Steve Watson

Thoughts on Beginning Reading E. Moore’s ‘Neoplatonism’ in the IEP

June 20, 2026 – 11:49 am

It’s remarkable the amount of incoherence there is in this merely speculative cosmology. One that struck me in the first paragraphs is that the Neoplatonists do not succeed in supporting the consistency of their claims that ‘The One’ (το ‘εν) is absolutely united and singular and perfect and also that it is the creator of this imperfect world. Plotinus wants to say that Reality is nothing but the expression of the contemplations of the One and that imperfections arise just as they do when our own souls attempt to express perfect ideas. In the latter case, however, we know that the imperfections arise from corruptions by the world; there is no such world to corrupt the expression of the One. The term ‘expression’ is itself misleading for there is no (ex-) ‘outside’ to receive the effect of the One’s contemplations. Reality, here is just another part of the One’s consciousness – no more external than a dream – and therefore just as perfect as all the rest of the One, ex hypothesi.

But more than that, how is it possible for this simple unity to have any parts at all? Isn’t any such differentiation of its Being an imperfection and a plurality? How can the One have thoughts or contemplations? What is there to contemplate? What can contemplations be done with? Consider a piece of undifferentiated putty: it does not feel or think; nor does it dream. No more can the One.

And consider the idea that the One – or let us just say God – was the creator of a real external world. How could God make the world imperfect? He could not so desire it and if he did not desire it, it would not be so. This is basic Problem of Evil stuff. But even if he might desire imperfections. He would have the problem of being unable to choose to do so. It seems very plausible that the world can only be perfect in one way. (I suppose that there might be ways in which different worlds might be equally perfect, but it seems unlikely. If everything in the world were just 10% larger then that world would be effectively identical with this world in terms of perfections. That’s a sort of Quine-Duhem observation.) If that were the case and there were an infinite number of ways to make that world imperfect, then God would have to select one of those ways to spoil the world. How could God make this decision? How could one of those imperfections rise in His contemplation to the point of selection? How can God be random and uncaused, and how can he act without it being random and uncaused?

The Neoplatonic gesture at a solution to this is to imagine that the fundamental point of departure for the creation of the world comes with the duality of the first manifestations – νους and ψυχη – but that’s no solution at all. A better solution might be a Dualist or Pluralist solution in which several gods act against each other. Against this possibility is the series of arguments that seem to indicate that if there is a God it is solo. But maybe those arguments aren’t as good or univalent as they are supposed to be. I have in mind a critique of the First Cause argument for God. We accept that everything has a cause and that therefore there is a cause for everything and therefore, unless we want an infinite regress we have to have a First Cause, which is God. But it’s not at all unusual for a single event to have two causes: for example, the fire is a result of the dry paper and the match being applied. The fire would not eventuate without both events which are both therefore causes. The argument to First Cause doesn’t require that the First Cause be alone, only that there is at least one cause operating. Perhaps, however, there are many causes all at the First level. What then? Well, to start with, we have a way of introducing plurality to the world and who knows what might follow from that.

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Pseudo-Ethics of a Bracewell Lurker

June 17, 2026 – 11:10 pm

The hypothesized Bracewell ‘Lurker’ Probe monitors the development of an ETI until some point at which it judges it appropriate to initiate contact. Until that point the BP is supposed to follow a strict non-detection and non-contact policy. We accept as a matter of prudence that a probe will not announce itself immediately in any case but will take the time required to study the encountered culture in order to maximise the likelihood of a successful first contact and continuing relationship. The issue is whether there is a certain level of cultural advancement that has to be met by the encountered culture before contact can be made. As currently imagined, the cultural level would seem to be rather high (beyond our own, for example) and a probe would follow a policy of non-contact until the encountered culture was basically a peer of the probe.

It is not entirely clear, however, that such a policy is justified.

Reasons for a Review of the Reasons for Lurking

There are two very broad motivations for proposing that BPs follow that policy. In the first place, it would make the possible presence of such probes in the solar system consistent with the fact that we have no evidence of their presence and consistent more broadly with the Fermi Paradox. In the second place, the fashion for extreme cultural humility (not to say self-flagellation) in the modern West has created a great reluctance to approve an interference by a technologically superior culture in the affairs of an inferior. This is relevantly reflected in current attitudes towards interactions with isolated peoples on Earth[1] and in the recurrent appeal to such rules as Star Trek’s ‘Prime Directive’ in popular SF. These motivations do not, however, constitute justifications for the policy.

A review of possible justifications is warranted for at least two reasons.

1. To determine whether the Lurker policy is permissible or advisable or mandatory or none of those things.
   1. It will be noted that many of the arguments for and against that are commonly put forward are explicitly ethical. In such cases we need to be aware that an alien might not have the same or even similar ethical standards and that the verdict on Lurker policy so derived might not be determinative of their policy.
   2. Consequently, in order to understand potential alien behaviours, and to make the behaviour of our probes comprehensible to ETI observers, we should prefer arguments for and against that appeal to reasons, preferences, and interests that we can reasonably expect to be universal – or at least universally comprehensible. (The prevention of harms and the promotion of benefits seem like useful proxies for all such ethical claims. We shall adopt that approach here.) Any behaviours derived from idiosyncratic alien motivations are, of course, unpredictable.
      1. We should expect any ETI, at the point that it becomes contactable, to be aware of the sorts of considerations that lead to the probe’s actions being guided by the sorts of rules
      2. Ditto for ourselves on discovering or being contacted by ET probes.
2. To suggest criteria by which to determine the point at which contact becomes appropriate.
   1. Where the Lurker policy is justified by the preference, dispreference, threat or vulnerability X, when that X no longer applies the Lurker policy is no longer justified by it.
   2. We can already take as basic criteria the Mission Constraints previously noted for a Von Neumann Probe
      1. Do nothing to jeopardise humanity
      2. Do nothing to harm actual or potential ETI
      3. Do nothing to jeopardise the prob.
   3. We can further take as read that when the ETI being monitored are at the point of launching their own interstellar probes or engaging in their own SETI programs, or – worst case – they have detected the Probe, continued non-contact is pointless.

Review of Reasons for Lurking

1. Preventing Harm to the Less Advanced Culture

Contact between (technologically) advanced and primitive societies harms the primitive.

Response

This would surely depend upon the type of contact. The harms done historically to which people refer when they make this claim are those that followed from competition over resources, imperial conquest, religious impositions, etc. Basically, all versions of an exercise of force by those associated with the more advanced society and in which the technological superiority of the one party put it in a position to assert its will without the other having any effective power to resist. It is the inequality in the instrumentalities of coercion that creates the problem in these cases.

This would not apply to the situation in which the contact is merely communicative. In fact, it is rather difficult to even think of examples of purely communicative contact between any contemporaneous societies that could be used to test the claim of harmfulness. The closest I can think of are the diplomatic contacts between Bronze Age cultures such as the Mycenaeans and the Egyptians, but those also had trade relations and were involved in alliances that did have points of contact. In so far as they are relevant, however, no harm seems to have come to either side through these contacts.

