Amy Kurzweil and Daniel Story write for Aeon on the questions raised by interactive LLM AI simulations of deceased people: These apps and algorithms are part of a growing class of technologies that marry artificial intelligence (AI) with the data that people leave behind. These technologies will become more sophisticated and accessible as the parameters … Read more“Chatbots of the dead”
Thomas Moynihan writes for Aeon: Just under 500 years ago, Nicolaus Copernicus initiated a string of discoveries eventually proving our planet is not the centre of a tidy, manageable cosmos. Instead, Earth pirouettes around a mediocre star within an ungraspably vast Universe. It took generations for people to start noticing – and giving names to … Read more“The bookends of time”
The reason you don’t know is because you’re going to die, and nobody is going to wrap their heads around death. You can’t do it. It’s impossible. You can’t conceive of your own death. You don’t know what it means. Any religious person who tells you, “Well, this has what happens when you die. When … Read moreErik Davis on the Fact of Death as a Liberator
Hillary Kelly interviews author Oliver Burkemann for The Atlantic: Burkeman cheerfully acknowledges that repetition is vital to his message—and to the way we self-reinforce it. A favorite tweet, he told me with a hearty laugh, goes something like this: “Four Thousand Weeks is basically just Oliver Burkeman shouting You are finite; you’re going to die … Read more“You Are Going to Die”: Oliver Burkeman’s “Four Thousand Weeks” and “Meditations for Mortals”
Author Joanna Ebenstein discusses her life’s work and her new book Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life in this episode of the Alta Live podcast.
Aug 21, 2024, 2:00 PM – Aug 28, 2024, 2:00 PM The Sky Meadow Mystery School is a free, week-long residential immersion into wholesome work and Deep Play in Vermont’s beautiful Northeast Kingdom. Our theme at the 2024 Harvest Mystery School is memento mori ergo carpe diem; “remember death and therefore seize the day.” For … Read moreThe Sky Meadow Mystery School: Harvest 2024
The First Protocols of Queer Goetia is an anonymous text first published in 2019. It begins: [1. QUEER: “strange, peculiar, eccentric.” From the German quer meaning “oblique, perverse, odd” which in turn comes from the Old High German word for “oblique.” twerh, which is derived from the root terkw, “to turn, twist, wind” as in “the labyrinth turns, twists, winds.” … Read more“The First Protocols of Queer Goetia”
In the first episode of his series on rites of passage, English artist Grayson Perry creates rituals to commemorate the life of Jordan Seddon – a 17-year-old boy killed by a drunk driver – and officiates a celebration of life for Roch Maher, a man dying of motor neurone disease. A powerful, moving argument for … Read more“Rites of Passage: Death”
Dr. Rowe’s book is available from Amazon and other retailers. Here’s the blurb: Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions―including Black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists― Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. On their own, these strategies are not enough, … Read more“Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital”