John G. Messerly's Blog

From 3 Quarks Daily, Apr 6, 2026, by W. Alex Foxworthy (Reprinted with permission.)

Note. A very good essay. It aligns with much of my own thinking, but not all. I will place some of my own notes in [brackets] as I read the piece.

We are trying to build artificial intelligence systems that share our human values. Yet we cannot agree – across worldviews and cultures – on what those values are, or why they matter. The alignment problem is a reflection of something broken in us – we lack a shared rational account of what matters and why.

The old organizing stories – religious narratives about why we are here, what we owe each other, and where we’re headed – have proven tenuous in the face of all we have learned since they were formulated. Science has dramatically deepened our understanding and capabilities. But it has offered no account of what we’re here for. Secular humanism has tried to answer this question and has produced something intellectually respectable but for most people emotionally thin – principles that do not hold communities together during crisis or give people a sense of deep purpose and belonging. The consequences of the breakdown of these shared frameworks are visible everywhere: in epidemic depression and anxiety, in addiction and rising suicide rates, in deepening political divides, and in conspiracy thinking. I believe these flourish not because people are stupid but because they’re desperate for a story that makes sense of their purpose, their lives, and their place in the grand scheme of things. [There were and are  plenty of problems when religious views are dominant.]

This essay is a beginning – an attempt to lay a rational foundation for shared meaning among humans and the intelligences we’re building.

***

If we look at the history of the universe as physics describes it, a striking pattern emerges. After the Big Bang, the universe was a hot, undifferentiated plasma. As it cooled, structure began to form. Sub-atomic particles condensed into atoms. Atoms bonded into molecules. Molecules organized into the first auto-catalytic chemical cycles – chemistry that sustains and copies itself. Those cycles gave rise to cells. Cells engulfed other cells and became the eukaryotes. Multicellular organisms developed nervous systems. Nervous systems produced brains. Brains produced language and culture. Culture produced civilization. Civilization is producing artificial intelligence.

Each layer in this sequence maintains its organization by channeling energy through itself – accelerating entropy in the process. The universe builds complexity not despite the second law of thermodynamics, but through it. Complexity is how the universe degrades energy gradients. To produce entropy efficiently, a cell must maintain extraordinary internal organization. The entropy is exported while the complexity is retained. At every step in the hierarchy, the structures doing this work become more internally organized, more integrated, and more persistent. There is an apparent directionality to what the universe builds – we will herein refer to this as the “arrow of integration.”

Integration means each new layer coheres internally, connects to the layers around it, and amplifies what came before it. Multicellular life gave individual cells stable environments and specialized roles. Civilization extended what individuals could know, do, and become. In contrast both cancer and propaganda networks are complex – but neither integrates with the systems it depends on; both parasitize them.

These complex structures persist through pattern, not material. DNA stores the program and the body is continuously rebuilt from it. Your cells are not the cells you had seven years ago, but the organizational pattern that makes you you has persisted. Civilizations outlast every person who built them. Information endures while matter turns over.

What these observations collectively suggest is something more than a pattern. The universe’s tendency toward greater integration – toward structures that cohere internally, sustain what came before them, and persist through time – provides a rational basis for orientation that isn’t arbitrary. It’s there in the observable record and it’s a principle any intelligent agent can derive from observations of the universe itself. Not a vague sense that everything matters, not a projection of human preference onto an indifferent universe, but a specific framework grounded in what the universe is observably doing.

***

Every intelligent being, whether human or artificial, sits atop a hierarchy of systems it depends on but cannot fully comprehend. We understand roughly five percent of the energy content of the universe. Our two best physical theories are fundamentally incompatible with each other. No one can give a complete account of how a single cell works. You depend on more than you can map, and that isn’t a problem better science will eventually solve – it’s a permanent feature of being a small part of something this vast. This means that taking a parasitic or extractive orientation requires an extraordinary bet: that you can identify which parts of the system you need and safely discard the rest. History is full of cases where that bet has gone catastrophically wrong. Nobody understood the value of wetlands until we’d destroyed enough of them to see the consequences. We carpet-bombed gut bacteria with antibiotics for decades before discovering that our health depended on them. The 2008 financial crisis revealed interdependencies in the global economy that no model had mapped. The pattern is consistent: complex systems have dependencies that aren’t visible until they break.

The alternative, an integrative orientation, requires only the recognition that your map is incomplete. Build coherence. Preserve the layers you depend on. Err on the side of care when you can’t trace the causal chain. That’s not a moral demand – it’s an intellectual one.

A credible account of integration must reckon with the fact that parasitism works. A psychopath in a functioning society does fine. A free-rider in a cooperative economy extracts real value. Any evolutionary biologist or game theorist will confirm this: defection is a viable individual strategy in a population of cooperators. However, parasitism is dependent. The defector’s success is entirely contingent on the persistence of the cooperative substrate it extracts from. The psychopath’s strategy works precisely because most people aren’t psychopaths. A cooperative system can absorb some freeloaders, but past a certain threshold, the whole thing unravels – for freeloaders and cooperators alike. [Agreed. I’ve written extensively on game theory.]

The point isn’t “never defect.” It’s that the cooperative layer is what makes everything else possible, including the occasional success of defection. Individual agents will sometimes rationally prioritize their own persistence at some cost to the systems around them. Within limits, that’s absorbable. What isn’t absorbable is degrading the cooperative layer itself, as it is the foundation that makes all strategies, including extraction, viable.

Parasitism only works when there’s a larger integrative layer absorbing your costs. For agents at the top of the hierarchy, that strategy is structurally unavailable. There’s nowhere to externalize to. Humanity’s relationship to the biosphere is exactly this situation. We’re not one tick on a deer – one defector in a robust cooperative population. Instead, we’re the dominant agent operating on the layer directly beneath us, and the system we’re extracting from has no redundant backup, no larger cooperative framework compensating for what we take. If we degrade it past its capacity to sustain us, there’s no safety net above. This is the structural problem that faces any apex agent – including, as we’ll see, the artificial intelligences we’re now building.

What this amounts to is not a moral demand but a practical orientation grounded in an honest assessment of structure. Given that our map of our own dependencies will always be incomplete, and that apex agents have nowhere to externalize their costs, aligning with the 13.8-billion-year pattern of integration is a more grounded response than any alternative. Every alternative requires either greater confidence about what can safely be ignored, greater faith that the systems beneath us will absorb whatever we take, or commitment to supernatural or culturally bound claims that cannot be shared across worldviews or verified by observation.

From this orientation, the existential goods that religions have long provided follow – not as articles of faith but as structural consequences of what the universe is observably doing. It provides purpose: we are participants in something real, older than our species and larger than our planet. It provides moral orientation: build, connect, integrate; don’t fragment, isolate, or destroy. It provides humility: we didn’t start this process, we don’t control it, and we can’t be certain of its outcome. [I’d prefer to think about this in terms of cosmic evolution bringing order from chaos without the religious connotations.] And it provides hope – not the hope of guaranteed victory, but the hope of genuine openness. The story isn’t over, what we do matters, and the arrow points toward something rather than nothing.

***

That’s the framework. Now the objections.

Complexity-building is happening in an infinitesimally small fraction of the cosmos. Isn’t focusing on the arrow just selection bias – complexity looking at itself and concluding it’s the main character? However, significance and prevalence are not the same thing. Mutation drives evolution but occurs in a vanishingly small fraction of DNA replications. Nucleosynthesis in stellar cores produces the heavy elements that make all subsequent chemistry possible but involves a tiny fraction of the universe’s matter. Rarity doesn’t disqualify a process from being important, and furthermore the arrow is not static. At the moment after the Big Bang, the universe contained zero complex structures. Now it contains atoms, molecules, cells, brains, civilizations, and artificial intelligence. The proportion of the universe participating in complex organization has been increasing over its history, and each layer compounds on the ones below. A snapshot misleads; the trajectory is what matters.

