God, Human, Animal, Machine
Book Author: Meghan O’Gieblyn
Meghan O’Gieblyn’s God, Human, Animal, Machine is a Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole-like exploration of humanity’s evolving relationship with the philosophy and definition of self, and subsequently - intelligence. Both biological and non-biological, or the current buzzword: artificial intelligence. Her writing style is as distinct as it gets, which can be credited to her background: home-schooled evangelic who attended a famous bible college, now secular.
Through a series of incisive reflections, Meghan takes a novel approach on connecting our old civilisations and their religious longings for transcendence, to new found expressions in today’s technologically centered societies. Drawing heavily on European philosophers and Enlightenment thought, she connects the mechanistic worldview of self, by Descartes, the rationalism of Kant, and the futuristic visions of Kurzweil and Turing to explore how we define almost everything (including ourselves) in an age of artificial intelligence.
The book’s strength lies in its ability to articulate the connections between what we would count as scientific ideas, with their metaphysical foundations. By backtracking modern technologies’ inspiration to their roots in human aspiration—our desire to transcend mortality, mimic divinity, and master nature. An example of this is how we constantly move the goal posts with AI–when chess first popularised in the western world, philosophers and humanists called it an intrinsically human game. It requires creativity and an ability to think. This is the difference between humans and animals! But when DeepBlue beat Gary Kasparov, it quickly was shrugged off as a game with all outcomes “known”. The lack of unknown, made it perfect for AI to compute–not think but compute. The goal posts were moved. Juxtaposing this with “God created humans in his wake”, which is a human interpretation, and so God couldn’t have created something that would lose to a computer. Her writing is simultaneously thoughtprovoking but also very vulnerable and personal.
That deeply personal touch is what makes God, Human, Animal, Machine particularly readable, it lets you grapple with complex ideas without feeling alienated. This is where Meghan’s brilliance shines, she embraces her religious foundation as a lens to view today’s artificial intelligence (loosely use this term for current buzz) injected society. This refusal to dismiss at her evangelical past and instead embracing, gives a very refreshing view on current mainstream western society. Her lived experience infuses the book with an emotional resonance, particularly as she questions whether the mechanistic frameworks she now embraces truly capture the full complexity of human existence.
Although the author briefly touches on a more global view of her theme, she heavily focuses on the intellectual traditions of the West, leaving a gap where other philosophical and religious teachings could have added even more nuance. For instance, her interrogation of mind-body dualism focuses almost exclusively on Cartesian frameworks, overlooking significant contributions from figures like Avicenna (Ibn Sina), whose Floating Man thought experiment predates Descartes’ Cogito and offers a similarly profound meditation on self-awareness.
This critique does not take away from the book’s accomplishments, but rather just shows how massive of an undertaking the author took. Meghan’s ending is equally nuanced as the head and the body of her book; she doesn’t conclude with a solution, instead presenting technology as a mirror that reflects both the best and worst of humanity.
Would I recommend this book?
Meghan’s work is a timely reminder of the need for thoughtful and uncomfortable thought experiments with ourselves in our societies at large. Technological progress has been an unlock for humanity from what we, today, perceive as wealth but is it in parallel dehumanizing humanity? Unlike authors who previously tackled this space, Meghan approaches this with a vulnerability and a unique evolutionary intellectual perspective which is fun to read! It is as we say in Fresco nuanced. And now more than ever nuance is important.
