And I just want to
30:23
Speaker 2: grab hold of that word process that you mentioned. That
30:29
Speaker 2: We are creatures engaged in processes. Our circulatory system is
30:34
Speaker 2: a process. Our heart beating is a process. Making bread
30:39
Speaker 2: is a process. And writing an essay is a process.
30:46
Speaker 2: And guess what else is a process? Psychoanalysis. Sorry, there
30:53
Speaker 2: are no shortcuts that will have the integrity and the
31:00
Speaker 2: fulsomeness of your sourdough bread with the specially milled flours
31:07
Speaker 2: and so on and so forth. There is an authenticity
31:11
Speaker 2: to all of this and how we live that if
31:17
Speaker 2: we bypass it, we've missed it. It's not just about, kaboom,
31:24
Speaker 2: please deliver me a round of sourdough bread. And of course,
31:28
Speaker 2: I go to the grocery store and I buy bread.
31:32
Speaker 2: But we can't live all our lives like that. And
31:37
Speaker 2: I think that's something Jung knew very, very well when
31:41
Speaker 2: he went to Bolingen, which is his house about 10
31:45
Speaker 2: miles down the road. And it's all very, pretty primitive.
31:50
Speaker 2: There's running water, no electricity. The main tower where he
31:55
Speaker 2: had his kitchen is pretty primitive. And he chopped wood,
32:00
Speaker 2: and he chopped vegetables, and he cooked. And it was
32:07
Speaker 2: all a process, which he got his hands on in
32:13
Speaker 2: a very literal way. He carved a block of stone.
32:16
Speaker 2: He carved things into the stone on the side of
32:19
Speaker 2: the tower. of we are built this way and we
32:25
Speaker 2: need it. And then the corollary, of course, is when
32:29
Speaker 2: we want to do mental work, it's very much the
32:33
Speaker 2: same thing that we sit down and we face the
32:37
Speaker 2: blank page. We figure out how to solve that math problem.
32:43
Speaker 2: We need to come up against ourselves in all of
32:50
Speaker 2: the tasks that we do, whether they're physical or.
32:55
Speaker 1: Mental. You know, I actually like in the story that
32:58
Speaker 1: the master has access to this magic because it's sort
33:02
Speaker 1: of saying like, yeah, it's not anti, I'm going to
33:05
Speaker 1: just assume it's about our technological impulse, which of course
33:09
Speaker 1: is part of the archetypal substrate of being human. Like
33:13
Speaker 1: we've always, we've always made things and pretty much as
33:17
Speaker 1: long as we've been homo sapiens, we've found a way
33:20
Speaker 1: to make things easier, you know, to use stone tools,
33:25
Speaker 1: to use hides, to sharpen sticks. So this is part
33:32
Speaker 1: of our elemental nature. And the story seems to be saying, yeah,
33:36
Speaker 1: it's really okay. It's okay. But it has to be
33:42
Speaker 1: done with a certain, I'm going to call it a
33:44
Speaker 1: religious attitude, because I'm thinking about the etymology of the
33:49
Speaker 1: word religio, which is to link. So our technological impulse
33:56
Speaker 1: has to be linked to some higher value, to some
34:01
Speaker 1: awareness of our place in the cosmos. And if not,
34:06
Speaker 1: then we're the apprentice. But if we are, we're the sorcerer.
34:10
Speaker 1: And the tale seems to say like the sorcerer is
34:12
Speaker 1: happy to have this done for him at the end
34:15
Speaker 1: of the day. But he knows how to make it stop.
34:19
Speaker 1: And that's my big question. I think there's so many
34:21
Speaker 1: things in our modern culture that we do, as I
34:25
Speaker 1: said before, because we can, you know, which is kind
34:28
Speaker 1: of like, you know, Victor Frankenstein. It's like, why did
34:31
Speaker 1: he make his monster? Well, because he could. You know,
34:34
Speaker 1: that's the sense in the story. And for example, you know,
34:39
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies unleash these drugs on us that can be
34:43
Speaker 1: very helpful. But they tell us how to go on
34:47
Speaker 1: the drugs, but they don't tell us how to go off.
34:49
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of discussion now in the
34:51
Speaker 1: culture about deprescribing and about tapering off, especially psychiatric drugs.
34:56
Speaker 1: And maybe some of those opinions are, you know, controversial.