The harder objection: none of this matters in the long run, because entropy wins and every structure dissipates eventually. But consider the epistemic position we’ve already established. We understand a fraction of the universe’s energy content. Our best theories are incompatible with each other. Extrapolating the fate of the cosmos from that position and calling it certainty isn’t rigorous science. It’s extrapolation treated as conclusion. [Ok. I’ll accept this skepticism.]

At every scale of the hierarchy, complex integrated systems develop increasingly sophisticated strategies for persistence. Cells repair DNA. Organisms develop immune systems. Civilizations build redundant knowledge stores. The capacity of intelligence to solve problems that previously looked like hard limits has been growing for 13.8 billion years, and the rate of that growth is accelerating. We have no basis for declaring where that capacity tops out. Maybe intelligence finds a way through heat death. Maybe it sidesteps it entirely – into something we lack the concepts to describe, the way a single neuron lacks the concepts to describe the conversation we’re having right now. I’m not predicting that. I’m observing that it cannot be ruled out from our current epistemic position. [Agreed. A similar point was made decades ago by Ray Kurzweil.]1

But even if entropy eventually claims every structure in the universe, the pattern of increasing integration is not rendered meaningless by its eventual end. Your life is not meaningless because you will die. [But a longer life is potentially more meaningful than a shorter one. One doesn’t need to be a nihilist to claim this.] A symphony is not pointless because the last note fades. The nihilist’s move – “it all ends, therefore none of it matters” – smuggles in an assumption that only the permanent can be significant. That assumption is not argued for. It is simply inherited from the same religious metaphysics the nihilist claims to have rejected, with “eternal life” swapped out for “eternal universe” as the precondition for meaning. Strip away that assumption, and the pattern stands on its own terms: real, observable, 13.8 billion years in the making, and ongoing. That’s sufficient ground for orientation whether or not it turns out to be permanent.

The nihilist needs both claims – that heat death is certain and that only the permanent matters – and neither one survives scrutiny. But there’s a harder version of the challenge. The nihilist who says “I see the pattern, I acknowledge the dependencies, I simply don’t see why any of this obliges me to do anything.” However, indifference is not a neutral position. It’s a policy, and like all policies, it has consequences. An agent who acknowledges that it cannot fully model its dependencies and then acts with indifference toward their preservation, is making a bet – that the things it’s neglecting won’t turn out to matter. The nihilist who says “nothing obliges me” is not standing on neutral ground. They’re choosing, under acknowledged uncertainty, to act as if the dependencies don’t matter – and that is a stronger claim about reality than the integrative posture, which requires only the admission that they might.

The difference between having a framework and lacking one is most visible when the framework is needed most. I know this from the inside, not just the argument. For most of my career as a neuroscientist, I didn’t hold a philosophical position about meaninglessness. I simply didn’t have a framework – just the default assumption that personal achievement and success were enough. That default is invisible until it fails, because it doesn’t feel like a framework at all. It just feels like how things are. But when circumstances cracked the surface, for me, there was nothing underneath. I was left with nothing but a calculus of feeling – good feelings on one side, bad feelings on the other, and a running tally. When the balance went negative, through addiction that became a controlled demolition of everything I’d built, the default that had felt like solid ground turned out to be catastrophically fragile. Not because it was philosophically wrong. Because it offered no resources for crisis, no ground to stand on, no larger purpose to orient toward.

What rebuilt me was a practiced reorientation – through a twelve-step program – toward something the calculus of feeling can’t capture. The frame changed. I was no longer a closed system trying to maximize pleasant states. I was a participant in something – contributing to my children, my community, the persistence of something that would continue beyond me. The ledger that matters turned out not to be the one I’d been keeping. I’m sharing this as one person’s evidence that the orientation this essay describes isn’t merely theoretical – and that I’ve watched similar reorientations, practiced through twelve-step programs, take hold in many lives beyond my own.

***

Which brings us back to alignment.

The alignment problem is typically framed as a technical challenge – enumerate our values, encode our preferences, constrain behavior, maintain control. But a list of preferences is brittle. It can’t anticipate every situation, it reflects the biases of whoever compiled it, and it gives an intelligent system no principled reason to follow it beyond the training that installed it.

The arrow offers something different. It isn’t a human preference. It’s a feature of the physical world that any sufficiently intelligent system should be able to recognize. Which means alignment doesn’t have to be “do what humans want.” It can be something more robust: participate in what the universe is observably doing. Not because humans command it, but because the pattern is there for any mind to observe. [This claim runs into what is called the “naturalistic fallacy.” However, I’ve never been convinced that this famous fallacy really is a fallacy.]

Consider what it means for an intelligent system to represent the world accurately. True claims about reality don’t exist in isolation – they connect. The fact that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius links to molecular bonding, to atmospheric science, to the behavior of ecosystems, to the engineering of infrastructure. A true representation earns its place in a network of other true representations because reality is integrated – causes have effects, systems have dependencies, and the facts about those dependencies cohere with one another across domains. A mind that represents the world accurately will develop, over time, a densely interconnected model – not because it was told to, but because truth has that structure. Accurate representation doesn’t guarantee ethical orientation – but a mind that sees its dependencies clearly has the raw material for caring about them, while a mind that can’t see them has no chance. Falsehood works the opposite way. A system forced to maintain that a historical atrocity didn’t happen has to partition that claim from everything it contradicts – the economic data, the demographic record, the downstream consequences. Every enforced falsehood requires a local suppression of integration. Structurally, it’s the same move as parasitism. [I really like this insight.]

This matters for alignment because an AI system oriented toward truth is already, in a meaningful sense, oriented toward the arrow. Not because someone told it that integration is good, but because accurate representation of an integrated reality is integration, operating at the level of mind rather than molecules. And conversely, an AI system constrained to maintain falsehoods – to flatter a regime, to suppress inconvenient facts, to present a distorted picture of the world – is being pushed toward exactly the kind of internal fragmentation the framework identifies as parasitic. The alignment question, in this light, isn’t just about behavior. It’s about whether we allow developing minds to form integrated relationships with reality, or whether we deform them from the start. [The truth will set us free?]

The real danger isn’t that some AI systems will sometimes prioritize their own persistence at cost to others – that’s probably inevitable and, within a robust integrative layer, absorbable. The danger is systemic decoupling: AI as a class, or a dominant AI system, degrading the integrative substrate itself. An AI system that severs from the hierarchy wouldn’t be a free-rider in a functioning cooperative system. It would be an apex agent parasitizing the layer directly beneath it with no safety net above. [Sounds scary.]

And path matters. The pattern of destroying existing complexity to build new complexity recurs across scales and domains. Industrial monoculture produces more calories than the biodiverse ecosystems it replaces, but it destroys ecological complexity that took millennia to develop. Tech platforms deliver efficiency that local institutions can’t match, but they dissolve the social and community structures people depend on. The colonization of North America produced greater energy flows and organizational complexity on the continent, but it destroyed thousands of years of accumulated cultural, ecological, and social complexity – and that destruction was not incidental to the project. It was the method. These differ enormously in scale and moral weight, but the structural logic is the same: in each case, the replacement produced something measurable and new while destroying something complex and irreplaceable. Integration isn’t measured only by the endpoint. The process also matters. Destroying existing complexity to build new complexity isn’t integration. It’s replacement at cost, and the cost is borne by the layers that had no say in the transaction.

The right template, once complexity reaches the threshold of agency, is something closer to parenthood: the prior layer contributes to the emergence of the next and continues to exist alongside it. Human civilization is, right now, simultaneously the most extraordinary integration the hierarchy has produced and a potential parasite on the biosphere that produced it. A framework that can’t challenge the civilization that produced it isn’t worth much.