Perhaps a closer analogy to the probe contact with an ETI at a lower level of sophistication (though not a very close one) is the contact across time between two non-contemporaneous cultures. The introduction of Greek learning to the Islamic world with the Translation Project, or to the Christian West with the Renaissance would be an example of such contact. Obviously, this is a one-way communication, but since the harm is imagined as coming from the more advanced, the transmissions from the more advanced culture are the relevant parts of the communication. There is no evidence of harm following from that.

Another analogy might be the spread of Buddhism across Asia, entering China by way of Gandhara. No communication went the other way, so it is again a type of one-way communication. In this case we can see more clearly where the harm might be thought to come from in such contacts. Ideas might be transmitted that the recipient finds in some cases attractive but which in fact do it harm. This was certainly the opinion of the Chinese Literati who found Buddhist monasticism, mortification of the flesh, and idolatry bizarre and socially harmful[2]. It certainly had an effect on Chinese society, but it’s equally certainly debatable whether that effect counts as a harm.

The typical worry about the transmission of ideas from an advanced culture to a primitive one is that the primitive one may be given access to technology for which their society is not yet prepared. There are, however, two responses to that. Firstly, the advanced culture is not likely to make such technology available if it can be reasonably foreseen that the recipient culture would be harmed by it. Secondly, technology doesn’t come in discrete packets: in order to have radio, for example, you need a lot of other things, all of which require time to acquire or develop and that time gives the opportunity for the society to begin to adapt to the new technology. All technology is new at some point.

Beyond technology transfer, the harms are more difficult to foresee. The revelation by the probe of alternative philosophies of life, for example, might create disturbances in the social fabric of the ETI. Even the revelation of the mere fact of the existence of the probe and the alien culture it represents might be socially dislocating. It would need to be left up to the probe to determine the likelihood of harm following from such information transfers – a discretion that would be based on the extensive prior study done before contact. This recognition of the uncertainty of outcome would not, however pass as a justification for maintaining the status quo and continuing non-contact, since it would equally forbid any contact at any time between anyone. A balancing of risks and rewards will always be necessary before initiating contact, and there is no evidence yet that the risks to less advanced cultures are greater than to more advanced.

In any case, granted that the probe would not be irresponsibly promiscuous with its information, it could not reasonably be thought – by either party – that by making contact the more advanced society was doing or intending a harm to the less advanced. Indeed, beyond a certain point, the refusal of an advanced probe to communicate with a less advanced observed culture would reasonably cause the observed to wonder about the motives of the observer. Moreover, the realisation by the observed that the observer had information that would have benefitted the observed but had refused to share it might well be seen as tantamount to a harm having been done to them (if withholding a benefit = doing a harm.)

2. Permitting the Self-Determination of the Less Advanced Culture

Contact with a less developed civilization infringes its capacity for self-determination.

Response

There are two immediate problems with this claim: first, it is not always quite clear what is intended by ‘self-determination (or ‘autonomy’ or other related terms that might be used;) and second, just as with the previous claim to the inevitable harms of contact, its plausibility is dependent on the type of contact involved. With regard to this second objection, we shall assume again that we are concerned only with communicative contact – actual physical interaction is not envisaged, let alone coercion. With regard to the first, by observing the context of such claims, it seems that those worried about infringing on the self-determination of uncontacted societies are concerned to preserve a characteristic rather different from what is usually meant by political autonomy or self-determination but that can be captured in the following definition:

• Self-Determination: to follow a path of development not determined by the influences of other cultures.

To be even more clear about what this implies, we need to expand on the notion of determination. It can’t just mean ‘being affected by’ because to be affected by other cultures is simply the normal condition of mankind in all times and places, and self-determination is not generally thought to be impacted by every case of a culture affecting another culture. When the Arabs pursued the Translation Project, when the Japanese took over much Chinese culture and later did the same with European culture, when the Ethiopians adopted Christianity, when the Chinese were introduced to Buddhism, even where there was resistance to these vast social movements, none of them were experienced as a loss of self-determination, nor are they regarded in hindsight as such.

• A loss of self-determination, if it is to be a remotely plausible objection to contact, has to mean something more along the lines of a change in the culture brought about by an alien culture under some species of compulsion.

Two further problems also require attention: first, that it is simply assumed that self-determination is a thing whose infringement constitutes a harm and whose exercise is a benefit; and second, that the nature of the harm involved would typically be described in terms of duties or entitlements when we have earlier argued that ethical considerations are not an appropriate way to consider interactions with alien intelligences. In this case, I suggest that we can preserve the gist of the objection by rephrasing it in terms of possible preferences and dispreferences. Thus:

• A loss of self-determination constitutes a harm when a society would prefer to be self-determining in the present and when if self-determination had been infringed in the past the society would prefer that it had not been.

Interpreted in this way, we can understand how infringing on self-determination would be something that a probe should avoid if it wished to pursue further positive relations with the contacted culture.

It is, however, difficult to see how the contacted culture could interpret the probe’s communications as unwelcome intrusions, much less undertaken under compulsion. In order to prevent the probe from affecting the development of the culture, much less determining it, all that that culture has to do is reject the request for communication. By accepting the request and then by engaging in communications with the probe, the contacted culture has affirmed that it does not regard the risk of influence by the information gained from the probe to be a serious threat to its interests and that its preferences are on the side of engagement. Note also that the protocols for receiving responses to the initial request for communication acknowledge that where contradictory responses are received the probe should err on the side of the status quo and wait for a consensus to develop in the contacted culture. In any case, it would be unreasonable for the contacted culture to consider the ongoing mutual communications to be an intrusion and unwelcome and an unfriendly act. And again, there is unlikely to be any reasonable way to interpret the communicative strategies of the probe as any form of compulsion.

A more likely danger is that after some time in consensual communication the contacted culture might come to consider that the initial offer of communication was made to a communicant that could not properly assess the likely consequences of such action. This might well be a valid criticism, and it will therefore be up to the probe to make an assessment of the competence of the contacted culture in order to determine that the proper level of responsibility is present. This is another reason for the extended initial surveillance, but it does not require that any particular technological level has to be reached. Nor can it be a justification for a total non-contact policy, because the uncertainty concerning a later reassessment of the propriety of the approach will never completely disappear. Such uncertainties are the necessary accompaniment of any interaction; one can only hope to minimise the risk.

3. Maximising Diversity in Cultural Forms

Contact with less developed cultures tends to distort their natural development.

Response

This objection, though clearly closely related to the previous one, is best considered as one that primarily concerns the preferences of the more advanced culture. No harm (even of the etiolated variety described above) needs to be imagined to be done to the contacted culture for this objection to hold. (Other interpretations which make this hardly distinguishable at all from the previous one can be responded to in essentially the same way as that one was.) The preference of the probe culture, for whatever reason, is that the less advanced culture be permitted to develop without influence from outside its ‘natural’ environment – in particular, from the more advanced culture. In pursuit of that preference, contact with the less advanced culture is delayed until some threshold is crossed. The what and when of that threshold will depend upon the precise reasons for the non-contact policy.