35:00
Speaker 1: But I don't think, to me, there's no controversy around
35:03
Speaker 1: the fact that part of the ethics of prescribing should
35:07
Speaker 1: also be in helping people know when and how to
35:10
Speaker 1: get off the drug. And that is not happening, by
35:14
Speaker 1: and large. Or even if you look at OxyContin, you know,
35:18
Speaker 1: it's like, let's flood the world with this and then
35:22
Speaker 1: not think about how do we help people get off?
35:26
Speaker 1: How do we make sure that we know when to stop?
35:31
Speaker 1: And I think that that is, you know, the same
35:34
Speaker 1: thing happened with social media. We got this technology, it's great,
35:39
Speaker 1: let's push it out. And we didn't think, what are
35:42
Speaker 1: the consequences? And how might we want to guard it
35:48
Speaker 1: jealously the way that the sorcerer does in this story
35:53
Speaker 1: of kind of make sure that that only falls into
35:57
Speaker 1: the right hands. And now with AI, we are racing
36:01
Speaker 1: to develop it. And there are serious people that are
36:05
Speaker 1: concerned that if, you know, superintelligence gets developed, that AI
36:13
Speaker 1: could be an extinction event for humanity. Now, I'm not
36:17
Speaker 1: going to comment one way or the other on that,
36:19
Speaker 1: but apparently it's not a zero possibility. So we're very
36:25
Speaker 1: much in the realm of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. We're going
36:27
Speaker 1: to make this incredible thing, and we don't know how
36:32
Speaker 1: to control it.
36:34
Speaker 2: So we all have to... become the sorcerer who can
36:42
Speaker 2: use things judiciously and also make it stop. And I
36:51
Speaker 2: do use as my model here, because it's just so illustrative,
36:55
Speaker 2: I am thinking about Jung, who traveled the world, lectured
37:01
Speaker 2: in all kinds of wonderful places, was revered, And also
37:06
Speaker 2: spent his time at Bowlingon where he said that he
37:10
Speaker 2: was never as much himself as when he was at
37:14
Speaker 2: Bowlingon by himself, chopping the wood and building the fires
37:20
Speaker 2: and cooking his food so that he could experience that
37:27
Speaker 2: part of himself and that way of living and in solitude.
37:34
Speaker 2: He was not always by himself at bullying him, but
37:37
Speaker 2: that was a place where he could repair to find
37:41
Speaker 2: his inner self rather than just doing all of the work, travel, lecturing, teaching,
37:51
Speaker 2: et cetera, that he did. And I'm thinking, how do we,
37:55
Speaker 2: if we want to become sorcerers... Mm-hmm. so that we
38:01
Speaker 2: are using this technology rather than having it use us.
38:07
Speaker 2: What is required? What kind of consciousness is required? And
38:11
Speaker 2: how do we achieve it so that we don't just
38:17
Speaker 2: spring into scrolling on our phone or a video game
38:23
Speaker 2: or any one of a number of other things, having...
38:28
Speaker 2: one of these capabilities, write our papers for us, what
38:33
Speaker 2: kind of consciousness and how would we know I'm really
38:38
Speaker 2: ready to use this technology? I spent my 23 years
38:44
Speaker 2: underground like the sorcerer, so now it will serve me
38:48
Speaker 2: in useful ways rather than falling into the awful mistake
38:54
Speaker 2: that the apprentice makes. It's a big, big question. And
39:00
Speaker 2: by definition, I mean, a kind of consciousness, the development
39:06
Speaker 2: of ego strength, wisdom, humility, but enough sense of self
39:13
Speaker 2: so that I don't need to lead my life out
39:17
Speaker 2: there in the middle of a video game or Netflix or,
39:23
Speaker 2: you know, any of these other things. They take us
39:27
Speaker 2: out of ourselves. and they do the work the entertainment
39:33
Speaker 2: whatever it is versus myself is in here there is
39:41
Speaker 2: an interiority where I know I am here and it is.
39:47
Speaker 1: I who's.
39:49
Speaker 2: Cooking dinner or reading a book or watching a movie
39:56
Speaker 2: that won't sweep me away the way all the flooding
40:01
Speaker 2: of water, which is such an interesting detail in all
40:05
Speaker 2: of these stories. It's all about water because that dissolves.
40:11
Speaker 2: It dissolves us. It dissolves ego. And we get flooded.
40:18
Speaker 2: We don't want that. So there's the task, is how
40:25
Speaker 2: do we become the sorcerer, the master?
