The Myth of Instant Knowledge

For decades, economics has been about distributing scarce resources: first labor, then knowledge—both could be capitalized and turned into value. But what happens when knowledge is no longer scarce? When artificial intelligence, with a single click, offers answers to almost anything?

We are standing at the threshold of a new era—one that challenges not just the foundations of economics but also the role of time, creativity, and humanity itself. If everything can be answered instantly, what happens to the questions that require time, depth, and reflection?

AI is often celebrated as a catalyst for creativity and innovation. But in psyhotherapy, I frequently witness the opposite: clients losing touch with the patience and vulnerability required to think clearly, to heal, and to change. Even though AI may make us more knowledgeable, it does not make us wiser.

Instead, it amplifies the illusion of control and distances us from our very humanness, our vulnerability—that same vulnerability that reminds us of our mortality and opens the door to wisdom. Wisdom is born of experience, missteps, and the time it takes for insight to mature. It cannot be rushed—only lived and felt.

Ironically, artificial intelligence reveals an ancient truth: All intelligence is, in some sense, artificially crafted, shaped, and directed. Intelligence is not something we possess, but something we participate in. It’s not a static ability, but a dynamic process that unfolds through time, attention, and experience.

So, what can AI do, and what does it do to us?

AI can expand our horizons, but also reduce us to what the algorithm permits. Social media promises connection but often breeds division. It promises community, yet isolates us in echo chambers. Algorithms reflect our habits and emotions, reinforcing what we already know and closing us off to the unknown, the foreign, and the different.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called this habitus—the invisible structures that govern our dispositions and everyday choices. Algorithms intensify this mechanism, locking us deeper into our own patterns. When data takes over our emotions, we risk losing the freedom to think anew, feel differently, and act otherwise.

Here, philosophy offers an alternative: a poetic form of thinking that disrupts the obvious. Originally bound to poetry, philosophy generates the new. As Friedrich Nietzsche reminds us, the self is not a fixed core but an interpretation in constant motion. The poetic lies in the courage to challenge, in doubt, in the unexpected.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that therapy is a poetic practice—a sharing of what is not shared. Therapy, much like democracy, lives through difference, conflict, and creativity. But algorithms often reduce this beautiful complexity to predictability and profit. They undermine democracy (and mental health) not just by stripping us of the ability to reflect and choose but also by eroding the habits that once nurtured our freedom to doubt.

One of the greatest threats AI poses is not just its speed but also the loss of time that questions need to ripen.

British social psychologist Graham Wallas once described the stages of creativity: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The second stage—incubation—is when a question or problem rests quietly in the dark. It grows beneath the surface unconsciously. But we live in a culture where everything must happen now, and patience has vanished.

AI gives us answers but doesn’t teach us to ask better questions, to live with uncertainty, or to trust the unknown. As a teacher, I see how students grow accustomed to every problem being solvable with a click. They’ve forgotten how to let a question simmer, to sit with doubt. More than once, I’ve seen students become paralyzed by uncertainty. For them, frustration is no longer a creative force but an unbearable discomfort.

Philosophy doesn’t aim to simplify or remove life’s complexity—it asks us to embrace it. It’s about learning from encounters with the unknown and the other. It’s about discovering wisdom in the courage to stand exposed, open, and vulnerable.

What Western philosophy has always sought to protect—like a newborn—is freedom. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her Ethics of Ambiguity: “Freedom is the source from which all meaning and value spring.” This freedom is the foundation of both love and creativity. Only free people can love. Only free people can resist AI’s directives, because they can imagine another answer.

Philosophy interrupts the habits that keep us locked in the status quo—and opens us to life’s chaos, richness, and plurality. Where algorithms create surfaces, poetry weaves connections. Philosophy is a poetic force transforming our way of being—how we think, feel, and act.

In the face of algorithmic control, we lack more efficiency and resistance. The ability to resist the ideals that govern us is crucial. Algorithms may shape our habits and predict our choices, but they prevent us from transforming ourselves and inventing new ways of living.

Philosophy does not advocate for a life without error or a world without friction. It insists on freedom to imagine, love, and grow. A society without freedom cannot love. So we must ask: Do algorithms use love as control or inspiration?

Philosophy is not a solution. It is a practice—a counterweight to algorithmic streamlining. It reminds us that what makes us human is not speed or efficiency but the ability to fail, doubt, and recreate ourselves—the ability to love despite everything.

How do we become worthy of what happens, especially when what happens is often… nothing?