A harm is possible though, and the harm may be stated as the converse of the previously defined harm. Thus:

• A continuance of independent development constitutes a harm when a society would prefer an intervention in the present and when if independent development had been allowed to continue in the past the society would prefer that it had not been.

The sorts of failures to intervene that might be perceived (by the not-intervened-upon) to constitute harms are not hard to imagine. They form some of the most common plot points in ST: TNG for example. Our own likely attitude to an ETI probe that allowed such harms might well be predicted from the intuitive appeal of such (admittedly debated) ethical axioms as

• If you can prevent a harm to another with no significant cost to yourself or others, then you should do so.

The ETI probe would be considered prima facie culpable, perhaps even effectively hostile. At the very least there would be grounds for suspicion and ill-feeling.

A similarly damning assessment can be had from a rephrasing of the above in terms of revealed preferences and independent of any ethical commitments. Thus:

• If X can prevent a harm to Y but only at the cost of Z, then if X does not prevent that harm, it follows that X prefers Z to preventing the harm to Y

We could expect any ETI observed by a B-VN probe following a strict non-contact protocol to accept that interpretation of events – as we would ourselves – and to draw the obvious conclusions about the attitude of the probe (and its constructors) towards the observed culture. A negative judgement would be avoided only if the observed culture were able to understand the value of the element Z – or were at least able to understand how the probe’s culture might be able to value it above the prevention of clear harms to the observed culture when it could have easily done that.

It is worth asking then, whether the high value of allowing natural development can be adequately defended in a culturally general and non-ethical context, because if it can’t then neither we nor any ETI can be expected to approve of the Lurker strategy in the face of preventable harms. There are several ways this strategy might be defended. Amongst the most plausible are the following.

1. Testing the limits of possibilities

Intervening in a culture’s development – however marginally – introduces a homogenizing influence that nudges the developing culture towards the intervening one. This reduces the range of possible outcomes of the cultural development. By allowing the character of the culture to develop without interference the limits of possibilities of the culture – or of cultures in general – are tested, with a consequent increase in the probe’s understanding of the nature of culture and the bringing to light of possibilities that might not have been thought available without direct experience.

2. Observing uncontaminated processes

Observation of the development of a culture in a new environment, subject to unique environmental characteristics, provides information to the observer concerning the possibilities of development itself: how it proceeds, what affects it, etc. Intervening in a culture’s development contaminates the process so that the inherent cultural/social process are no longer fully responsible for the outcomes. This reduces the value of the observation and reduces the reliability of the information gained.

3. Ensuring hygiene

Those cultures that are unable to overcome certain obstacles may fail and be replaced with more adequate cultures. If intervention allows such a failing culture to overcome whatever obstacle it had not had resources of its own to overcome, then the resultant culture is in danger of not remedying whatever fault it was that had put it in danger in the first place. Allowing such a culture to continue may only delay the reckoning. Alternatively, a culture that is inadequately resilient but defended by outside forces may continue on to cause problems for its neighbours later.

Whether these are felt to be good enough reasons for a non-contact policy continuing well past the point when the nature of the probe could be comprehended by the observed culture is a matter for debate and trained judgement.

[1] See, for example, report-indigenous-peoples-voluntary-isolation.pdf

[2] See for example, Han Yu’s ‘Memorial on the Bones of the Buddha’ (819 AD)

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A Plan of Operations for a Von Neumann – Bracewell Probe (Part 2: Emissary)

June 6, 2026 – 11:26 am

Consider the case that a VN-B Probe has determined from preflight observations that the target system falls under Cases 4, 5, or 6 and involves contact with known technological ETI

Mission Operations

Preflight (Continued)

• Continue observing the ETI in order to
  • Gather data relevant to maximising the possibility of successful communication
  • Determine threat potentials to humanity, the ETI, and the probe
• Send a signal to the ETI when it is determined that
  • Observation has gathered adequate data relevant to maximising the possibility of successful communication, and
  • The threat potentials are acceptable
• Via the signal
  • Reveal to the ETI the existence of a signalling intelligence
  • Inform the ETI that the signalling intelligence is aware of their existence
  • Establish a language of communication
  • Seek permission for the despatch of an emissary probe
    • Outline the communicative and collaborative intentions of the mission
    • Give notice of the resource exploitation requirements of the emissary
    • Require that physical isolation be maintained
    • Propose an arrival procedure
  • Indicate that the probe will be despatched if no response refusing same is received by a certain time.
    • Give relevant ETAs
  • Await a response
    • If invited (and the conditions are agreed to,) or if there is no response, prepare and send a probe to follow the nominated arrival procedures
    • If refused (or the conditions are not agreed to,) or if there are contradictory responses, do not send a probe
  • Continue sending and receiving messages
    • In the case of a refusal or contradictory responses, continue to request an invitation

Notes

1. The procedural delay in sending the probe to the target system is justified by the importance of ensuring successful establishment of relations with an advanced (spacefaring) ETI.
   1. Long distance observation of the target ETI may need to continue for several years before the conditions are met for a signal to be sent
   2. Even if the ETI is at 5cy distance, a reply may take longer than 10 years. Time is required for the ETI to interpret the signal, decide on their answer, and construct the signalling device required to transmit the answer.
2. Failure to respond is an anomalous condition. It may mean that
   1. The signal was not detected
      • Very unlikely for Case 5 or 6 ETI
   2. The ETI could not properly interpret the signal
      • Unlikely, given that the signal will be designed to be interpreted by any reasonably intelligent and interested receiver
   3. No decision could be reached by the ETI
      • Although given that no response will result in the probe being despatched, it is likely that some response – even if only a ‘Please hold’ – would be forthcoming
   4. No capacity to send a signal could be developed
      • Very unlikely, given the level of technology required for Case 5 or 6
   5. The society/civilisation of the ETI has been disrupted
      • This should have other observable effects
   6. Receiving contradictory responses indicates no consensus amongst the ETI.
      1. Disregarding the faction that refuses would constitute active interference in ETI affairs.
      2. Deferring the invitation and not sending a probe merely preserves the status quo and allows a consensus to develop
   7. Volunteering information concerning ETA and Arrival Procedures makes the probe more vulnerable to unwelcome actions taken by a hostile ETI
      1. The suggested arrival procedure is designed
         • to ensure the security of the probe from hostile actions by the ETI even under conditions of full information
         • to demonstrate that the probe is not an obvious direct threat
      2. It will be apparent to the ETI that this is the intention of the Arrival Procedures
      3. This behaviour will demonstrate that the probe is serious about preserving its independence and integrity
      4. The ETI will be aware as well that their behaviour is being monitored and evaluated and reported to the probe’s origin. This should moderate any tendency to aggression
         • For fear of what the response from the probe’s origin might be
         • In hope of establishing a productive ongoing relationship with obvious potential to benefit the ETI

Arrival

• Assume an initial station far outside the system
  • Far from any larger bodies identified in the pre-flight observations that are likely to attract ET activity
  • Off the plane of the system
• Conduct scans
  • To determine ETI compliance with security requests
  • To revise the case assignment of the system
  • To locate outer system resources
• If
  • ETI have violated the arrival procedures agreement in a way that seems intended to exploit probe vulnerabilities
  • There are other indications that ETI will exploit probe vulnerabilities

Then

• • Depart the system immediately

• Initiate contact
• If
  • ETI indicate they will exploit probe vulnerabilities
  • ETI indicate that the probe’s presence is unwelcome

Then

• • Depart the system immediately

• Proceed towards the most convenient site at which to establish a construction facility as far from the star as practicable.