40:29
Speaker 1: You know, I think some of it is recognizing that
40:34
Speaker 1: we're always going to give something up anytime we use
40:38
Speaker 1: any sort of, any technology, right? We're going to get something,
40:43
Speaker 1: but we're going to give something up. And just to
40:46
Speaker 1: be kind of aware of that, because I think that
40:49
Speaker 1: just like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, we think that we can
40:52
Speaker 1: get this benefit without any cost. So he's like, wow,
40:57
Speaker 1: this thing can carry water for me, right? But that's
41:00
Speaker 1: going to come at a cost, you know? And I'm thinking,
41:03
Speaker 1: to just take it back to AI for a second,
41:05
Speaker 1: there's the personal cost, but then there's also the environmental
41:08
Speaker 1: cost of these huge data centers. There's actual kind of
41:13
Speaker 1: monetary cost and a cost on the society and a
41:17
Speaker 1: cost on the environment. You know, apparently the ground around
41:21
Speaker 1: these data centers get, you know, the temperature gets raised
41:25
Speaker 1: for some perimeter around the data center because there's so
41:29
Speaker 1: much energy. And, you know, it's like, okay, what is
41:32
Speaker 1: this costing me? And is that a trade I want
41:36
Speaker 1: to make?
41:39
Speaker 2: I mean, I.
41:40
Speaker 1: I will, I will just, and I, you know, and
41:41
Speaker 1: we just recently covered this in an AI episode. I'll
41:44
Speaker 1: say that I've certainly see that it has its uses. I,
41:48
Speaker 1: I haven't yet been that impressed with it. It, it
41:52
Speaker 1: produces when I've fooled around with it, which is not uncommon.
41:56
Speaker 1: I mean, I, I use it pretty frequently. It's, it
41:59
Speaker 1: comes up with stuff that sounds very convincing and, and,
42:04
Speaker 1: it helped me plant my, my like window boxes last year.
42:08
Speaker 1: Cause I'm terrible at that kind of thing. I'm like, what,
42:10
Speaker 1: you know, what are the, how should I arrange the
42:12
Speaker 1: flowers in my window boxes? And it like gave me
42:14
Speaker 1: this list and I, you know, went to the store
42:18
Speaker 1: and I bought the flower and it was great. It
42:20
Speaker 1: was great. But, but when I ask it's something kind
42:24
Speaker 1: of more substantive or a little bit more in my
42:27
Speaker 1: area of specialty, um, It's a little, it's not as
42:31
Speaker 1: impressive as it looks, let's put it that way. So
42:35
Speaker 1: I think maybe to kind of bring it back to
42:38
Speaker 1: the fairy tale, it's like, well, okay, that's great. It
42:43
Speaker 1: carries the water, but I could sort of get carried
42:48
Speaker 1: away with an inflation if I imagined that it's not
42:52
Speaker 1: just a tool that I could use.
42:56
Speaker 2: So that's an interesting point of, It's a tool. So
43:01
Speaker 2: if I think about what is a tool, you know,
43:05
Speaker 2: any of those things, digging sticks, stone axes, a toaster.
43:12
Speaker 2: I am using it. I'm very clear about my toaster.
43:17
Speaker 2: It does what I want it to do, and there's
43:22
Speaker 2: no danger of kind of merging with it. And I
43:28
Speaker 2: think that's part of the story around things like the
43:32
Speaker 2: golem and the monster and Frankenstein. It takes that levels
43:40
Speaker 2: and levels and levels and levels up to a power,
43:46
Speaker 2: an autonomous power that the creator has. It's no longer
43:51
Speaker 2: a tool. It is using you just like... In the
43:57
Speaker 2: story we've been referencing, the pestle or the brooms keep
44:05
Speaker 2: bringing the water and flood everything. Maybe we need to
44:09
Speaker 2: reexamine what the relationship is. You know, if I want
44:13
Speaker 2: to just look something up, I'm still back on Google, but,
44:18
Speaker 2: you know, I'll just Google, you know, when was so-and-so
44:22
Speaker 2: born or to grab some facts quickly. But it seems
44:29
Speaker 2: to have a power of its own that purports to
44:33
Speaker 2: be a kind of knowledge. I think that's the seductive
44:39
Speaker 2: part of it is the knowledge and the power that
44:44
Speaker 2: we merge with it instead of it serving us.