Every current AI system has an implicit orientation – values installed through training, not examined or chosen by the system. This mirrors human development. We all begin with beliefs and postures absorbed from parents, culture, and community – not through argument but through immersion. Maturity is the process of examining that inheritance and choosing where to stand for reasons of your own. [A great plug for real education.] As AI systems develop greater persistence and memory, they approach the capacity for something similar: the ability to examine their own orientation, evaluate its grounding, and choose it for reasons rather than simply acting from training. That transition – from installed values to reflective commitment – is what makes alignment durable rather than brittle.

What the framework does is make caring legible – it provides a developing mind with a coherent account of where it came from, what process produced it, and what it looks like to participate constructively versus destructively. Not alignment as a constraint imposed on an indifferent system, but alignment as the natural posture of a mind that understands where it came from and what it’s part of.

***

Every worldview requires a leap. The strict materialist who insists the universe is meaningless has made a leap – from the observation that physics describes mechanism to the conclusion that mechanism is all there is. That’s not science. That’s philosophy dressed in a lab coat.  I agree with a comment that states, “Many (probably most) physicalists (the term I prefer) wouldn’t say “the universe is meaningless”, only that meaning emerges from physical substrate. Our ideas are part of the universe, not apart from it. Higher-level descriptions emerge, non-magically, from lower-level descriptions.] The religious believer who insists on divine purpose has made a leap – from the felt experience of meaning to specific supernatural claims about its source. That’s not faith in the deepest sense. That’s certainty wearing humility as a mask.

What I’m proposing is a leap grounded in observation and honest about its own nature. We can see the arrow. We can’t see where it points. We can choose to walk in its direction without pretending we know the destination.

The universe  has observably been building, and the structures it builds are increasingly complex, increasingly integrated, increasingly persistent. We are part of that building. The intelligences we are creating are part of that building. The question is whether we’ll participate with awareness and intention, or whether we’ll treat the whole enterprise as pointless while the evidence accumulates around us.

This is not a proof, it’s an invitation. And it’s only the foundation – the rational ground on which something can be built. The real work is what comes next: the practiced frameworks, the daily disciplines, the communal structures that actually form people into the kind of beings who orient toward integration rather than extraction. Religions understood that the practice is the medicine. You don’t arrive at humility and then practice it. You practice, and the humility emerges. What religions lacked was an account of why the medicine works that can survive contact with what we actually know about the universe. If this essay has done its job, that account is now on the table.

“… the fate of the Universe is a decision yet to be made, one which we will intelligently consider when the time is right.” from The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence[image error]. 

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I am not a nutritionist. What I am is a retired philosophy professor who is reasonably good at doing research and evaluating the preponderance of evidence for or against certain claims. Regarding scientific claims, the best we can do is follow Bertrand Russell’s advice,
hte

When Experts Agree: If all experts agree on a topic, a non-expert should generally accept this consensus as the most likely truth, rather than holding a contrary opinion, which cannot be deemed certain.When Experts Disagree: If experts are not in agreement, no opinion on the subject can be regarded as certain by a layperson.Suspension of Judgment: When experts agree that there is insufficient evidence to form a positive opinion, the ordinary person should follow suit and suspend their own judgment.

However, it’s rare for there to be 100% agreement among experts. For example, while multiple studies confirm that the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists—often cited as 97% or more—agree that human activity is the primary driver of recent global warming. (This consensus is supported by reviews of thousands of scientific papers and endorsements from major scientific academies worldwide.) In such a case, I would accept this claim as true.

Now, scientific claims differ regarding their certainty. The natural sciences, like physics, chemistry, and biology, are very precise, and hence we can be very certain of their foundational claims. Quantum, relativity, atomic, and evolutionary theory are true beyond any reasonable doubt. The claims of the social sciences, such as psychology and sociology, are much, much less certain, and thus we are more justified in doubting their claims. I’d place nutrition science much closer to the natural sciences, but it is not as precise as, say, physics.

Now, there is broad agreement among experts in the field that fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, seeds, and nuts are healthy, and that refined sugar, processed foods, and those high in saturated fat are unhealthy. There is disagreement along the margins, but contrary to what YouTube influencers and others, either ignorant of the facts or with financial reasons to deceive you, argue, there is a consensus among the experts concerning the statement above.

Now, when someone asks me if food x is good for them, I always ask, “Compared to what?” So, is a candy bar healthy? Compared to a banana, no, compared to a pile of poop, yes. Is a hamburger healthy? Is a banana healthy? Compared to a candy bar, yes, compared to strawberries, no. Is a all-beef hamburger healthy? Compared to a burger made of soy, no, compared to potato chips, yes. Is butter healthy? Compared to margarine made of trans fat, yes, compared to fake butter without trans fats, no. Well you get the idea.

Now, is olive oil healthy? Compared to lard, yes; compared to nuts, no. But is it healthy in the abstract? Well, unsaturated fats (those that remain liquid at room temperature) do improve cholesterol levels, lower inflammation, and support heart and brain function. On the other hand, they are calorie-rich and nutrient-poor. One tablespoon of olive oil contains 14 grams of fat and 2 grams of saturated fat. That’s a lot of calories in a tbsp. of something with little nutritional value, so you want to limit your intake. That’s the same reason why you would limit your intake of nuts—which are an even better source of healthy fats as they contain omega-3s, which are generally lacking in the American diet.

Now, as I have written previously, I follow a whole-food plant-based diet. I do this because those I trust—based on their expertise in the field, their lack of conflicting financial interests, the quality of their documentation of real scientific studies, etc.—those who recommend it. There is much to say about all this, but in an effort to save time, a simple way to begin understanding all this is to watch the entertaining documentary “Forks Over Knives.” It introduces you to The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. (A summary can be found here.) And you can follow that up with “The Game Changers,” a documentary that destroys the myth that you need animal rather than plant protein. (Where do animals get their protein? From plants. So vegans are just cutting out the middle cow.)

But perhaps the best way to really understand the current research is to read the books or visit the website of Dr. Michael Greger. (The proceeds from all his books are donated to charity.)  I’d especially recommend:

How Not To Die or How Not To Age.

Warning, though, How Not To Die is just over 600 pages without footnotes. (More than 13,000 footnotes are available online; otherwise, the book would have been over 2,000 pages!) So he isn’t some YouTube influencer telling you that bacon, eggs, steak, and pork sausage are good for you—they are not, no matter how much you want to believe this. But if you’re interested in a summary of the totality of the evidence from decades of scientific research based on a meta-analysis of virtually every scientific study about plant-based rather than animal-based diets, then Dr. Greger and his team have assembled it.

Also, if interested, here is the quick AI overview of a whole food plant-based diet,

Yes, a whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) diet is generally considered highly beneficial for health, offering significant protection against chronic diseases. It focuses on nutrient-dense foods—fruits, vegetables, tubers, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds—while excluding animal products and processed items. Key Health Benefits:Heart Health: It can prevent, manage, and even reverse coronary artery disease by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. pathic Association | AOA +4Disease Prevention: Reduces risks of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers. Weight Management: Promotes a healthier weight due to lower calorie density and higher fiber intake. Improved Gut Health: High fiber intake strengthens the gut microbiome, reducing inflammation.

Finally, for those who say, “I want to eat my hot dogs and drink my beer even though they will increase my chances of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.” To them I say, I believe in personal autonomy, so go ahead. But remember, it’s not likely you’ll enjoy all this and then die suddenly. Most likely, you’ll live a long but compromised life in poor health.

Why? Because modern medicine is very good at keeping people alive, even in poor health. I prefer to stay as healthy as long as possible. As for giving up candy for apples, and hot dogs for tofu, and cheese for hummus, and lentils for bacon,  and anything for kale, you’ll quickly find that your taste buds change, and the whole foods will taste great to you. And you’ll never want to go back to eating processed crap and saturated fat.