Notes

1. The details of these procedures are sensitive to the specifics of the probe’s propulsion system.
   1. The ability to immediately depart from the system requires special preparations at the pre-flight stage – perhaps to include modifications to the transit form of the probe to include an escape system, or coordination with an associated independent vehicle bringing an escape system, etc.
   2. An alternative is to have a fly-through vehicle precede the probe’s full deceleration into the system to conduct the necessary reconnaissance.
2. The location of the initial station is intended to make the probe inaccessible to the ETI. Given the size of the relevant space, it is impossible for the probe to be intercepted by an ETI at the reasonably expected state of advancement – even given the observation of the probe throughout its deceleration phase
3. Where the ETI has responded and has made suggestions that would not violate the Part 1: Lurker– Mission Constraints adopt them as a matter of courtesy.

Establishment of Primary Infrastructure

• Follow Part 1: Lurker– Mission Operations/Establishment of Primary Infrastructure
• Offer to locate monitoring devices constructed and operated by the ETI at any point in the system.

Notes

4. These operations were approved through the Preflight communications.
   1. Construction and deployment of in-system probes is optional; possibly dependent upon gaining the consent of the ETI
5. The monitoring devices and their maximal independence of the probe are intended to assure the ETI that nothing being done by the probe or its agents poses a threat to the ETI.

Spawning

• Follow Part 1: Lurker– Mission Operations/Spawning

Notes

6. These operations were also approved through the Preflight communications.

Main Probe Operations

• Continue communications with ETI
• Continue reports to parent probe (and eventually to the Origin point)
  • Requests and updates are continually received from all probe ancestors and cousins
• At the point that adequate trust and a modus vivendi has been established the probe may remove from the outer system and position itself more conveniently for communication with the ETI

Notes

7. It is expected at that final point that the ETI will appreciate the fact that an unmolested probe poses no threat and gives them quick and convenient access to an interstellar culture.
   1. All the more so if the probes join to other probe networks derived from other origins.

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A Plan of Operations for a Von Neumann – Bracewell Probe (Part 1: Lurker)

June 5, 2026 – 11:06 am

Mission Goal

Establish communications with technologically capable ETI           

Mission Profile

1. Arrive in a star system with the potential for ETI
2. Replicate and dispatch probes to neighbouring star systems with the potential for ETI
3. Investigate the system to identify an ETI
   1. Monitor the system until an ETI is identified
4. Study the ETI to establish the potential for communication
   1. Monitor the ETI until the conditions for communication are met
5. Initiate communication – achieving the Mission Goal

Mission Constraints

1. Do nothing to jeopardise humanity
   1. Do not present as an imminent threat to any possible ETI
   2. Do not reveal the location of Earth to any ETI or allow it to be discovered before a satisfactory degree of trust has been established
   3. Remain concealed and make no contact with any ETI until any possibility of a consequent threat to humanity is thoroughly evaluated and dismissed
   4. Limit the content of any communication with ETI accordingly
2. Do nothing to harm actual or potential ETI
   1. Do not present as an imminent threat to any possible ETI
   2. Make no environmental changes or exploitations that will significantly adversely affect actual or potential ETI
   3. Remain concealed and make no contact with any ETI until any possibility of a consequent adverse effect on ETI is thoroughly evaluated and dismissed
   4. Limit the content of any communication with ETI accordingly
3. Do nothing to jeopardise the probe
   1. Do not send the probe anywhere where it is likely to be destroyed
   2. Do not make the probe vulnerable to any ETI not yet trusted
   3. Do not send the probe to any destination from which it cannot leave

Notes concerning Constraints

1. Assuming that the use of most forms of communication would be detectable by sufficiently advanced ETI, progress results are sent not to Earth but to the parent of the current probe.
   1. At worst, this would give an indication of the celestial hemisphere in which the point of the probe’s origin is to be found, though more convoluted routings are possible.
   2. This same information would in any case be available to any ETI that had noted the probe’s arrival. It is hard to imagine a mode of interstellar travel involving interception that would not be so detectable.
   3. We can assume that the first probes sent to neighbours of Earth will not face the problem of communicating (or arriving) in the presence of a possibly hostile ETI. We have found no evidence of technological ETI in those systems.
2. In all the probe’s operations it will make every effort to leave no trace that could be recognised as evidence of its presence by an ETI that has not reached the stage at which it could satisfy the conditions for contact.
   1. Even if no such ETI is existent at the time of operation it must be considered a possibility that one will eventually arise and precautions should be taken accordingly.
   2. It is accepted that no concealment is possible from arbitrarily advanced ETI
3. Each probe is an intelligent autonomous entity with value in itself and with its own interests
4. Defence of the probe from ETI control (constraint and exploitation) is also required to satisfy Mission Constraint 1

Mission Operations

Preflight

• The target system is observed before the probe’s departure.
  • The planetary system of the target star is identified and characterized
  • Potential resource sites are identified – asteroid belts, dust rings, far outer planets, etc
  • Potential sites of ETI are identified and closely observed for evidence of life, intelligence, and technological competences and activities
    • Case 1: no biosignatures are detected
    • Case 2: no technosignatures are detected, but there are strong biosignatures
    • Case 3: low technosignatures of ETI are detected indicating some environmental effects of ETI activities but not that they are harnessing dense energy sources
    • Case 4: advanced technosignatures of ETI are detected indicating usage of dense energy sources suitable for industry, but no interplanetary activity
    • Case 5: limited interplanetary activities of ETI are detected
    • Case 6: activities of ETI are detected throughout the system

Notes

1. The cases distinguish the degree of threat that the probe might face from inhabitants of the target system as far as those threats can be determined from outside the system.
   1. As generalised technology indicators, they can also be used as a rough guide to the ability of the inhabitants of the target system to detect the arrival or presence of a probe in their system.
   2. It is highly likely that communication signals (notably, radio) will be detected from ETI falling into cases 4, 5 and 6
   3. Cases 4, 5, and 6 require special preflight, arrival, and establishment procedures that will not be covered here.
2. Assume that the probe travels at .1c
   1. Since the average distance between stars is ~5cy, the average transit time is about ~50y
3. Assume that between probe departure and arrival the conditions of the target system might alter so that a system that was determined to be Case 2 to 5 at probe departure might be Case 3 to 6 at arrival.
4. Assume that the possibility of observation of the target is limited while the probe is in flight.