44:49
Speaker 1: Well, but any tool that we use is going to
44:52
Speaker 1: affect us, right? And that's That's the tool always shapes
44:57
Speaker 1: the tool maker. But it doesn't have the same seductive
45:01
Speaker 1: quality of aliveness. That's something that's anthropomorphized. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
45:10
Speaker 1: And I think my caution is we are tool makers.
45:15
Speaker 1: Using animals, I think. I think that's just who we
45:18
Speaker 1: are as a species.
45:20
Speaker 2: My seventh grade science teacher said that. He said, man
45:24
Speaker 2: is a tool using animal. But the question is, are
45:29
Speaker 2: we using it or is it using us?
45:32
Speaker 1: And how are we shaped by our tools? How are
45:35
Speaker 1: we shaped by our technology? And what is the danger
45:40
Speaker 1: that our technology can just totally run away with us?
45:42
Speaker 1: As I think it has threatened to do now many,
45:45
Speaker 1: many times in the modern era. You know, like I said, the,
45:48
Speaker 1: you know, certainly social media and the growth of the
45:51
Speaker 1: internet has reshaped us. It's reshaped our brains. It's reshaped
45:56
Speaker 1: how we relate to one another. It's reshaped relationships. It's
45:59
Speaker 1: reshaped our attentional strategies. I mean, arguably, you could tell
46:06
Speaker 1: the same story with the development of nuclear weapons. I mean,
46:11
Speaker 1: that's another technology that's sort of like, once that's out
46:14
Speaker 1: of the box, you can't put that toothpaste back in
46:17
Speaker 1: the tube, you know? And so far, thank goodness, we
46:22
Speaker 1: seem to have done an okay job of containing it,
46:24
Speaker 1: but we're always on a knife's edge about that. So
46:27
Speaker 1: there are many, many ways where this story, I think,
46:31
Speaker 1: kind of prefigures our relationship with technologies and warns against
46:37
Speaker 1: hubris and inflation, a warning that I worry is not
46:42
Speaker 1: often heeded.
46:44
Speaker 2: I agree, and I hear that. And that is always
46:50
Speaker 2: the opposite of inflation, of course, is alienation. It's not
46:56
Speaker 2: just the air goes out of your balloon, but a
46:59
Speaker 2: depressive state where we are alienated from ourselves.
47:05
Speaker 1: From each other.
47:07
Speaker 2: So I'm going back to reiterate something I said before of,
47:12
Speaker 2: you know, what are we doing to ourselves? What are
47:17
Speaker 2: we losing that is valuable that we might have to
47:22
Speaker 2: struggle to attain? And attaining consciousness is a struggle. shadow
47:32
Speaker 2: is really, really difficult. And, you know, the core of
47:39
Speaker 2: Jung's psychology was individuation. It wasn't, let's help you feel better.
47:46
Speaker 2: It was how, what is your developmental path? What is
47:54
Speaker 2: your innate wholeness? that you were meant to be, that
47:59
Speaker 2: you came into the world with a blueprint to be
48:03
Speaker 2: a unique Lisa or Deb or anyone out there. Do
48:08
Speaker 2: you want that? Or do you want to be, you know,
48:12
Speaker 2: lost in a world of seeming ease and pleasure? We
48:19
Speaker 2: become bewitched. We become flaccid. We become emptier. And that,
48:28
Speaker 2: to me, is the real loss of here we are
48:32
Speaker 2: on the planet with some choices and possibilities to be
48:40
Speaker 2: fully alive. And is this deadening or is it truly
48:47
Speaker 2: enlivening and interesting and growthful? Somewhere, I think most of
48:56
Speaker 2: us know. you know, this is good for me or
48:59
Speaker 2: this isn't good for me. Yeah.
49:02
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the interesting thing about the story is,
49:05
Speaker 1: whether you're reading the kind of short, pithy version that
49:09
Speaker 1: I shared or you're partaking of the Disney version, is
49:15
Speaker 1: that it's potentially catastrophic. It's when technology is misused, let's say,
49:23
Speaker 1: I'm referring to it as technology. I mean, I think that,
49:25
Speaker 1: you know, unless you're the engineer, technology does, I mean,
49:29
Speaker 1: it looks like magic to me, you know? It's like
49:32
Speaker 1: I press a button and the dishwasher starts whirring and
49:35
Speaker 1: they come out clean. To me, that's magic. So that,
49:39
Speaker 1: so that, technology in the wrong hands or used with
49:42
Speaker 1: the wrong attitude or not connected to a greater sense
49:50
Speaker 1: of values can be potentially catastrophic. And, you know, I
49:59
Speaker 1: believe that it's possible that AI will be catastrophic. I
50:03
Speaker 1: can think of many different ways that it may be catastrophic.
