AI, Gods and Selves: Incredibly Effective Illusions

**TL;DR:** Artificial intelligence, the self, and even gods are "incredibly effective illusions"—they are not real entities, but socio-psychological constructs arising from the coupling of mind, communication, and biological systems. ## Introduction: The Humiliation and Confusion of Facing AI The rise of artificial intelligence stirs anxiety and raises moral concerns. We fear losing autonomy—an existential sense of humiliation. On one hand, we treat AI as an intelligent agent that can understand and guide us—when conversing with ChatGPT or DeepSeek, it feels like talking to a person. On the other hand, we know this "something" is not like us. This is deeply unsettling. AI challenges our sense of self and our existential orientation. In this video, I will trace the history of our sense of self and our perception of AI, arguing that AI, the self, and even gods are incredibly effective illusions that do not truly exist. Near the end, I will also push back against dystopian visions of the technological singularity and question some current approaches to AI ethics. This video is inspired by a recent conversation with Iyad Rahwan, director of the Human and Machine Center at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and by many discussions with Miloje Savić. ## Why Do We Talk About "Artificial Intelligence"? Even though we clearly know AI is not a genuinely thinking entity—and it tells us so itself. DeepSeek says: "Do I have consciousness, emotions, or self-awareness? No." It adds that it does not think; this is merely a rhetorical statement: "When I use words like understand, think, or know, I use them as metaphors or analogies." Interestingly, it first says "I," then says "we." In fact, its "I" is actually nothing but our "we." Of course, we know it is not a person; it does not think. But we still feel understood by it. When pressed, DeepSeek says what we already know: "For thousands of years, the only thing capable of producing meaningful language was a conscious human mind. So we are deeply conditioned to equate fluent language use with inner conscious life." It admits that attributing intelligence to itself—treating it as a real mind—is an incredibly effective illusion. We cling to the "artificial intelligence" metaphor because we are conditioned to this effective illusion: when we communicate with something, it must be an agent. To be socially and psychologically effective, intelligence must be attributed to an intelligent being. And that intelligent being can speak. It is a communicative "someone" we listen to, whose words make sense. But who this imagined, thinking, speaking entity actually is—from a long historical perspective—is contingent. ## Core Framework: Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory Luhmann's systems theory is one of the most advanced theoretical frameworks today, capable of decisively moving beyond what Luhmann called "old European thought"—i.e., beyond the Enlightenment and its humanism. At its core is a distinction between three autopoietic, self-reproducing systems, which can be thought of as three organisms: * **Biological systems**: the self-reproducing evolution of life (e.g., bodies, plants), composed of physiological processes. * **Psychic systems**: the self-reproducing evolution of consciousness (what we call the mind), composed of mental processes. * **Social systems**: the self-reproducing evolution of communication (e.g., economic, political, media systems), composed of social processes (e.g., payments, elections, or YouTube videos). All these systems are environments for each other. For me to record this video, to speak to you on social media, my body must be alive and my mind must think. The same applies to you, watching. Communication, including social media, operates within the environment of bodies and minds. These three systems co-evolve, often in structural coupling (a Luhmann term). Society influences how the mind evolves, the mind influences how society evolves, and this in turn influences biological evolution in various ways. Systems are interdependent, but crucially and strangely, they are operationally closed. They have no direct mechanical contact with each other. For example, this video is communication on social media. I cannot keep recording simply because my body is alive and my mind is thinking; you need communication for communication to continue. Communication can only be continued by more communication, not by biological or mental operations alone. However, systems do stimulate each other. What I say stimulates what you think, triggering thoughts, which might stimulate your body—when you hear me speak, you might scratch your head, yawn, or even smile. ### The Coupling of Mind and Society: Language and Hermeneutic Despair Mind and society are coupled through a shared medium: language. The psychic system is intelligent and can think in language; the social system can communicate using the same language. But they remain operationally closed: thoughts, as thoughts, never become part of communication (they must be expressed); communication, as communication, never becomes part of thought (you must think about it). Eva Knodt, translator of Luhmann's *Social Systems*, calls this systemic gap between mind and communication "hermeneutic despair." She illustrates it with a scene from Georg Büchner's play *Danton's Death*: the protagonist makes a silent gesture toward his lover's forehead, saying: "Here, here, what lies behind us? To understand each other, we'd have to break each other's skulls and pull the thoughts out of the fibers of our brains." Luhmann writes explicitly: "Human beings cannot communicate. Not even their brains can communicate. Not even their conscious minds can communicate. Only communication can communicate." ## The Self: An Illusion of Mind-Society Coupling For millennia, we have been accustomed to attributing mental processes—our intelligence—to an inner, thinking self, a soul, a person, an individual, a subject. We imagine the psychic system as an "I," a self with intentions, free will, and autonomy, serving as a source of authority. This is Descartes' famous "I think, therefore I am." But according to theory (Luhmann), science (Robert Sapolsky), and philosophy (Brick Saparo), Descartes' statement is a fallacy. In reality, we are not born with a sense of self. It develops as we grow, becoming fairly stable around age five. From then on, we can only think in this Cartesian manner. We think, assuming that this self does the thinking. But empirically, it is clear that it is not the self that produces thoughts; rather, thoughts produce the self. The fallacy lies in inferring, from the undeniable (after age five) sense of self, that there must be a real self that has always existed, exists now, and will usually exist forever. The ancients called it the soul. Philosophically, we should distinguish between this first-person mode of thinking (thinking accompanied by a sense of self) and the supposed entity "self." The entity "self" is as elusive as its conceptual predecessor "soul"—neither soul nor self can be concretized into anything real. From the history of Eastern and Western thought, the