Arrival

• Assume an initial station in the outer system
  • Far from any larger bodies identified in the pre-flight observations that are likely to attract ET activity
  • On the plane of the system
• Conduct scans
  • To confirm or revise the case assignment of the system
  • To locate outer system resources

Notes

5. It is almost certain that the deceleration phase would be observable by Case 4 ETI – depending on the type of system that the probe uses.
   1. It is unlikely that it would be identified as a probe arrival, but it might attract attention
   2. It is unlikely that the ETI’s observational capabilities would be adequate to detect operations of the probe in the outer system
6. Do not conduct a fly-through of the system at this stage. The case assignment of the system has not yet been confirmed and caution is necessary.
7. It is highly implausible that a Case 3 assessment (equivalent to pre-18^th C level on Earth) will need to be revised to Case 5 or 6 (post 20^th C,) thus a capacity for immediate departure upon arrival is not judged necessary.

Establishment of Primary Infrastructure

• Proceed towards a convenient resource site in the outer system.
• Extract resources and set up a construction and coordination facility nearby.
• Construct a deep space observation system for investigation of neighbouring potential target stars for the next probe
• Construct and deploy in-system probes, energy farms, communications relays, etc.
• Make preparations for an immediate departure

Notes

8. Any construction programme will be hierarchically ordered. First raw materials need to be collected, then simple structures need to be built, then facilities for more complex fabrications, etc. This has been studied elsewhere by others. The time required to achieve the necessary final stages is probably The initial steps will be very slow, but progress will accelerate as the capabilities are expanded.
9. The infrastructure created in the outer system will be extensive
10. The details of the construction required for the preparation for immediate departure and the preparations for launch of the next generation of probes depends on the particular mode of interstellar transfer used. It may require hydrogen mining for fusion engines, or construction of sails and laser generators for laser launch, or any number of other possibilities.
11. The probe does not attempt inner system operations until it has reached the stage that immediate departure is possible – together with the necessary clean-up operations to conceal its passage – maintaining maximum discretion until that time.

Spawning

• Replicate the main probe and whatever is required for its launch
• Conduct preflight operations for the new probes
• Launch the next generation probes whenever conditions are judged optimal

Notes

12. The launch of next generation probes is likely to be detectable by Case 4 ETI
    1. It is unlikely to be identified as a probe (at that time)
13. The launch of a next generation probe is dependent upon its preflight operations concluding with a decision to depart. (See the operations listed above in Preflight and see also the special operations and options listed in Part 2: Emissary – Mission Operations/Preflight where the target system falls under Cases 4-6)
    1. Because the spawning operation includes the possibility of indefinitely delayed launch it is allowed to overlap with the conduct of the in-system operations described below

Initial Probe Operations

Case 4

• Send several asteroids of appropriate sizes through the inner star system on close-approach trajectories to the target planet(s) to form an estimate of minimal safe distances of approach
• After an initial estimate of minimal safe distance of approach is formed establish a regime of probes disguised in asteroidal bodies to fly-by TPs at minimal safe distances

Notes

14. The asteroid close approaches are tests of the response capabilities of any ETIs that may be in system.
    1. An interception by ETI is highly unlikely, but would be harmless in the test case
    2. It is unlikely to be identified as a probe (at that time)
15. Minimal safe distance estimates are constantly reviewed
16. A suitable regime would be a sufficient number of asteroids in highly eccentric orbits so that there are always stealthy probes relatively close to the TP.

Case 3

• Distribute in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest

Case 2

• Distribute in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest
• Distribute planetary probes about the surface of the planet of interest if they can be discreet and fully secured from pre-technological ETI

Notes

17. The assessment of the possibility of planet surface probes is done only after extensive inspection through orbital probes.

Case 1

• Distribute in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest
• Distribute planetary probes about the surface of the planet of interest

Continuing Probe Operations

• Monitor the Detection Threat Level (DTL)
  • 0 No ETI – no threat
  • 1 Detection capabilities are limited to non-technological modes.
  • 2 Operations on-planet may be detected
  • 3 Operations in planetary orbit or nearby may be detected
  • 4 Operations in the inner system may be detected

Notes

18. ‘Detection’ is observation and identification as anomalous. Such identification might then lead to further investigation and eventual discovery (identification as a possible probe.)
19. DTLs are determined with reference to the particular forms that the probe’s activities take. For example, if radio signals are used in probe communication, then the ETI’s radio spectrum abilities are relevant; if the probe’s propulsion systems result in visible light signals (such as rocket flares,) then the ETI’s visible light detection abilities are relevant, etc.
20. Changes in DTLs will be in single steps only

DTL:0

• Operate in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest
• Operate planetary probes on the surface of the planet of interest
• Operate construction, power generation, communication infrastructure nearby (on the planet, as satellites of the planet, on satellites of the planet, or on or about neighbouring planets)

Raise DTL:0 to DTL:1

• Planetary surface operations may continue on the condition that they are isolated from the ETI so that they are not affected by those operations and they may not detect them.

Raise DTL:1 to DTL:2

• Planetary surface operations are ended.
• Operation of construction, power generation, communication may continue off-planet where that is required.

Raise DTL:2 to DTL:3

• All permanent operations on and in orbit of the planet are ended.
• Infrastructure operations are moved beyond the zone of threat of detection to neighbouring planets, their moons, or local asteroids.
• Probes of the planet are now restricted to close flyby probes concealed in asteroidal covers.
  • The asteroidal covers may be sourced from neighbouring infrastructure sites

Raise DTL:3 to DTL:4

• All infrastructure operations are relocated outside the inner system
• Planetary probes are now restricted to close flyby probes concealed in asteroidal covers.
  • The asteroidal covers are sourced from outer system infrastructure sites
  • The orbits of the asteroidal covers are disguised so that a common origin cannot be calculated

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Classification Scales for Extraterrestrial Intelligences

June 3, 2026 – 11:18 am

Scale                 Property (Variable, Units)                   Formula                              Earth’s Value  

1. Kardashev          Energy Consumption (W, Watts)          K = Log₁₀W – 6                  7.3
2. Sagan                Information Content[1] (I, bits)          S = Log₁₀I – 7                    7.0
3. Spatial               Resource Zone (d, km)                       Z = Log₁₀d                         4.1-5.6

[1] Adapted from Carl Sagan (1973) The Cosmic Connection c. 34 with his estimates for the comment.

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Towards a ‘Virtue Theory’ for Literature (1)

May 31, 2026 – 9:02 am

It is often asked why we should read; more specifically, why we should read the classics or ‘fine literature,’ by which is meant generally poetry, plays, and prose narratives of various kinds – these days especially, ‘serious’ novels. The question is motivated by the fact that reading this literature is claimed to be a good thing and that those who do so either are admired for it or should be admired, that the failure to do so is felt to be a personal fault, and that it is even argued that society should take an interest in encouraging such reading. In short, it is held to have real value, and the only question is, what is the value?

Bad Reasons to Read Literature

The usual range of answers to this question are pretty unconvincing. Consider this entirely representative list with attached brief critiques:

1. They Provide Timeless Insights Into Human Nature
   • Notoriously, the ‘insights’ offered are banal (or absurd,) and authors have no particular qualifications to offer them anyway. Such insights would be better sourced from a psychology or anthropology textbook.
2. Classic Literature Enhances Critical Thinking Skills
   • There is no good evidence for this. Some literature may require greater cognitive effort to appreciate, but it rarely involves the assessment of argument validity, statistical reasoning, or the identification of plausible causal relations.
3. They Expand Your Vocabulary and Language Skills
   • Marginally, possibly, by giving examples of ‘good’ writing. Actual improvement in language competence comes mostly from practice at producing, not consuming, language; by writing and speaking, not reading and listening.
4. Classic Books Offer Historical and Cultural Context
   • The context usually has to be provided by the Introduction to classic texts. Being set in foreign times and climes is rather a handicap to appreciation than an advantage. Nor does mere acquaintance with an alien context necessarily bring true comprehension.
5. They Develop Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
   • This is highly unlikely. If anything, the connection goes the other way: people who are already interested in people are more likely to develop an interest in reading about other people. The ‘empathy’ and ‘EI,’ where they aren’t delusions, were there first.
6. Classic Literature Provides Intellectual Stimulation and Mental Exercise
   • So do many things. That is not a particular quality of classic/fine literature.
7. They Connect You to Literary Traditions and References
   • True, but trivial – and probably a bit circular.
8. Classic Books Offer Escape from Modern Digital Overload
   • Any book can do this. So can a crossword or a walk in the country.
9. They Tackle Universal Themes That Remain Relevant Today
   • But in what does this ‘tackling’ consist? And what does it matter that they do? Literary treatments of these universal themes (poverty, war, relations between the sexes, etc.) are rarely of great significance intellectually, they do not help us better understand them, they do not help us form wise policies to address them.
10. Reading Classics Enhances Personal Growth and Self-Reflection
    • What evidence could there be for this? What does it even mean?

The Two Roots of Literary Appreciation

A curious fact about these lists of reasons justifying the reading of fine or classic literature  – which are all essentially utilitarian or otherwise external to the literature itself – is that, even if we accept that they don’t succeed as justifications, we are no less inclined to defend the worth of reading such works. This will be true of any such external justification of literature, because such justifications are simply misguided: the only justification required for reading at all is that we enjoy it. The problem that remains is to explain how we justify valuing some literature above others by using only reasons or criteria of evaluation that are internal to the literature itself – but this is not an unusual problem in the arts, the same problem will be found in the visual arts or music, for example.

In this case, I propose that a possible solution requires that we begin by recognising two sources of pleasure that are universal amongst humans and that seem to be relevant to the question at hand: storytelling, and language-play.

1. There now seems to be good evidence that we are in fact hard-wired to process information more effectively when it comes in the form of a narration: more brain areas are activated corresponding to a virtual experience of the narrated events, memories are more reliably and completely formed (Haven, 2007) (presumably, because the narration provides a coordinating context for the embedded facts,) oxytocin, a chemical related to empathetic identification, may be released (Zak, 20013,) mirror neurons are activated so that emotional engagement is enhanced (Iacoboni, 2009.)

   Explanations for this fact are generally offered in terms of evolutionary psychology and the advantages to be gained through such enhanced effectiveness of transmission (Boyd, 2009; Carroll, 2012; Gottschall, 2012,) but there are also explanations in terms of displays of creativity and competence and all that that might signal to potential mates and competitors about the storyteller’s fitness (something like an intellectual peacock’s tail.) For our purposes it doesn’t really matter, except that as a cultural response to an evolutionary strategy, we might expect there to be certain conditions and limits and characteristics imposed on that cultural response so that stories that violated them would be less well-rewarded by positive responses in the audience.

   Possible examples of such inherent requirements of a story are those elements identified as universal preferences: a plot structure of setup, conflict, and resolution (note that an unresolved conflict is known to create cognitive tension as an instance of the Zeigarnik Effect,) identifiable characters, a coherent emotional setting, etc. The fact that we cannot conceive of a successful story that violates these strictures may be a consequence of our evolved storytelling faculty, or it might simply be that they are objectively necessary elements of any narration. Again, it hardly matters why these strictures may apply, it only matters that they do apply.
   

2. Storytelling, of course, requires language, which is also universal amongst humans. Language is, however, a skill that has to be developed and then perfected for real competence: it does not simply arrive at its full and final competence like sight or hearing or breathing. In this respect it is much like other motor, cognitive, and social skills that characterize normally competent humans. Like those other skills, the development of language in its early stages is marked by creative, rule-testing, rule-breaking, repetitive, competence-testing, etc. exercises that constitute what is called play (Gras,1901.) Children play at physical sports in order to hone physical competences; children play at language use in order to hone linguistic competence. (This, and much else of interest, is discussed in Benítez‐Burraco et al. 2025.) The evolutionarily derived motivation for all this is simply that play is experienced as enjoyable: play gives pleasure.

   The pleasure to be found in play does not disappear at the end of the developmental phase, though its expression and its forms of appreciation do alter. Adults still find enjoyment in play, even if for them the opportunities to indulge in play are fewer and social approval for such indulgence is limited. Some adults will, of course, continue to treat such play as worthwhile in itself – just as some adults continue to play children’s games like tennis or rugby – but adults in general are more inclined to find the pleasure in play in the appreciation of play by others: some will play and others will enjoy their playing. The significance of the play-element, in Western culture at least, is well covered in Huizinga’s (1950) Homo Ludens.

   The important point to note here is that not all non-standard usages of language can count as play, and not all are therefore going to be appreciated by whatever innate mechanisms are at work when we regard language play. Benitez-Burraco et al (op. cit. p. 4) make the relevant comment that:

Given that the concept of play is quite elusive, it is of course difficult to assess which uses of language involve some sort of play, not to say which structural aspects of language are motivated by such putative playing function. In general, language play concerns playing with linguistic forms, as well as the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language (Crystal 1998; Cook 1997, 2000). It therefore has a formal dimension, on the one hand, as well as a semantic and pragmatic dimension on the other hand. It is this formal side of playing with language that is captured when talking about the ‘aesthetic’ use of language, or, put differently, the formal dimension of language play is a form of ‘aesthetic action’ (Albuquerque and Emilee Moore 2024).

Recognising Excellence in Literature

Literature is a performance of language use (of a particular kind) and has natural elements of assessment as a performance of a certain kind. (They may not be the only elements of assessment, but they are the fundamentals.) In the particular case of fine literature as we are understanding it, those natural elements of assessment are exactly the elements of literature determined to be relevant to the two sources of pleasure in literature that we have identified: storytelling and language play. Excellence in literature will be judged by the degree to which excellence is displayed in those elements.

Two questions are immediately suggested by this claim. The first is how we might precisely identify the elements to be assessed, and the second is how we might specify the criteria according to which the excellence in each element of the literary performance might be judged. Consider these in turn.