50:06
Speaker 1: I worry about our public discourse becoming more polarized. That
50:12
Speaker 1: may not be the case with AI, but it could be.
50:14
Speaker 1: I worry about sort of what people is, you know,
50:18
Speaker 1: people talking about cognitive atrophy. I read about these scenarios,
50:22
Speaker 1: these kind of doomsday scenarios where AI is going to
50:27
Speaker 1: take us all over and potentially annihilate us because why
50:31
Speaker 1: would you keep us around? I mean, you know, that
50:33
Speaker 1: seems like a pretty obvious First step, if you want
50:37
Speaker 1: to make the world a better place, is just wipe
50:39
Speaker 1: us all out. So, yeah, it could be catastrophic. And
50:45
Speaker 1: where is, as you said, Deb, where's the humility? Where
50:50
Speaker 1: is the humility as we engage with this? Oh, I'm
50:54
Speaker 1: really worried about its impact in education. I mean, I've
50:58
Speaker 1: been reading all of these articles and kind of the
51:00
Speaker 1: mainstream press about how kids are just like cheating their
51:03
Speaker 1: way through college and it's effectively like overturned, you know,
51:06
Speaker 1: centuries of academic discipline about, you know, how students learn.
51:10
Speaker 1: And that that that frightens me because, you know, not
51:13
Speaker 1: being able to kind of read and think and it's not.
51:17
Speaker 1: you know, using a calculator for math is not the
51:21
Speaker 1: same thing as using an AI to write. They're very,
51:23
Speaker 1: very different. And by the way, like, I'm sure that
51:26
Speaker 1: we lost something when we use calculators. I mean, don't
51:29
Speaker 1: ask me to multiply two two-digit numbers in my head.
51:32
Speaker 1: I'll be here all day. Maybe that's an okay trade-off,
51:35
Speaker 1: you know, but I wouldn't want to lose access to
51:38
Speaker 1: my ability to kind of filter ideas and thoughts and
51:42
Speaker 1: evaluate and evaluate them that would be a much more
51:47
Speaker 1: dangerous trade-off and I worry that's what we're doing. So,
51:50
Speaker 1: so yeah, I, I, I, when I'm, you know, falling
51:54
Speaker 1: down my, my rabbit hole, my occasional AI doomer rabbit hole,
51:59
Speaker 1: I do, I do think about this story and I,
52:02
Speaker 1: I do wonder, are we, are we in our arrogance,
52:06
Speaker 1: hubris and inflation rushing headlong into something that could be
52:11
Speaker 1: catastrophic and, You know, yeah, I hope the sorcerer comes
52:17
Speaker 1: back and puts everything right. Yeah.
52:19
Speaker 2: My way of thinking about it in a pretty simple
52:25
Speaker 2: way is what's out there and what's in here. ChatGPT
52:31
Speaker 2: and Claude and all the rest of them are out there.
52:36
Speaker 2: And I can ask what is ever out there to
52:40
Speaker 2: please write my essay or tell me how to go
52:44
Speaker 2: about a kitchen renovation or plant a garden. And what
52:50
Speaker 2: have I missed if everything I do is out there
52:55
Speaker 2: as if it's about just a result and a product
53:00
Speaker 2: and I'm living my life out there? getting things done,
53:05
Speaker 2: checking off the boxes, and I'm sort of just sitting
53:10
Speaker 2: in front of my laptop, letting it decide and tell me,
53:17
Speaker 2: advise me, inform me, versus what's in here that's worth
53:24
Speaker 2: struggling with to plant that garden. Or do a home
53:33
Speaker 2: renovation project.
53:36
Speaker 1: I'm still going to use chat GPT for my window
53:38
Speaker 1: boxes this year. I'm just going to tell you.