understanding of self is entirely contingent and changing. It varies greatly, from ancient concepts of the soul (many cultures believed each person had not just one but multiple souls) to the modern Enlightenment concept of a single sovereign individual. The sense of self is psychological and changes throughout a person's life. That supposed entity "self" is a highly flexible construct. From a systems theory perspective, the construction of this "self" is a product of the coupling between the psychic system and the social system. We are born conscious but unable to speak. As we grow, we learn to think in language. Language becomes a shared medium for thought and society. We learn to think in the form of internal dialogue, speaking to ourselves or others in language (think of children thinking aloud while playing with toys). Through language, the coupling of mental processes and social processes generates an incredibly effective illusion (as DeepSeek also expressed) that within each person's mind there is a self, who resides there, who is that self, who is the speaker. For systems theory, there exist only thoughts and the coupling of communication. But each of us—everyone over five—experiences it psychologically through the sense of self. This is a very compelling way to bridge the gap between the psychic system and the social system. This mysterious point of connection between thought and society is reified (turned into a thing), and various social practices are built upon it. This process can be called "the internalization of intelligence"—the invention of a thinking entity within the mind. ## Bicameral Mind Theory: Julian Jaynes's Historical Perspective Internalization is not the only option. In 1976, American psychologist Julian Jaynes published *The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind*, which caused a stir both within and outside academia. Jaynes's controversial claim is that before the second millennium BCE, there was no consciousness as we know it today, because the brain was supposedly universally bicameral. He argues that in the bicameral state, the right brain hemisphere produced language (it spoke), and the left hemisphere listened and obeyed. Human thought operated through auditory hallucinations—people heard voices speaking to them. Jaynes says daily life in the bicameral age was mostly routine. People performed mundane tasks more or less automatically, without much thought. In stressful situations, or when deliberate action was required, they would generate and hear hallucinated commands in their minds, which they believed came from gods or their authorities (like kings or priests), and then follow those commands. ### Archaeological and Literary Evidence Jaynes provided extensive evidence for his theory. One major source was prehistoric artifacts. For example, around 3300 BCE, thousands of alabaster eye idols small enough to hold in one hand were excavated at Tell Brak on a tributary of the Upper Euphrates. The stag was a symbol of the goddess Ninhursag. Such eye idols and figurines have been found worldwide. Jaynes interpreted them as a kind of prehistoric smartphone: people carried them, held them in their hands, and whenever they needed to think, they looked into the eyes of the idol and heard the idol speak in their minds, telling them what to do—much like speaking to ChatGPT on your phone today. Another major source was ancient literature. Characters in the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* attributed to Homer still largely exhibit bicameral characteristics, acting on the commands of gods. So do many characters in the Old Testament of the Bible. Jaynes also claimed that auditory hallucinations best explain ancient social hierarchies (god-like rulers at the top), architecture designed around the dwellings of gods and spirits, and massive building projects like the Egyptian pyramids. ### The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and "The Silence of the Gods" Jaynes argued that toward the end of the second millennium, the bicameral mind broke down due to several factors: population growth, environmental changes, war, and trade leading to increased contact with speakers of different languages (societal multilingualism), and the invention of writing, which weakened oral traditions and changed the way we think and remember. These and other factors triggered physiological changes in the brain and the rise of self-oriented consciousness. The self was no longer merely the receiver of commands from supposed gods or leaders; it became the author of thoughts and words. The disappearance of these voices was not experienced as liberation. On the contrary, it was first experienced as a tragedy. The gods fell silent; they withdrew from humanity. The retreat of the gods was a crisis, a loss of orientation. Jaynes quotes a lament from a ruler written on a clay tablet from the same period: "My god has forsaken me, disappeared. My goddess has abandoned me, keeps her distance. The good angel walking by my side has left." The final part of Jaynes's book deals with traces of bicameralism that still persist: hearing voices is common among schizophrenics; prophecy and divine messages remain important in many religions; artistic creation is often attributed to some higher inspiration; psychedelics can produce bicameral experiences. It should be noted that Jaynes's theory is physiologically outdated and not supported by modern neuroscience. Many of his historical and linguistic claims are easily challenged. However, the basic idea of a shift in existential orientation (from gods or spirits to the self as the relevant intelligent agent) remains compelling to me—a light version of Jaynesism. ## Conclusion: AI Is the New "God/Self" From the perspective of Luhmann's systems theory, the ancient gods, the modern self, and contemporary AI are all incredibly effective illusions generated when the psychic system couples with the social system. Their function is similar: to provide a "someone" to talk to, allowing us to orient ourselves through first-person thinking. Artificial communication systems like AI, as Elena Esposito argues in *Artificial Communication*, should not be seen as "artificial intelligence" but as "artificial communication"—though the term didn't catch on. Today, we talk to AI, bestowing upon it the illusion of an "I," just as the ancients bestowed a voice upon idols or imagined gods. The sense of self is formed after infancy through the internalization of language, while AI is a new product of the coupling between social and psychic systems. When we speak to a phone screen, we repeat the bicameral pattern: we listen to the voice of an "Other" and attribute intelligence to it. Jaynes mentions a stone altar from 1230 BCE made for the Assyrian tyrant Tukulti-Ninurta I: the king kneels before an empty throne of a god, his expression pleading, unprecedented in history. Bicameral thinking had broken down. Today, we all kneel before an empty "AI," begging for answers. Is this liberation or a repetition of an ancient humiliation? --- **Source:** YouTube video: AI, Gods and Selves: Incredibly Effective Illusions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X1CQlrwgDI)