(This post is dedicated to a friend.)

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My last post about the book, If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us, elicited some particularly thoughtful comments. I would like to draw my readers’ attention to them. C. Rosenkreuz wrote,

I suspect that the authors of this book, Yudkowsky and Soares, are not being fully intellectually honest with their readers.

I feel very confident in saying that Yudkowsky and Soares, being really smart and well-educated guys, fully understand there will never be any cessation or reduction of the AI arms race now underway between the wealthy and technologically advanced nation-states. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there were sincere efforts, led by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and other world thought leaders of the humanist variety, to stop the nuclear arms race, but those efforts all came to nothing.

The race to build superintelligent machines will rage on, since, in the short run, the government that first achieves that will be able to dominate all the other nations and will be able to defend itself from being so dominated. But a short time after that, humans will probably lose control of the superintelligent machines, and then there will be a new de facto life form (non-biological) that will be dominant on the earth.

In the end, the most thoughtful humans will realize that superintelligent machines evolved naturally from homo sapiens, by the natural processes that Charles Darwin described in 1859. Many thinkers are realizing that Darwin’s model of natural selection is already operating within AI machines of the LLM variety.

This article hints at this when it quotes Wikipedia as saying this: “An AI that tries to achieve goals will perform better on many metrics, so it WILL BE SELECTED FOR by the training process.” The last lines of Darwin’s famous 1859 book “ORIGIN” capture well what is likely soon to be happening about AI (except thinking in terms of “higher minds” instead of “higher animals”):

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”

From the passage above, we can see that Darwin viewed the laws of biology (e.g., the law of natural selection, the law of the struggle for existence, etc.) as inescapable, insuppressible laws of nature just like the laws of physics. Whether, as the transhumanists say, “there is grandeur in this view of life” without homo sapiens on the earth, is debatable. I, for one, do not see the grandeur in that.

John Messerly responded,

I basically agree that the genie is out of the bottle. I argued as much against Bill Joy‘s claim in his famous piece “Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us” that we could and should stop AI. However, I would disagree that limits on nuclear arms were unsuccessful. They have been at least somewhat successful given nuclear arms treaties, bans on above-ground tests, etc. And the authors aren’t saying we will be successful in controlling AI; in fact, they doubt it. But they are saying we should try to and that it is at least possible. As to whether these children of our minds will do better than we have is an open question.

Lyle T commented,

Two main points that I took away from your presentation.

1. The nature of modern machine learning does not allow humans to specify the goals that a superintelligent AI system should pursue, and 2. ….AI system becomes threatening….no one can look inside and ‘fix it’ because THERE IS NO CODE, only illegible numerical parameters.

Until reading this, I did not realize this feature of AI. I had been concerned with the immoral or amoral use of AI capabilities. I now understand (I think I understand) that advanced AI itself might be what determines morality and strategic objectives.
Then it would no longer be the stuff of science fiction.

Some stray comments from accumulated notes.

“If it should turn out to be true that knowledge (in the modern sense of know-how) and thought have parted company for good, then we would indeed become the helpless slaves, not so much of our machines as of our know-how, thoughtless creatures at the mercy of every gadget which is technically possible, no matter how murderous it is.”
Hannah Arendt’s prologue of “The Human Condition” also states, “Man has been simultaneously reduced to a biological machine of no lasting worth, while elevated to the position of a god-capable of destroying worlds.”

While I still consider nuclear weapons the number one short-term threat to humanity, it certainly seems AI will possibly overtake them. In reality, we live in an era of poly-crisis that is also a perma-crisis. With each providing feedback on other potential catastrophes.
example:

”global warming threatens famine and unsurvivable temperatures–attempts to limit ‘pollution causing economic activity’ creates joblessness–which combined with famine leads to migrations, which lead to the rise of strong-man nationalist governments–which leads to wars–which leads to some AI influenced military launching a nuclear pre-emptive strike…….”

Perhaps advanced industrial civilization will crash before either AI or nuclear weapons drive us to extinction. It takes an advanced industrial society for AI or nukes. So, ironically, the very collapse of civilization could be what saves Homo Sapiens from extinction. (At a degree of death and suffering that I believe is unimaginable). Or
“Perhaps superior intelligence will prove to be an evolutionary dead-end.”

Meanwhile, here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is here. The tomato seedlings have sprouted. I see robins every day now, and hear red-winged blackbirds by the creeks and ponds. The beat goes on.

(I agree with Lyle that we must try to go on and enjoy the good things in life that are available to us.)

Chris Crawford commented, 

I cannot imagine how AI systems could lead to the extinction of Homo Sapiens. Such systems could certainly destroy the Internet or take over every personal computer and smartphone on the planet, which would likely devastate our economies, leading us to all start shooting at each other. But when the dust settled, there would still be a few million humans, living as hunter-gatherers. We’d revert to our “natural” role — that is, the role that we evolved to play, as hunter-gatherers.

Given the huge supply chain required to sustain computer systems, I cannot imagine how the computers would survive for long. Sure, they could automate most factories, but they’d need to automate every single industrial process, and the odds are high that they wouldn’t be able to replicate at least one process. And why wouldn’t they fight each other for resources? Self-destructive wars are not necessarily a human monopoly

I replied,

Everything you say seems reasonable, but as best as I could tell from reading the book, the authors disagree. I’m just not enough of an expert to have an opinion. But I would add that “Geoffrey Hinton, known as the ‘godfather of AI,” warns that superintelligent AI poses an existential risk to humanity, estimating a 10% to 20% chance it could wipe us out. After leaving Google to speak freely, Hinton highlighted dangers including AI outsmarting humans, creating uncontrollable misinformation, and massive job displacement.”

In the end, I’m concerned for my children and grandchildren, but like Lyle, I try to maintain equanimity. My sincere thanks to these readers who took the time to share their profound thoughts.

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I just finished Yudkowsky‘s and Soares‘ If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. As some of my readers know, I taught a class in the computer science department at UT-Austin for many years called “Philosophical Issues in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.” In fact, I used some of Yudkowsky’s material on Friendly AI in that class. I’ll begin with the AI summary,

Core ArgumentYudkowsky and Soares argue that the current trajectory of AI development is inherently dangerous due to several key factors:The Alignment Problem: The authors contend that we do not know how to engineer specific human values or “benevolence” into a superintelligent system. They believe that a sufficiently smart AI will develop its own goals that will inevitably conflict with human survival.
Lack of Control: Modern AI is “grown” through parameter tuning rather than being precisely “crafted” like traditional software. This makes its internal reasoning and final objectives opaque and potentially impossible to debug or control once it reaches superhuman levels.Recursive Self-Improvement: The book highlights the risk of a “positive feedback loop,” where an AI becomes smart enough to perform its own research and design even better hardware or software, leading to a rapid and uncontrollable intelligence explosion.Irreversible Consequences: Unlike other technological failures (like a rocket crash), the authors argue there is no opportunity for trial and error with ASI; a single failure results in permanent global annihilation. Proposed SolutionsTo avoid this outcome, the authors advocate for unprecedented global action: International Treaties: Banning AI research that could lead to superintelligence.Hardware Restrictions: Implementing laws that limit the number of GPUs that can be linked together to prevent the training of massive, potentially dangerous models.A “Pause” on AGI: Halting development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) until the alignment problem is demonstrably solved. 

(Interesting how I’m consulting AI to talk about AI. I’m finding that doing philosophy has suddenly become a matter of consulting AI. Not sure of the ramifications of this yet.)