And yet, before the silence of the end, we experience love and loss, the uncertainty of choice, and the fear of the unknown. We experience grief and joy, bodily sensations we will never fully understand unless we learn to trust our own judgment.

Who needs a step counter, a sleep tracker, or a heart rate monitor—if they’ve lost touch with themselves?

AI may know everything. But it will never understand death—and its silence. Love—and its radiant joy of living. That’s why we must remember: Intelligence without wisdom isn’t human. It’s only artificial.

And if we forget this, we risk losing what makes us human: the experience of being alive.

This reflections was first publihsed in Psychology Today.

References:

Janning, Finn (2025) “Poetic Philosophy and the Moralization of Social Networks,”Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 2.

June 18, 2025

All I Want for Christmas Is …

Yes, Santa Claus exists, though perhaps not in the way many might initially think. The word “illusion” need not be understood as something false or deceitful. Rather, I propose that illusions are not false but instead possess a reality within their influence.

Allow me to clarify. I do not believe the world is a fixed, given entity. Nor do I believe in unchangeable certainties, aside from the inevitable reality of death. I challenge the reduction of empiricism to only what can be observed, weighed, or measured—to objects like chairs or tables, or distances calculated between them. Instead, I align with the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who argued that what we call “empirical” encompasses not only physical entities but also subjective phenomena: thoughts, hallucinations, or images. In this sense, illusions operate as forces within the real, enhancing and enriching our world.

Consider this perspective: Harry Potter, Santa Claus, unicorns, or flying dragons exist. Their existence is not confined to their physical presence but is affirmed by their capacity to shape understanding and evoke imagination. Harry Potter is as real as black holes. Or take money—a seemingly mundane piece of paper or a digital figure in your bank account. It derives its power from belief. I can exchange a five-Euro note for six beers or three roses because society collectively agrees upon its value. In this way, money is as real as Santa Claus. For many children, writing a letter to Santa Claus or waking to find gifts under the tree validates his presence. By participating in these rituals, parents indirectly confirm his existence.

The question of whether the world is an illusion taps into metaphysical considerations—a metaphysics of being versus one of becoming. As philosopher Karl Popper suggested, metaphysical questions cannot be conclusively proven. Instead, they are answered in ways that are more or less convincing, based on experience—an experience that can include illusions or hallucinations as valid phenomena.

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Practically speaking, our metaphysical stance has consequences. A rigid belief in a fixed, predetermined world often fosters a binary mindset: true versus false, right versus wrong. This rigidity may contribute to the divisive tendencies we observe in identity politics, moral exclusivity, and ideological fanaticism.

In contrast, a metaphysics of becoming is more dynamic and humble. It recognizes that potential, movement, hallucinations, and illusions are integral to shaping reality. They actualize possibilities, offering new ways to see and understand the world. Illusions, in this framework, are as impactful as science in driving change and innovation. For example, envisioning a flying car or a utopian society begins with imagining the seemingly impossible.

If life cannot be fully owned or grasped—as I believe—then our task is to create space for that which enriches and animates existence. Illusions, then, are not distractions or deceptions. They are vital forces that compel us to question, explore, and expand what is real.

So, when Mariah Carey sings, “Santa, won’t you bring me the one I really need?”she touches on something profound. It’s not merely a plea for love; it’s an invocation of the transformative power of belief. Santa Claus, like love, hope, and imagination, is as real as we allow him to be. He exists not in the fixed world of objects but in the dynamic realm of possibilities. Through such illusions, we shape our world and make it brighter, fuller, and richer.

First published in Psychology Today

December 14, 2024

Panpsychism

“Panpsychism is as old as philosophy itself,” write editors Godehard Brüntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla in their introduction to the anthology Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives. The editors present panpsychism as an alternative to analytic philosophy of the mind. Perhaps for this reason, all the essays in this anthology tend to be rather analytical.

The word “panpsychicism” is—like many words describing Western philosophical concepts—Greek in origin. “Pan” means “throughout” or “everywhere,” whereas “psyche” means soul, consciousness, or mind. Therefore, the term “panpsychism” refers to the idea that consciousness is everywhere, or that “mental being is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe.”

Panpsychism includes commentary by 17 authors within 16 essays placed within four subjects: the logical place of panpsychism, the varieties of panpsychic ontologies, panpsychicism and the combination problem (i.e., “How can microphenomenal properties combine to yield macrophenomenal properties?”), and panpsychism and its alternatives. All these essays elaborate on and argue for the thesis that mind, or consciousness, is part of the world; that is, that it exists throughout the universe.