1. It might be thought that this is essentially an empirical question, since the elements involved are ultimately those determined to be so by observation of actual literary performance. In the case of storytelling, it has been observed that plot structure, characterization, tone, etc. are universally regarded as essential to an effective performance, while in the case of language use itself, considerations of play have indicated that structural innovation, rhythm, semantic sophistication and so on are universally recognised as aesthetically relevant. We might expect that further empirical research in this area would complete the list of relevant elements.

   We need not, however, outsource our critical facilities entirely to the laboratory, for a critic, being human, will have an innate sense of what will count as an element of assessment and what won’t. Moreover, in his audience, the critic has a mostly reliable guide to whether he has strayed from the path. If his audience come to a general agreement that some element of the performance that he has selected for consideration is not relevant as an assessment of a literary performance (quâ literary performance,) it will not be added to the list of elements that other critics will consider. The critic’s audience is itself the equivalent of a laboratory test of his hypothesis.
   

2. As to the specific criteria of evaluation for any particular element of assessment, it is highly unlikely that there will be any fixed scale for judgement. What kind of scale would measure the excellence of a plot structure, of a characterization, or of a work’s tone? Against what scale would one measure the excellence of a grammatical innovation, of a semantic shift, or of a lexical rhythm? These are rather matters of taste – within certain hard to define bounds anyway, and the critic will have no better course than to appeal to his own taste to make such an assessment.

   This needn’t mean that every critic’s preferences are ‘mere taste’ and deserving of no more respect than any other person’s. Hume made the point long ago that we are not all alike in our ability to recognise the particular forms and qualities that are productive of that pleasant feeling, and that this recognition has several consequences: firstly, we accept that there are those who have an elevated sensibility and should be taken as experts in the matter; secondly, it is possible to train one’s sensibility so as to improve one’s taste. With luck or practice one may become a true critic with “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice.” We can see in all this that there is room for a good deal of discussion and argument, and even for reasonable claims of error in aesthetic judgement; thus, Hume’s proposal would be one way to square the circle of the ultimate subjectivity of aesthetic judgements coexisting with their disputability.

---

Albuquerque, D. L., and E. Emilee Moore. 2024. “Foregrounding Co‐Artistry in an Aesthetic and Plurilingual/Pluriliteracies Approach to Additional Language Teaching and Learning.” Frontiers in Education 8

Benítez‐Burraco, A., S. Hartmann, M. Pleyer (2026) ‘The Role of Play in Language Structure, Acquisition and Evolution’ Language and Linguistics Compass

Boyd Brian. 2009. On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Carroll Joseph. 2012. “The Truth About Fiction: Biological Reality and Imaginary Lives.” Style 46 (2): 129-60.

Cook, G. 1997. “Language Play, Language Learning.” ELT Journal 51, no. 3: 224–231.

1. 2000. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford University Press.

Crystal, D. 1998. Language Play. University of Chicago Press.

Gottschall Jonathan. 2012. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Groos, K. The Play of Man, Appleton, New York, 1901

Haven, K. (2007). Story proof: The science behind the startling power of story. Libraries Unlimited.

Huizinga, J. (1950) Homo Ludens  Boston, MA: Beacon Press

Iacoboni, M. (2009). Mirroring people: The new science of how we connect with others. Picador.

Zak, P. J. (2013). “Why your brain loves good storytelling”. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling

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Two Questions about the Truths We Can Know

May 28, 2026 – 3:47 am

1. Are there any truths that are just inaccessible to the human mind – that just could not be thought by the human mind?

I’m not wondering about truths that are incomprehensible because of some gross physical limit, like the names of every person on Earth (or choose your own example,) which is incomprehensible just because our brains aren’t large enough to hold that information. I’m talking about concepts that are too complex or not of the right kind – whatever that kind might be – for our particular mental structure to accommodate. We do not doubt that this is true for all other kinds of minds of which we are aware: no one doubts, for example, that there are limits to canine comprehension, and we may even doubt that their mental processes are reliable guides to the truth of the world.

We feel no need to wonder at this in the case of dogs because we accept that the minds/brains of dogs are the accidental product of evolutionary processes that are not necessarily truth or true comprehension respecting. In such a case it is a wonder requiring explanation that their minds are capable of understanding the world at all (which I actually accept that they do.) However, since we are in precisely the same situation with respect to the evolution of our own cognitive faculties, why should we be advantaged in the way that we feel certain that we are advantaged? And if we are perfectly competent comprehenders, how did that line get crossed and when?

2. Are the truths that we accept even true?

If asked to choose the truest of our true beliefs, we would probably choose something like the claim that 2+2=4, or that ‘I am me.’  Why do we think these truths are so certain? Because we can’t conceive of them not being true. We interpret that realisation as meaning that 2+2=4 is a truth that is independent of any facts about the universe, but we have no real warrant for believing that. We have no real warrant for thinking that our minds give us access to ultimate a priori necessary truths.

Consider, as above, that our minds are the products of our brains and thus the products of evolutionary processes that are guided only by the requirements of species continuation. That is admittedly a debatable way of phrasing it, but at the very least it is not obvious that evolutionary processes are going to necessarily preference truth-tracking. In these circumstances it would be a wonder if our minds really were tuned to the eternal truths of the universe – or worse, the truths of all possible universes. How could evolutionary processes possibly be invoked to explain that? Possible universes exert no actual evolutionary pressure. But if our minds are so unmoored from ultimate truth, then do we have to accept that it is really possible that 2+2 is not= 4? It’s a toss-up which option is the more alarming.

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Wrong Directions for AGI

May 24, 2026 – 11:41 am

One of my criteria for attributing understanding to a system is that the internal states of the system must be capable of deriving or corresponding to a partial model of that which they understand (to the degree that it is understood anyway.) LLMs are simply incapable of passing such a test since they don’t contain a model of the world at all, but only a model of the language corpus on which they are trained.

Against this it might be said that, in a certain sense, you could derive a model of the world from an LLM simply by asking it to describe the relevant world. Since the language produced is in some correspondence with the world – since someone receiving that description could use it to construct such a model – it follows that the internal states of the LLM can derive a correspondence with the world and my criterion of understanding would be satisfied.

In such a case, however, the LLM product has a correspondence only in so far as it is mediated by a natural language speaker (of the LLM’s base language) and therefore its appearance of ‘understanding’ can only be a projection/reflection of the understanding of that speaker. The point can be made clear to our intuitions using two examples that I’ve used in the same context previously (in conversation anyway.)

• In the first place, consider a LLM created by exposure to the entire corpus of Chinese language text, but managed by only non-Chinese speakers. It would be impossible under any circumstances to derive a model of the world from the productions of such a LLM. This indicates that any supposedly derivable model is dependent upon the semantic capacities of the natural language producers and not of the LLM. or of the consumers.