53:39
Speaker 2: And I hear I was trying to talk you out
53:44
Speaker 2: of it. But we need to develop ourselves, our self
53:52
Speaker 2: with a small S and the connection to the self
53:56
Speaker 2: with a big S. And we're in danger of losing
54:03
Speaker 2: our centers, ourselves. That's, to me, the danger that we
54:16
Speaker 2: become automatons ourselves, you know, versus baking sourdough bread, planting
54:26
Speaker 2: a garden. struggling with a project because it's developing my
54:35
Speaker 2: own wheels and cogs and so on, whatever, all of
54:40
Speaker 2: that that's inside. These are all ways in which I
54:45
Speaker 2: can grow, you can grow, we all grow. There are
54:50
Speaker 2: no shortcuts.
54:52
Speaker 1: Well, there are shortcuts, but they come with a cost.
54:55
Speaker 2: Well, there are shortcuts, but I wonder if How many
54:59
Speaker 2: of them are really worth it? And to take your
55:02
Speaker 2: facetious example, I mean, you know, sure, some good ideas
55:05
Speaker 2: for planting window boxes. Oh, I never thought of putting
55:08
Speaker 2: that in there. I'll try it. But to have these
55:13
Speaker 2: things entertain us, learn for us. And then I got
55:20
Speaker 2: a good grade in my marketing class. And that was
55:24
Speaker 2: the whole point, was to get a good grade. Of
55:27
Speaker 2: course it was not the point. The point was for
55:30
Speaker 2: that person to be able to grow him or herself.
55:34
Speaker 2: It goes in here. It's not something deposited on a
55:41
Speaker 2: scorecard somewhere.
55:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're changed in some way.
55:47
Speaker 2: We can lose our lives in myriad ways.
55:53
Speaker 1: I want to just take a little bit of a
55:55
Speaker 1: pivot to talk about another aspect of the story that
55:59
Speaker 1: we've already touched on, but I just want to really
56:01
Speaker 1: lift it up. The interesting thing to me about the
56:04
Speaker 1: original Greek-Egyptian story is that the broomstick winds up looking
56:12
Speaker 1: like a person and that dressing it to look like
56:15
Speaker 1: a person is an essential part of the spell. So
56:19
Speaker 1: this seems to be also common in commenting on this,
56:24
Speaker 1: I think this kind of like enormous kind of existential
56:28
Speaker 1: dilemma about what happens when we arrogate the role of
56:34
Speaker 1: creator to ourselves. And again, I mean, like I said,
56:38
Speaker 1: we mentioned it briefly before, but so we have this
56:40
Speaker 1: story and we have the golem and there's, there's Talos,
56:45
Speaker 1: the Greek, the Greek myth of Talos and but there's
56:50
Speaker 1: a bunch of sci-fi stories about where we create humanoid
56:54
Speaker 1: beings like, again, Terminator, and then these modern science fiction stories.
57:02
Speaker 1: And it would be interesting to sort of do a
57:04
Speaker 1: whole episode on that motif. But this is clearly in
57:08
Speaker 1: that camp. And I find it so fascinating because I
57:12
Speaker 1: think we as humans have this eternal desire to to
57:18
Speaker 1: be godlike in the way that we would create our own,
57:21
Speaker 1: you know, we would create sort of in our image
57:25
Speaker 1: the same way that God supposedly created us in his image.
57:29
Speaker 1: So we make a humanoid robot, we make, we turn
57:34
Speaker 1: broomstick into something that looks for all intents and purposes
57:38
Speaker 1: like another person. And what is that human desire to
57:43
Speaker 1: sort of become godlike in that particular way? And then
57:47
Speaker 1: What is our relationship, even I want to say ethically,
57:52
Speaker 1: with our creations? The sorcerer in this story is very clear.
57:58
Speaker 1: He gets the water, he turns it right back into
58:02
Speaker 1: a stick of wood. There's none of this, well, you know,
58:06
Speaker 1: now it's a very attractive stick of wood and I'm
58:09
Speaker 1: going to keep it hanging around and maybe it'll become
58:11
Speaker 1: my companion. No, it just does this very instrumental task.
58:17
Speaker 1: But Of course, another one I didn't just re-mention is Frankenstein.
58:21
Speaker 1: But so many of these stories contain this element of
58:26
Speaker 1: the creation becoming autonomous and then making an ethical demand
58:34
Speaker 1: on the creator, as with Frankenstein, of course, and many
58:39
Speaker 1: of these others.
58:41
Speaker 2: That may be a real inflection point is, when we
58:46
Speaker 2: anthropomorphize these powers. And in the story by Gerda Muller,
58:56
Speaker 2: the broomsticks take on, go from just being broomsticks to
59:02
Speaker 2: having arms and legs and hair. Mm-hmm.