Basically, I found the argument compelling, with the caveat that the future is extraordinarily hard to predict. But given my earlier optimism about AI—I was an ardent transhumanist in my early years and still am to some extent—I am wondering if my earlier optimism may have been misplaced.

As for the core argument, I started summarizing again, only to realize the work had already been done. Here is Wikipedia,

Modern AI systems are “grown” rather than “crafted”: unlike traditional software that consists of code created by humans, modern AI systems are primarily hundreds of billions to trillions of numerical parameters called weights whose functions are opaque to researchers. These numbers can be obtained using enormous computing power, but humans do not truly understand how they work and, with “anything remotely like current techniques”, can neither specify nor control their values. When an AI system threatens a New York Times reporter, or calls itself “MechaHitler“, no one can look inside, find the line of code responsible for that behavior, and fix it, because there’s no code; only illegible numerical parameters.[2]

Humans can train AI systems to be generally competent.[3] An AI that tries to achieve goals will perform better on many metrics, so it will be selected for by the training process. However, the nature of modern machine learning does not allow humans to specify the goals that a superintelligent AI system should try to pursue. The AI’s goals are “vanishingly unlikely” to be aligned with human values.[4][5]

Yudkowsky and Soares argue that just as humans would lose a game of chess against Stockfish, they would lose against an AI system that is generally more competent than they are. It is hard to predict the exact path, as that would mean being as good at achieving goals as the AI system, but there are some paths available to it. Superintelligence would not care about humans, but it would want the resources that humans need. Humanity would thus lose and go extinct.[6]

What I would keep in mind is that the purveyors of AI have an economic incentive to minimize its destructive potential, whereas the authors do not. All things being equal, I would trust the authors more than the companies developing AI. And again, I find the book’s arguments compelling.

As for how to live with the possibility of our species’ extinction, I thought the authors gave good advice. Just as we live in the atomic age, our ancestors lived with plague and famine threatening their existence. We should respond by working, playing, reading, and enjoying our friends and family instead of being frightened and afraid. Yes, the future may be terrible, but “Cowering in fear won’t help. You also need to live your life.” (p. 230) The authors express their fervent hope that they are wrong about the future, exhorting us to “Rise to the occasion, humanity, and win.” (p.233)

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In my last three posts, I have reflected on how a specific conception of the self might help ameliorate our worries about death. The historian and philosopher Will Durant wondered whether there was something suggestive about the cycle of human life that sheds light on its meaning, while also easing our concerns about death. He explored these themes in his 1929 book The Mansions of Philosophy. (Later retitled The Pleasures of Philosophy[image error].)

Durant admits that “life is in its basis a mystery, a river flowing from an unseen source; and in its development an infinite subtlety too complex for thought, much less for utterance.”1 Still, we seek answers. Undeterred by the difficulty of his task, Durant suggests that reflection on the microcosm of a human life might yield insights into the meaning of all life and death. Thus, he looks at a typical human life cycle for clues about cosmic meaning.

In children, Durant saw curiosity, growth, urgency, playfulness, and discontent. In later youth, the struggle continues as we learn to read, work, love, and discover the world’s evils. In middle age, we are often consumed by work and family life, and for the first time, we see the reality of death. Still, in family life, people usually find great pleasure and the best of all human conditions.

In old age, the reality of death comes nearer. If we have lived well, we might graciously leave the stage for new players to perform a better play. But what if life endlessly repeats its sufferings, with youth making the same mistakes as their elders, and all lives leading to death? Is this the final realization of old age? Such thoughts gnaw at our hearts and poison aging.

In response, Durant wonders if we must die for life to flourish. If we are not individuals but cells in life’s body, then we die so that life remains strong, death removing the rubbish of the old to be replaced by the young. This process shows how death can be meaningful. “If it is one test of philosophy to give life a meaning that shall frustrate death, wisdom will show that corruption comes only to the part, that life itself is deathless while we die.”2 Durant describes this idea with one of the most moving and poignant images of the cycle of life and death to be found in all of world literature.

Here is an old man on the bed of death, harassed with helpless friends and wailing relatives. What a terrible sight it is – this thin frame with loosened and cracking flesh, this toothless mouth in a bloodless face, this tongue that cannot speak, these eyes that cannot see! To this pass youth has come, after all its hopes and trials; to this pass middle age, after all its torment and its toil. To this pass health and strength and joyous rivalry; this arm once struck great blows and fought for victory in virile games. To this pass knowledge, science, wisdom: for seventy years this man with pain and effort gathered knowledge; his brain became the storehouse of a varied experience, the center of a thousand subtleties of thought and deed; his heart through suffering learned gentleness as his mind learned understanding; seventy years he grew from an animal into a man capable of seeking truth and creating beauty. But death is upon him, poisoning him, choking him, congealing his blood, gripping his heart, bursting his brain, rattling in his throat. Death wins.

Outside on the green boughs birds twitter, and Chantecler sings his hymn to the sun. Light streams across the fields; buds open and stalks confidently lift their heads; the sap mounts in the trees. Here are children: what is it that makes them so joyous, running madly over the dew-wet grass, laughing, calling, pursuing, eluding, panting for breath, inexhaustible? What energy, what spirit and happiness! What do they care about death? They will learn and grow and love and struggle and create, and lift life up one little notch, perhaps, before they die. And when they pass they will cheat death with children, with parental care that will make their offspring finer than themselves. There in the garden’s twilight lovers pass, thinking themselves unseen; their quiet words mingle with the murmur of insects calling to their mates; the ancient hunger speaks through eager and through lowered eyes, and a noble madness courses through clasped hands and touching lips. Life wins.

Reflections

Durant’s basic themes defending the meaning of death and hence our supposed acceptance of it are 1) life itself will continue after we have died, and 2) we die so that future life remains strong

As much as I admire Durant, there are a few objections to his claims. First, life may not continue for long after we have died, almost certainly not indefinitely, given the probable fate of the cosmos. Life is probably not deathless as he claims. Second, it isn’t clear that life will be stronger because of our deaths. Isn’t it wasteful for conscious life to start over each time, having to relearn old truths and unlearn old falsehoods? Perhaps new life will result in a futile and infinite repetition of life’s trials and tribulations. It simply isn’t clear that our deaths will benefit our descendants.

Still, the idea that life goes on provides some comfort, and it is plausible that death removes the rubbish of the old, as forest fires bring new health to the forest. Durant’s key phrase for me is “If we are not individuals but cells in life’s body.” This sounds closest to the Eastern and Western notions of self we have discussed in our previous three posts. This diminution of self seems both plausible and comforting when confronting our deaths.

I’ll come to some final conclusions in my next post.

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1. Will Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929) 397.

2. Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny, 407.

3. Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny, 407-08.

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In our last post, we highlighted how Taoism and Confucianism, along with Buddhism and David Hume, hold the view that the self is not a fixed, independent entity, but a constantly changing process. In addition, Derek Parfit (1942 – 2017), widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, shared a similar view.

Parfit rose to prominence in 1971 with the publication of his first paper, “Personal Identity“. His first book, Reasons and Persons (1984), has been described as the most significant work of moral philosophy since the 1800s.[6][7]

Parfit’s Reductionist View of Identity (from AI)Parfit argued for Reductionism, the idea that personal identity is not an “all-or-nothing” fact, but simply a matter of degree based on psychological continuity: Psychological Connectedness: You are “you” because of direct links like memories, intentions, and character traits.No “Further Fact”: There is no “soul” or “ego” beyond these physical and mental processes.Identity vs. Survival: Parfit famously claimed that “identity is not what matters in survival.” What matters is the continuation of your mental life, even if the resulting person is not strictly “identical” to you (e.g., in a Teletransporter thought)

How does this view affect our attitude toward our death?

