God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
Meghan O'Gieblyn
Aug 2021 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Rebecca Lowman
5.0star
6 reviews
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9 hr 19 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate
“[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein
For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking.
Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
“[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein
For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking.
Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
6 reviews
Homeschool Historian
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May 3, 2023
This book kind of broke my brain. In a beautiful way.
About the author
MEGHAN O'GIEBLYN is a writer who was raised and still lives in the Midwest. Her essay collection, Interior States was published to wide acclaim and won the 2018 Believer Booker Award for Nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, Bookforum, n+1, The Believer, The Guardian, The Point, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere. She received a BA in English from Loyola University, Chicago and an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband.
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