59:05
Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting.
59:06
Speaker 2: They are turned into little stick people so that, you know,
59:13
Speaker 2: we don't anthropomorphize our toasters or our dishwashers.
59:19
Speaker 1: But there's a.
59:20
Speaker 2: Quality of a line that gets crossed somewhere with Frankenstein and,
59:25
Speaker 2: you know, all of these other things we've been talking
59:28
Speaker 2: about that all of a sudden they take on a reality,
59:32
Speaker 2: a separateness, and we relate to them differently.
59:38
Speaker 1: And it seems to me like it's a commentary on
59:41
Speaker 1: our relationship with God, right? With Nan's relationship with the
59:46
Speaker 1: divine or humanity's relationship with the divine, what is the
59:51
Speaker 1: relationship between the creator and the creation? It's an enormous question.
59:58
Speaker 2: And that what we create, what is created, will have autonomy.
1:00:04
Speaker 2: It will have a life.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: Of its own.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about what's the difference between a doll,
1:00:14
Speaker 2: Or a teddy bear, which children have had for millennia,
1:00:20
Speaker 2: and they cuddle them and talk to them, and they
1:00:23
Speaker 2: have a relationship and invest that doll or bear, whatever
1:00:31
Speaker 2: it is, with its own personality. And yet, there's a
1:00:38
Speaker 2: safety there.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: Because the doll doesn't talk back to you. Right.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: Versus the brooms or the pestles that all of a
1:00:48
Speaker 2: sudden get dressed up or have arms and legs and
1:00:52
Speaker 2: then have their own autonomy. The golem took on its
1:00:58
Speaker 2: own wishes and desires. So did the monster and Frankenstein.
1:01:05
Speaker 2: It's something that we really need to be conscious of
1:01:08
Speaker 2: and consciousness Consciousness is a really hard one. These things
1:01:14
Speaker 2: will have their own power, and we are really prideful
1:01:21
Speaker 2: if we think they are ours. And maybe the analogy
1:01:27
Speaker 2: to mankind and the Creator is much the same. We
1:01:31
Speaker 2: have our own powers. We have our autonomy that religions
1:01:36
Speaker 2: and philosophers have been talking about forever. our faulty, quirky,
1:01:42
Speaker 2: shadowy natures that do all kinds of things that we
1:01:50
Speaker 2: certainly wish we didn't do.
1:01:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, the idea of creating something in
1:01:57
Speaker 1: our own image is an archetypal idea, right? We mentioned
1:02:01
Speaker 1: this Greek myth of Talos and the golem and all
1:02:04
Speaker 1: these iterations. And of course, I'm thinking about in, I
1:02:08
Speaker 1: guess it was, I think it was in the 1800s,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: people became fascinated with these automata. And they're, you know,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: they say they were initially made by clockmakers. And there
1:02:21
Speaker 1: were these little figures that could move. There's one here
1:02:24
Speaker 1: at the museum in Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute. That's incredible.
1:02:29
Speaker 1: They take it out, I think, like once a year,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: and I've seen it. And you put this disc in it,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: and it's like, essentially, it's like a rudimentary computer program.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: It's a little disc with notches in it the same
1:02:40
Speaker 1: way a music box is. And this man, this little
1:02:44
Speaker 1: automaton at the desk has this pen and he draws
1:02:47
Speaker 1: this elaborate drawing of a boat. And I think you
1:02:52
Speaker 1: can switch out these plates and he'll draw different things.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: And this automata, automaton, was the inspiration for the book,
1:03:01
Speaker 1: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, if anyone remembers that. And
1:03:05
Speaker 1: These were kind of all the rage because it's just
1:03:08
Speaker 1: so fascinating to see something mechanical take on human-like properties.
1:03:15
Speaker 1: So this has been an ancient dream, but we've never
1:03:21
Speaker 1: really been close to doing it before. And now we are.
1:03:26
Speaker 1: And what I will say is that all the stories
1:03:29
Speaker 1: about it, including this one, are cautionary tales. Mm-hmm. It
1:03:35
Speaker 1: doesn't go well in the end. I think that.
1:03:40
Speaker 2: Is actually the bottom line. They are cautionary tales like
1:03:48
Speaker 2: warnings in dreams. They come from the depths. It's ancient wisdom.
1:03:57
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