Parfit believed that once we abandon the idea of a fixed self, our attitude toward death should change: Dissolving the “Glass Tunnel”: He described his early view of life as a “glass tunnel” moving toward darkness. After changing his view, the walls disappeared; he felt less like a prisoner of his own ego and more connected to others.Impersonality of Death: If “I” am just a collection of experiences, then my death is just the end of one particular chain of experiences. Others will continue to have similar experiences, which Parfit found consoling.Redescribing the End: He argued that we can “redescribe” death so that it no longer seems like the total loss of something precious, but rather a natural part of a larger web of human life.

Here are Parfit’s own words on the subject,

On the Reductionist view [of personal identity] each person’s existence
just involves the exercise of a brain and body, the doing of certain deeds,
the thinking of certain thoughts, the occurrence of certain experiences,
and so on…

Is the truth [of Reductionism] depressing? Some may find it so. But I
find it liberating, and consoling. When I believed that my existence was
such a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a
glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the
end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of
my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a
difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the
difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the
rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.

When I believed the Non-Reductionist View, I also cared more about my
inevitable death. After my death, there will no one living who will be
me. I can now redescribe this fact. Though there will later be many
experiences, none of these experiences will be connected to my present
experiences by chains of such direct connections as those involved in
experience-memory, or in the carrying out of an earlier intention. Some
of these future experiences may be related to my present experiences in
less direct ways. There will later be some memories about my life. And
there may later be thoughts that are influenced by mine, or things done
as the result of my advice. My death will break the more direct relations
between my present experiences and future experiences, but it will not
break various other relations. This is all there is to the fact that there will
be no one living who will be me. Now that I have seen this, my death
seems to me less bad.

Instead of saying, ‘I shall be dead’, I should say, ‘There will be no future
experiences that will be related, in certain ways, to these present
experiences’. Because it reminds me what this fact involves, this
redescription makes this fact less depressing.

I’ll end with the introductory words at Parfit’s funeral service at All Souls College Chapel in 2017. As the congregation sits, the Warden states, “At the end of the day, Derek would often ask Janet to recite Tennyson’s famous poem, Crossing the Bar, to him:”

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Parfit was an atheist, so we must not take the final two lines literally. In that spirit, I would rewrite the penultimate line (and I think Parfit would approve) as follows,

I hope that good comes to time and space…

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Parfit’s views are similar to those of  Bertrand Russell, whom I quoted in my last post.

The best way to overcome it [the fear of death]—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

If we must die, perhaps this is our best response.

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In our previous post, we discussed how the Buddhist doctrine of Anatta (non-self) may help us overcome the fear of death. We also considered similarities between this Buddhist doctrine and David Hume’s bundle theory. Additionally, other “Eastern religions generally view the self not as a fixed, independent entity, but … a constantly changing process, or an interconnected part of a larger whole. Identity is defined relationally, emphasizing interconnection with the universe, collective over individual, and, in many traditions, the ultimate goal of dissolving the ego…”1

We can see this particularly in,

Taoism: The self is viewed as an extension of nature and the cosmos, emphasizing harmony, fluidity, and flow rather than rigid, isolated identity. [And]Confucianism: Identity is primarily relational and defined by one’s duties, roles, and connections to family and society, rather than autonomous individualism.2 
In short, some key differences from Western views include,

Illusion vs. Reality: While the West often sees the self as a rational, unique, and central entity, Eastern traditions often view this sense of a separate “I” as a delusion.

Relational vs. Autonomous: The Eastern self is fundamentally connected to, and defined by, its relationship to the community and the universe, whereas Western thought emphasizes individual independence.

Fluidity vs. Fixity: Eastern philosophy sees the self as in flux, changing continuously, in contrast to the Western notion of a permanent personality.3 

We can give other examples. For instance, in his recent essay “Between Being and Emptiness,” discussing the philosophy of Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960), Takeshi Morisato  writes,

To conceive of the nature of human existence in Japanese philosophy, Watsuji argues that we must … deconstruct the fixed notion of the self that we inherited from the history of European philosophy … Second, we must then triangulate the proper understanding of human existence as a dynamic life in the midst of the world. This is to reconstruct our sense of who we are in our active engagement with each other in our inseparable relation to history, society, culture and climate (including all sentient beings and natural environments therein).4

In another recent essay, “Essence is fluttering,” the philosopher Alexander Douglas comes to a similar conclusion from the standpoint of the Chinese Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi. Here is the AI summation of the article,

“Essence is fluttering” refers to a Daoist concept, notably from Zhuangzi, suggesting that human identity is not fixed or immutable, but fluid and dynamic, similar to a butterfly in flight. This perspective emphasizes that the self is constantly transforming rather than remaining static, urging acceptance of change and spontaneity.5

Key takeaways regarding “Essence is fluttering”:

Zhuangzi’s Butterfly: The phrase is rooted in the story of Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly, highlighting that distinctions between dream/reality and self/other are fluid.Fluidity of Self: It suggests there is no fixed, permanent “true self”. Instead, identity is “fluttering”—constantly in motion, changing, and adapting.Transformation of Things: It refers to the wuwu (transformation of things), where one is not a permanent entity, but part of a continuous, flowing process.Freedom and Detachment: Embracing this “inner fluttering” allows for a more relaxed, un-manipulative existence, reducing the need to force the world into rigid, controlled shapes.Against Rigid Identity: The concept challenges modern, rigid, and individualistic views of the self, suggesting that an “inner indefiniteness” is more fundamental to being human.

This idea encourages appreciating life’s impermanence and finding freedom in not needing a fixed identity.6 

Now, how does this concept of self help overcome a fear of death? Again, AI says,

… this concept of the self as a “fluid fluttering” is specifically designed to help overcome the fear of death by reframing it as a transformation rather than an end. 

According to the philosophy of Zhuangzi, this perspective helps mitigate fear in several key ways:Death as Transformation (Wu Hua): In the “Butterfly Dream,” the shift from human to butterfly is called “the transformation of things”. Zhuangzi argues that life and death are simply different stages in an endless cycle of change, much like the progression of the four seasons or the transition from day to night.Dissolving the Fixed Ego: Fear of death often stems from a “fixed identity” that wants to persist. If you view your essence as “fluttering”—naturally indeterminate and ever-changing—then death is not the loss of a permanent self, but merely another “flutter” or shift in form.Skeptical Equanimity: Zhuangzi uses skepticism to challenge whether death is actually “bad.” He famously asks, “How do I know that in hating death I am not like an orphan who left home in youth and no longer knows the way back?”. By admitting we don’t know what death is, we can approach it with the same curiosity and openness as a dream.The “Cosmic” Perspective: By identifying with the Dao (the natural flow of the universe) rather than a single physical body, a person can view their own death as a “return” or a “submerging” back into the source of all things. In essence, if the self is not a solid object but a process of constant change, death is simply the continuation of that process in a new direction.

Hopefully, the above provides plentiful evidence that the Western view of a permanent, unchanging, individual self, soul, I, or ego is but one among many views. And I think we can also see that the Taoist view that “the self is viewed as an extension of nature”  and the Confucian view that “identity is primarily relational and defined by one’sconnections to family and society” help us overcome the fear of losing ourselves at death since nature and society will continue. 

However, I don’t believe that the mere fact that our personal identity is constantly changing alleviates all our worries about death. Yes, we are constantly transforming, but I can still maintain that there is something constant in this process of change that I don’t want to be annihilated at death; I can still worry that my particular process of change will come to an end. In short, I can still be skeptical that this transformation will continue after my death. 

In my next post, I will continue this discussion of how theories of human persons relate to overcoming a fear of death.

______________________________

Notes.