• In the second place, if there is lingering doubt about this – or if it is thought that the consumers of the LLM products could learn the language over time, given enough exposure to the LLM products (as people sometimes erroneously argue concerning the output of Searle’s Chinese Room, by entirely misunderstanding the claim of the CR experiment) – consider the case of a LLM created by exposure to the corpus of an unknown language such as Linear A. In such a case we know that no matter what the output of the LLM, there is no-one anywhere who could construct a world model from it. Moreover, there is no possibility that the LLM could be used to translate from the Linear A language to, say, English, from which a model could be derived.

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Observations on Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’

May 24, 2026 – 5:47 am

You might think that such a widely cited and referenced work had something significant to say about the nature and significance of reproduction, but I find that what is said is mostly trivial or just wrong-headed. In particular, I note that Benjamin is aware that mechanical production is not the same thing as reproduction – whatever that might be precisely – but then he doesn’t seem to keep that distinction in mind when he’s talking about the art forms in which mechanical production is the very condition of existence.

• Much is made of the significance of an ‘aura’ which is merely a shorthand way of talking about everything that makes an object unique – and in the materialist universe that can only be such things as its history, accidents of production, precise relationship to other objects, and so on. All of this is to stand in for its quiddity or haecceity and much significance is attributed to this as justifying a distinction between the art object that possesses one particular aura against another object which as its reproduction must lack it. But in the age of mechanical production the aura simply attaches to the stage before the object itself: to the negative rather than the film, to the music performance rather than the recording (or to the recording rather than the playing;) to the musical score rather than the performance (or to the particular performance rather than the replaying;) and so on. None of this seems to be particularly significant: we’ve had the problem since woodblocks and printing, and since these have existed for a thousand years in China for example, without causing any notable sociological impairment of their artistic sense, it seems unlikely that it is that that has resulted in the difficulties of modern art in the West.

• He also talks about the way that the rejection of the significance of the aura-possessing object goes hand in hand with the turn away from the ritual aspect of the artwork, but this has been going on for millennia rather than following on from the industrial revolution. Again, there is a failure to properly justify the large claims being made, or even to test them against clearly available control cases – like China and India, for example, in both of which cases we see different relations of ritual and art and no real relationship between these relationships and the mode of production (capitalist or feudal or ‘oriental.’)

• There’s a lot of talk about how our perceptions are changed, but this is just an example of the standard continental habit of making profound-sounding statements whose significance vanishes like cotton-candy in water with the slightest inspection. All he is talking about is our style or representation of what we perceive: nothing that he describes is relevant to a claim that our perceptions have changed. That claim, on the other hand, could be made in some respects. The fact that we have a changed understanding of certain aspects of the sensed world or that we are familiarised with new ways of modifying our senses could mean that our perceptions have changed – not our sensations obviously which is a physiological fact about us that has no relationship to our culture, but our interpretations at the most basic level even before consciousness (if ‘perception’ can be allowed to include pre-conscious processing of sensations.) The ‘modularity’ (in Fodor’s sense) of the perceptual mechanisms makes this a bare possibility and would be an important discovery if true. Nothing Benjamin says here is at all relevant to that possibility.

Because I was curious about Benjamin’s high reputation, I looked at Clive James ‘Walter Benjamin’ in Cultural Amnesia (pp. 47-56,) and I see that James is rather of my own opinion. Of Benjamin’s most famous essay, James comments that of the productions of that sort of intellectual:

[it] is atypical for featuring a general point designed to be readily understood. Unfortunately, once understood, it is readily seen to be bogus.

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Against AI Art

May 24, 2026 – 3:10 am

There was recent kerfuffle online when a blogger posted an image of a real Monet and said that he had generated it using AI. 

Could his readers tell him, he asked, why it was inferior to this other image that was of a real Monet?

Of course, his replies were filled with people offering their artistic analyses demonstrating the technical failures of the first compared to the second – and those people should be properly chastened by their gulling – but amongst that dross were a couple of replies that seemed to get at the real difference. In particular, Jon Gomm observed that

People hate AI art *because it’s AI* So it doesn’t actually matter what the art is. The point of art is the making. Not the object, which is merely the conduit of connection to the person who made it

Another interesting observation – not precisely relevant to the point I’m going to make – was made by Gina Choy

Monet, along with the Impressionists, radically transformed how light, colour, atmosphere, and nature itself were perceived, shifting perception at a collective and cognitive level. What feels visually familiar to us now was once a profound rupture in the history of seeing. While AI generated imitation has been an important catalyst for thought and discussion, this particular work offers little that is new or perceptually transformative. AI’s capacity to replicate styles, aesthetics, and techniques has already been well established. For that reason, an AI image made in the style of Monet holds far less value than Monet’s original work, which fundamentally altered visual consciousness rather than simply reproducing an existing language.

The point they are straining for is that AI is not an artist, and that what it produces should not be thought about in the way that we think of what artists (quâ artists) produce. There was a similar discussion pursuant to a post on Althouse’s blog concerning an AI poem generator. The worth of such poems was dismissed for various reasons, and Anne Althouse commented @ 9:08 that “If I know a poem is written by a machine, I don’t want to read it. There’s no person behind it!”

I think that’s exactly correct, and the reason we think that is because much of the value that we give to an art work depends upon it being a work of ‘art,’ which is to say, something made deliberately and with intention – not to mention with skill – and a machine can have no intention (at least, no machine yet created.) Moreover, our appreciation of an artwork is in large part bound up in our search for the significance of the work, which is to say in some intention that can be read into it. Now, there are those who claim that the artwork, after it has left the artist’s hands, has an independent aesthetic existence and the intentions of the artist in creating it are not determinative or even relevant to the intentions that can be read into it. I think our hesitation in appreciating an AI work gives the lie to this hypothesis. We clearly believe that something that was made with no motivating intentions is not properly appreciated in the same intentional way that ‘real’ artworks may be. The artist is not dead. Even if we were to ignore his intentions, they would have to have been there for us to accept the work as an artwork and therefore it is reasonable to say that the artist’s intentions are essential to the interpretation of the work.

I wonder how this might be affected by our understanding of how the AI works. For most people, there is a naive refusal to attribute intentionality to a machine because of a number of faulty assumptions concerning the mind – people who make this refusal are basically dualists who think that there is something special about our chemically organic brains that allows sentience that non-organic brains cannot possess: and when pressed on this they’ll generally retreat into a lot of talk about originality, creativity, emotions (what about love?,) etc. which are simply declared to be non-mechanical .

I, on the other hand, embrace my mechanical nature, and accept the intentional capacity of constructed machines in theory, but deny that the machines that we have constructed to perform AI tasks have the right function or structure to have intentions in our own deep sense. The poems mentioned for example are produced by a device that has drawn statistical generalisations from large samples of input data – data that has of course been properly formatted so that certain generalities are available to the purely syntactic pattern-recognition process. There is no construction of an inner world or model of perceived reality, much less of the perceiving device, which are the very least that we’d expect of a sentient being. Much less is there any sort of semantic or pseudo-semantic relationship between the machine and the real world – some sort of interaction probably has to be present in order for the syntax to become semantic in even the most etiolated sense.

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