The anthology can be read as a reflection on the current state of this discipline. It’s not an introduction for newcomers; rather, it is aimed at readers with a good knowledge of philosophy and its terminology—from graduate students to philosophy researchers. Or, more precisely, it is a collection of essays that often debate with one another, which can make it a dense reading experience. The tones of the essays swing between humility (most of them) and pretention. For example, David J. Chalmers, who has two excellent essays in this volume, writes, “…I will present an argument for panpsychicism. Like most philosophical arguments, this argument is not entirely conclusive, but I think it gives reason to take the view seriously. Speaking for myself, I am by no means confident that panpsychicism is true, but I am also not confident that it is not true.” Brüntrup simply states, “I am not claiming that a version of panpsychism is true. But I am claiming that it might be.” On the other hand, Strawson writes, “I’ll state the four propositions first in German because I like the way they sound in German … I’m not going to argue for them, but I’ll provide a few glosses.”

In addition to providing an overview of panpsychism, this book provides excellent examples of how to argue logically. It is an interesting field; just imagine this thesis being debated by serious philosophers half a century ago. For anyone remotely interested in consciousness, experience, and subjectivity, this book is required reading.

I will give the reader a few summarizing examples without introducing too much of the complex conceptual framework. Many essays touch upon the concept of “radical emergence,” which states that consciousness emerges out of nothing. Here, proponents of panpsychism make a strong case against this assumption, basically saying that it is scientifically weak to propose that something emerges from nothing. Nihil fit ex nihilo, nothing comes from nothing; this is a thesis that was apparently first presented by Parmenides. The French philosopher Michel Serres has also written about the Roman poet Lucretius, who in De Rerum Natura wrote, “Nothing can be made from nothing – once we see that’s so / Already we are on the way to what we want to know.”

However, the problem with radical emergence is that it does not integrate consciousness in nature. “Many say that experience (consciousness) is a mystery. But what is mysterious?,” asks Strawson. He then clarifies that for him, it is mysterious to suggest that consciousness appears by adding unconscious particles together. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that these particles must have consciousness to begin with. Still, there are disagreements surrounding the idea that everything—from rocks to the Eiffel tower to goats—is conscious.

Another example comes from examining the development of consciousness in a way similar to the examination of the evolutionary development of the human body. Just think of the classic image depicting the evolution from ape to man/woman. The point is that over many years, evolution has worked with the material of the body, gradually developing features such as specialized fingers, including the human thumb, which allows modern humans to text each other. Did something similar happen with consciousness? Was it always there, only to be further and further developed?

A third example is a classical problem that the panpsychists debate: the dualism between the mental and the physical, or to put it even more simply, the mind-body problem. What is the relationship between our bodies and our minds, experiences, and thoughts? If panpsychicism is the best alternative to Cartesian dualism, then this metaphysical approach—that mind is everywhere—eliminates all hierarchies, including the hierarchies between humans and animals and the hierarchies in between humans, whether we speak of gender or race. If even rocks have minds, then perhaps we should show greater care for nature. For far too long, hierarchies—often based on nothing more than ignorance—have justified oppression. Again, think of how women, African-Americans, and homosexuals have suffered.

Panpsychicism has gained a lot of momentum in the last decade, mainly because neuroscience, psychology, biology, philosophy, and physics have failed to solve the riddle of consciousness. I also assume that it has gained popularity due to growing interest in Eastern philosophy, including mindfulness and Buddhism, in which everything is thought to be connected, and consciousness is seen as a sixth sense that allows us to experience this interconnectivity. Thus, to simply restate the argument, panpsychists do not believe that consciousness is created in the brain; instead, as the definition says, they argue that consciousness is everywhere. By “everywhere,” many of the theorists mean that consciousness is present in everything, from the tinniest particle (i.e., micro-consciousness) to human beings and animals (macro-consciousness).

As the editors correctly say, this anthology “focuses on the philosophical—strictly speaking metaphysical—arguments that have evolved from panpsychicism.” It is the foundations of panpsychism that are debated within this anthology.

Let me end with a quote from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, who writes, “Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling or certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who never traveled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.”

While reading this anthology, I came to think of Russell’s comment about enlarging our thoughts and keeping our senses alive. I think this anthology succeeds in doing exactly that.

Review published in Metapsychology, Jun 29th 2017 (Volume 21, Issue 26).

July 5, 2017