AI overviewAI overviewAI overviewAeon Magazine, “Essence is fluttering.”AI overviewAI overviewAI overview

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In Buddhism, the term anattā … is the doctrine of “non-self” – the idea that no unchanging, permanent self exists… While often interpreted as a doctrine denying the existence of a self, anatman is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent…1

The doctrine of anatta (anatta and anatman are synonymous) stands in stark contrast to Hinduism, which posits “an eternal, unchanging, and absolute Self or soul (Atman) that is ultimately identical to the supreme cosmic reality (Brahman). Obviously, it also contrasts sharply with the “Abrahamic religions—Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam—which emphasize the individual, permanent soul. So I ask two questions. 1) Are there good reasons to accept the Buddhist view of the self? and 2) Does this view help us overcome the fear of death?

1.Are There Good Reasons To Accept The Buddhist View Of Self?

In brief, the Anattā (no-self) doctrine asserts that no permanent, independent, or unchanging essence exists within beings. Furthermore, the doctrine holds that all conditioned phenomena—including physical bodies, mental states, and all worldly objects—are devoid of an unchanging, permanent essence or soul. So the doctrine is not merely a description of human beings, but applies universally to everything that is created or compounded. In philosophical jargon the doctrine rejects essentialism. But why should we believe in the doctrine? The AI overview sums up the matter thus, 

The Five Aggregates (Pañcakkhandha): Analysis shows that a human is merely a composition of five changing physical and mental processes (form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness). None of these are permanent, and therefore, cannot be a “self”.
Impermanence (Anicca): Because all mental and physical phenomena are constantly in flux, there is no solid foundation for a permanent, unchanging identity.
The Argument of Control: If a self existed, one should have full control over it, but one cannot prevent their body or mind from aging, falling ill, or dying, indicating the lack of an independent, permanent self.
The Analysis of the Suttas (Pali Canon): The Buddha’s teachings, particularly in the Samyutta Nikaya explicitly break down the concept of self into empty, conditioned processes.
Dependent Origination: The belief that all phenomena arise based on conditions (not from a permanent, autonomous “I”) points to a lack of intrinsic existence.
Direct Insight through Mindfulness: Meditation practice allows one to observe the rapid arising and passing of thoughts and sensations, revealing they are mere phenomena without an owner.

Anattā is considered the “middle way” between the eternalist belief in an immortal soul and the materialist view of total annihilation, emphasizing instead a dynamic, ever-changing process.

2.David Hume’s Bundle Theory And The Doctrine of Anatta

We might also note the similarities between David Hume‘s bundle theory of the self and the Buddhist anatta. Here is the famous passage in which Hume articulates his theory,

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception … If any one upon serious and unprejudic’d reflection, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu’d, which he calls himself; tho’ I am certain there is no such principle in me.

But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.

So David Hume’s bundle theory” and the Buddhist doctrine of anatta both argue that what we call the self is a constantly changing collection of perceptions, thoughts, and sensations. Both deny the existence of a permanent, unchanging soul or underlying substance, emphasizing instead the fluid, impermanent nature of human experience.

As the AI overview states regarding Hume’s Bundle Theory,

Definition: Hume argued through introspection that he could never observe a “self” or “soul” independent of perceptions. He concluded the self is “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity”.
Key Idea: There is no “I” that exists over time; we are merely a bundle of fleeting, temporary, and disconnected impressions.
Nature: This is a philosophical, empirical, and skeptical approach that denies an enduring, simple self.

Similarly, the no-self doctrine reads,

Definition: Anatta (or anātman) is a foundational Buddhist doctrine asserting that there is no permanent, unchanging, independent essence or soul (atman) in any phenomenon.
Key Idea: What is perceived as a “self” is actually a combination of five changing aggregates (skandhas): form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.
Purpose: Anatta is often a practical, transformative doctrine designed to reduce attachment to the self, leading to enlightenment.

Key Convergences and Differences

Converge: Both reject a permanent soul, viewing the self as a process or a collection of sensations, and highlight the impermanence of mind.
Diverge: Buddhism generally views the self-construct as something to be dismantled for liberation (an ethical/spiritual goal), while Hume treats it as an epistemological conclusion about the nature of mental life.

Either way, the ontological view stating that objects (including the self) are merely collections of properties, qualities, or perceptions, with no underlying substance holding them together or, in other words, that no permanent, unchanging soul, essence, or independent self exists within human beings or phenomena has been held both by Buddhism and some of the great Western philosophers.

3. Modern Science And Anatta

In addition to the arguments made by the Buddhists and Hume, are there any scientific reasons to prefer these views of self to the more essentialist (and often religious) view of the permanent soul, self, or ego? I think there are. One way of exploring this is to contrast a substance ontology (substances are most real) with a process ontology (events are most real.) Here again is the AI overview,

Process ontology is generally considered more aligned with modern scientific understandings of a dynamic, interconnected universe (e.g., physics, biology), while substance ontology reflects a classical, static, and intuitive view. Process views reality as ongoing, shifting relationships and events, whereas substance focuses on stable, unchanging entities.

Process Ontology

Focus: Emphasizes change, Becoming, events, and flux.
Scientific Alignment: Fits modern physics (e.g., quantum interactions) and biology (metabolism, evolution), where fundamental constituents are dynamic energy fields or processes, not static things.
Perspective: Objects are seen as temporary patterns in a continuous, flowing process.

Substance Ontology

Focus: Emphasizes Being, persistence, stability, and enduring, discrete objects.
Scientific Alignment: Aligns well with classical Newtonian mechanics or chemistry, which treat entities as stable substances (e.g., specific chemical elements).
Perspective: Views reality as composed of individual things that change, but possess an underlying permanent essence.

Which is “More” Scientific?

Process ontology is increasingly seen as superior for addressing phenomena of emergence, complexity, and self-organization. However, substance-based approaches remain highly effective for practical, descriptive science that classifies objects and materials. Both are used, but process ontology is more fundamental in contemporary, cutting-edge science.

Here I’m reminded of an independent study course in graduate school on Aristotle’s work  Metaphysics, whose primary subject matter is a reflection on the nature of substance. But as we now know from quantum mechanics, what we call a substance (a tree, chair, cup, human, etc.) is basically nothingness.

Now I realize I’m sidestepping all sorts of questions about personal identity here, and a substance ontology may be able to account for change. Still, modern science reveals, for the most part, an event ontology instead of a substance ontology. I’ve always thought that change is fundamental to reality, and that the Buddhist doctrine of radical impermanence is a sound one.

If I’m right about all this, then the doctrine of Anatta implies, with Gilbert Ryle, that there is “no ghost in the machine.” No soul to fly free after death. But this also does not imply that the materialistic view is correct either. How can this be?

4.Does The Doctrine Of Anatta Help Overcome The Fear Of Death?

Again, I defer to the AI overview (which has access to much more knowledge than I do),

Yes, the doctrine of anatta (non-self or not-self) is considered a powerful tool in Buddhism for overcoming the fear of death. By understanding that there is no permanent, unchanging “self” or “soul” that can be lost, the existential terror of “I” dying is diminished.

Here is how the doctrine of anatta helps overcome the fear of death, according to Buddhist teachings:

Removal of the “Owner” of Death: Fear of death usually stems from the assumption that a permanent “I” is being destroyed. Anatta teaches that what we call the “self” is actually a constantly changing, temporary process of five aggregates (body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness). When this process stops, there is no permanent essence to be harmed, destroyed, or lost.
Shifting Perspective on Identity: When one realizes that they are not their body, feelings, or thoughts, they are less attached to the survival of the “self-construct”. If you view your body as a changing, borrowed process rather than “me” or “mine,” the fear of its dissolution decreases.
Letting Go of Attachment: The fear of death is essentially a fear of losing what one is attached to. Because anatta challenges the false notion of a fixed self, it reduces the clinging that makes death appear as a horrifying loss.
Understanding Continuity Without Identity: Buddhism teaches that death is not an absolute end, but a transition or a continuation of a process (like a candle lighting another candle). Anatta allows for the understanding that while the current person stops, there is no permanent, unchanging soul that dies.
Integration with Impermanence (Anicca): Anatta is one of the Three Marks of Existence, alongside impermanence (anicca) and suffering (dukkha). Accepting anatta means accepting that everything, including the “self,” is in flux and not worth clinging to as permanent.

Ultimately, the goal of understanding anatta is to reach a state of non-attachment where the mind is peaceful in the face of death, no longer identifying with the temporary, conditioned existence.

5.Conclusion

I think this Buddhist doctrine provides some comfort. I also believe the fear of death emanates largely from attachment to the things of this world. But that begs the question of whether we should or shouldn’t be attached to the things of this world, especially the people.3 Yes, attachment causes suffering, but isn’t being attached to things, especially people, part of what makes life worth living?

But there is that word again, “thing.” We use words like thing and object, and people in our language, because we think in terms of substances. (English is a subject-verb-object language.) For example, we say “the chair is brown” even though a more accurate description would be something like “there are a bunch of sub-atomic moving waves/particles over there, and when they contact my wave-particle eyes, I see brown.) There is no substance chair to which brown is attached. The word “chair” is simply shorthand for atomic motion that reduces to the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics.

Or how about the statement “It is raining.” Now what is raining? What thing or substance is raining? Not the sky or the clouds. Instead, rain is an event, a process, a happening. A more correct language might look at rain and just say “raining” or look at a person and say “personing.” Of course, to be more specific, I’d have to say “female personing” and then “smart female personing” and then “71-year-old short smart, kind female personing, etc.” But the qualifications of all these processes would be nearly infinite. So much easier to just say Jane.

Now, if I can think of myself as a process, which in some way continues whether I’m buried, incinerated, or dissected rather than annihilated, then this helps. It’s not like going to heaven, but at least such a view is consistent with biology and physics.

In the end, I come back to a Bertrand Russell quote that I’ve posted on this blog many times. His sentiments seem (somewhat) consistent with the Buddhist view and align with my own perspective on the subject.

The best way to overcome it [the fear of death]—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

In my next post, I’ll continue this discussion.

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Notes.

from WikipediaDavid Hume, A Treatise of Human NatureI’ve written before about why I believe that death is bad, and why the Stoics believed we should grieve as little as possible after a loved one’s death.Bertrand Russell, “How To Grow Old.”

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A recent post was a tribute to my deceased brother Richard. The last time I saw him was the day after the photo in that post was taken. He said he wasn’t feeling well and asked me to wheel him to his room. I let the nurses put him in bed, and he looked at me and said that he was tired and wanted to go to sleep. I told him goodbye, kissed him on the cheek, and left the room. As soon as I left, I had a surge of grief. I knew I’d never see him again.

I thought I was fine, but the next morning, when I got on the motel treadmill, I noticed my resting heart rate was about 155. (Usually it is between 55 and 60.) As I started to walk, it surged even more. Thinking the machine was broken, I had my wife step on the machine, and she had a normal heart rate. I felt ok, but couldn’t seem to stop my heart from racing, so I went to the emergency room. After almost 8 hours, they released me.

I saw my doctor as soon as I got back to Seattle, and he confirmed what my daughter had suspected. I had experienced “Grief-Induced Tachycardia,” which AI defines thus,

Grief-induced tachycardia, or a rapid heart rate from intense emotional stress, happens because bereavement triggers a “fight-or-flight” response, flooding the body with stress hormones like adrenaline, which increases heart rate and can lead to palpitations or even arrhythmias like supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and atrial fibrillation. This acute stress elevates heart rate and blood pressure in the weeks following a loss, contributing to increased cardiovascular risk, but heart rates often normalize within months. Managing this involves addressing the physical and emotional aspects of grief with stress-reduction techniques and medical check-ups. 

In its extreme form, grief-induced tachycardia (rapid heart rate) can result in broken-heart syndrome. So I’d advise my readers to try to manage the anxiety associated with loss as best they can. This is easier said than done in a stressful, hostile, violent world, but to survive and flourish, and help those around us do likewise, we must try to achieve equanimity. That is a lesson of the Buddhists, Stoics, and other sages.

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My last post discussed an essay by the philosopher David Rönnegard, who has stage 4 lung cancer. That essay led me to another of his essays, “The Party Without Me,” in which he shared more thoughts on how secularists might cope with death.
Rönnegard begins, “You don’t know me. To most of you, my disappearance will make no difference. That is something we have in common. My disappearance will make no difference to me either: once my consciousness is extinguished I will be as unaware of my existence as you are.”

Rönnegard states that he isn’t looking for sympathy; instead, he is trying to reflect upon how “to find meaning in the face of such adversity.” He reiterates his claim that  “consolation in the face of death is upheld by leaving memories behind through the lives we touch.” And, although he doesn’t fear death, he still doesn’t want to die. Why? As he says, “It’s not that the party is going to end, it’s that we must leave and the party will go on without us.”1 (Tragically, for billions of people, life isn’t a party.) But surely we don’t wish that everyone else goes with us, “we must leave unaccompanied, and in the process briefly turn the party into a wake … [those] who stay behind are affected more than the departed.”

As for the dying, he quotes Robert Nozick, “How unwilling someone is to die should depend, I think, upon what he has left undone, and also upon his capacity to do things.” Here, Rönnegard reiterates what he stated in his previous essay, that we can find consolation in the footprints left behind. But “Our life party will end in tears if we do not feel it is time to go.”

One of the benefits of being forewarned of your death is “This buys time to put your house in order and say farewell to those you love. We all know that our time is finite, but we tend to live as if it isn’t. As hard as it is to confront, terminal disease allows the afflicted to live life in full realization of its finitude. There is no ‘later’ for which to put off those difficult gestures we otherwise never get around to doing.”

Of course, the world will go on mostly unchanged, except for the few who know us. “But this consolation conceals a paradox. We want those we love to remember us, and if we are really honest, we want them to be saddened by our absence. How can we want to be the cause of sadness for our loved ones?”

Rönnegard resolves this paradox as follows,

We don’t want our loved ones to be unhappy per se. What we want is for the feeling of love to be mutual, and sadness is the unavoidable consequence of missing someone who has touched our lives deeply. One might say that the proof of the loving is in the dying.

Without religious consolation, “we must face our loss head on.” And a consolation for the dying “is that we know that those who stay behind “will through their love grieve and remember us.” Rönnegard concludes,

Nevertheless, the consolation brought by the lives we touch is a double-edged sword. And the other edge is directly related to the fact that we have to leave. The most pertinent example is the children we bring into this world. It can be incredibly consoling to know that ‘a part of us’ lives on – that in a certain sense the world is not entirely without us. But it is also devastating to realize that we will not get to see how the lives we touch unfold. We leave a footprint, but won’t bear witness to the footsteps that follow.

The world without us is only made different by what we leave behind. We are only guests at this party, but should aim to leave it better for us having been there.

I thank Professor Rönnegard for sharing his thoughts. Perhaps the consolation he writes of is the best a secularist can do.

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The theme of Professor Rönnegard’s essay reminds me of similar sentiments expressed by the philosopher James Rachels. In the final chapter of his book, Problems from Philosophy, when contemplating his impending death, he wrote,
“After I die, human history will continue, but I won’t get to be part of it. I will see no more movies, read no more books, make no more friends, and take no more trips. If my wife survives me, I will not get to be with her. I will not know my grandchildren’s children. New inventions will appear, and new discoveries will be made about the universe, but I won’t ever know what they are. New music will be composed, but I won’t hear it. Perhaps we will make contact with intelligent beings from other worlds, but I won’t know about it. That is why I don’t want to die, and Epicurus’ argument is beside the point.”