Onlife - Floridi

I just published "On asking the wrong kind of questions (series: notes to myself)", happy 2024. https://link.medium.com/thDMgqTvZFb

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Mid-morning, somewhere in Italy. Seating at a bar, in an elegant square, summery weather, a kind breeze, refreshing. An espresso macchiato comes with a brown sachet of sugar, to be added if you wish. I look at it. I look around. I have time to think. How do people deal with this task? Can one divide people, the sugary kind, into types according to how they open a sachet of sugar?
A student, with interesting tattoos on her left shoulder, opens it by pinching the two sides and pulling them, gently ungluing the sachet. It requires her to use four fingers, each couple pinching a side of the sachet. She is attentive and careful. She better be. I know that feat is demanding. Too much force and the sachet may give in abruptly, spreading the sugar everywhere. Too little, and the little shell will hold on to its content and won’t be convinced to release its treasure. I love the cautions determination. She puts her hands together, palms touching at the bottom as if praying, to measure the effort more gradually. She succeeds. I’m not sure it is a smile, but now the tattoo, which seems like a tiger from here, is moving forward, to sweeten the cappuccino. She is left-handed. The sachet is no longer the focus of her attention. The whirlpool created by the spoon is. The sachet will be nothing but a small, open, and empty envelop that can be easily disposed of. A brown shell, once full of granular nutrients, itself made of something that was alive in the past. Life, containing life, adding itself to life, to be absorbed by life. I wonder how far that piece of paper has travelled, how distant the soil that hosted the roots of the tree from which it came. Printed, manufactured in millions of clones, indistinguishable from all the others and now with its internal body visible, exposed, ready to be filled by air, or some dust. She irons the sachet distractedly and places it under the little glass of water she had duly drunk before her coffee. Sparkling, if it is like mine. The water left in it cannot touch the paper of the sachet, the two separated by a transparency that slightly enlarges the letter of the manufacturing company.
The careful exercise by the girl with a tiger takes a serious effort, but it pays back in terms of elegance, efficiency, and simplicity of the solution. A sort of Ockham’s razor that does not multiply the entities. This is not the case with the busy, middle-aged man who tears the top of the sachet. He does not seem in a hurry, and yet the gesture is firm, rapid, unquestioning, and straightforward. One single movement of his right hand, while the left holds the victim to be decapitated, as surgically precise and painlessly as possible. He just ended a call, and is now concentrating on his coffee. Maybe it is a habit, the decisive gesture of a problem-solver who has cut more than a Gordian knot in his life. A stereotype, I know, but he does have that look. Maybe the suit, or perhaps how he calmly but firmly explained the agenda to someone over the phone. Someone not to mess with. And yet, his attitude has just created a problem. For he now finds himself with two pieces of paper. A head and a body. He may not care, and leave them flying around, courtesy of the breeze. A Robespierre who will have other victims in sight. But I see that it bothers him to be untidy in his solution. He must complete the operation. I anticipate that he will simply reunite them through a violent operation of folding or crushing, the broken wholeness unfixable, if not merely in appearance. But no. I was wrong. He has a more careful and engineering approach. He takes his time to pick up the small top strip, now dethatched, to insert it meticulously inside the larger, open sachet, now empty, producing an artefact that now contains itself. The empty sachet now includes a piece of itself, and can be disposed of as a different kind of whole, neatly folded twice, next to the spoon. A problem solved with some expenditure of resources, but in no less elegant way than that adopted by the girl. I stand corrected. The decision-maker is also attentive to details. He likes to see things through. The two detached pieces won’t fly away in the sunny square, parting like a leaf on a wintery day.
The waitress has just delivered the material for one more experiment. I’m not disappointed. I’m looking for a kindred soul. Not someone who preserves the whole. Not someone who decapitates the sachet. But you, who partially tear the sachet just enough, inflicting only the necessary pain, a cut that must be imposed for the sugar to become available, long enough, yet not complete, so that the partially detached top is not independent. An inch, or less, to ensure no sugar leaves the sachet (who in their right mind ever tears a sachet in the middle?) two-thirds or at most four fifth (but I do not recommend it, for it is too risky!) tear, obtained, if you have time, by first folding in a straight line the part to be partially removed. A compromise, to ensure that the whole remains intact, even if now its semi-detached piece holds on to the rest by a small proportion of its length. The man, now performing the trick, can do that efficiently, three sachets at a time. He has trained for decades. And his image looks familiar, reflected by the glass of the bar.
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"Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra
Photo by Rachel Claire: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mug-of-coffee-on-wooden-table-4577860/ 

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

“La morte è una distanza che si apre nella vita, ma non è sparizione, distruzione, putrefazione.”
Ho letto questa frase (chiamiamola non-P), è l’inizio di un articolo giornalistico (non si può imporre un rigore scientifico, non è il contesto). Ho letto il resto dell’articolo. Non migliora. Non ha importanza. Desidero soffermarmi solo questa frase.
Da tanti anni non sono più un filosofo analitico, ma mi è rimasta l’inclinazione (il vizio senza pelo del lupo?) di (cercare di) usare le parole con attenzione e cura. Cercando di ancorarle a significati che non siano “futuristici” (parole in libertà). Troppe persone confondono il fatto che una frase sia grammaticale con il fatto che abbia un reale senso. Si può anche dire:
P) “La morte non è una distanza che si apre nella vita, è sparizione, distruzione, putrefazione.”
P è altrettanto grammaticale e credo che abbia molto più senso di non-P, almeno biologicamente e concettualmente. I fatti puntano in questa direzione. E chi sostiene il contrario, chi sostiene non-P, ha sulle sue spalle il peso della prova, non chi sostiene P. Perciò non dovrebbe spacciarla come qualcosa di incontrovertibile. Ma torniamo alla frase originale.
Ora, che cosa può significare in non-P che la morte è una distanza (tra chi o che cosa) che si apre (una volta sola, come un spacco? Oppure continua ad aprirsi sempre di più, come una faglia?) in uno spazio chiamato vita? Se stiamo dicendo che è una distanza tra noi, vivi, e loro, morti, allora basta dirlo così, capendoci subito. È una banalità un po’ retorica ma è chiara ed è plausibile . Via via che passa il tempo la morte di mamma è una “distanza” nella “vita”. Insomma: la vita passa e sono sempre più anni che mamma è morta. Grazie al cavolo, ma vero. Ma se è una distanza NELLA vita, cioè al suo interno, uno sta assumendo che di qua e di la c’è la vita. Come una spaccatura nel legno, fissa o dinamica che sia, è NEL legno, che la caratterizza proprio come una sua spaccatura. E qui sta il passo implicito e silenzioso di chi fa assunzioni immense, senza giustificarle. Perché, per quanto ne sappiamo, la frase (non-P) o non ha senso, oppure è falsa. La morte è dove finisce il legno, non è una spaccatura nel legno, per capirsi. È assenza completa della vita, non è - per quanto ne sappiamo - un buco per strada, basta saltarlo (riferimento voluto al salto della fede) tanto dall’altra parte c’è il marciapiede. Mi si dirà: ma io CREDO che sia così. Ottimo. Allora dillo come va detto: credo che la morte sia una mancanza tra una vita mortale e una immortale, di qua e di là. A me pare una bellissima favola. Un tempo ci credevo anche io e darei qualsiasi cosa (nessuna retorica) per crederci di nuovo. Ma soprattutto si capisce, il punto è chiaro, anche se temo che sia, per persone come me, incredibile nel senso etimologico della parola. Chi ci crede e chi non ci crede. Non è un fatto, non è un verità, non è neppure una cosa plausibile, o probabile, o sulla quale c'è notevole accordo. È una cosa che andrebbe detta con un condizionale tipo "Io credo che". A questo punto subentra la libertà di fede, di dubbio e di certezze molto diverse … ciascuno può credere quello che vuole, e vivere la sua vita secondo le credenze che ha, ci mancherebbe. Senza però asserirle con quel tono apodittico, che è solo ridicolo e vuole impressionare con trucchi retorici. Il resto è brutta scrittura, intellettualmente oscura e fuorviante. Piace giustamente a chi ha già la fede, che la morte sia solo “una distanza che si apre”, qualsiasi cosa questa frase possa mai significare realmente. Ma rispetto molto di più chi dice con chiarezza: “credo nella resurrezione dei morti”. Ora ci capiamo. e sopratutto sappiamo chi ha l'onere di convincere chi.
Parlare per dire cose che hanno significato, non per vendere credenze (beliefs) sottobanco senza che il compratore se ne accorga. Sarebbe già un passo avanti.Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Corman McCarthy è stato descritto da alcuni come il più grande scrittore americano di [aggiungere qui un numero di secoli, oppure "la nostra epoca", oppure "una generazione" o semplicemente "sempre"]. Siccome sono insipiente, e lo avevo solo sentito nominare ma mai letto (ma i mie amici come mai non me lo hanno mai consigliato? che ci stanno a fare? O almeno Amazon, visto il numero di libri che compro, un "you may also like" lo poteva sputare no?), sono andato a vedere chi fosse. Ho letto un po' di cose su di lui, tutte molto interessanti. E poi mi sono chiesto chi rientra oggi in una lista più o meno accurata degli scrittori americani più importante degli ultimi 100 anni. Insomma, se uno dice, per esempio, "è morto il più grande scrittore americano del secolo" ti viene il dubbio di ricostruire la competizione gli ultimi cento anni.
Le posizioni sono ovviamente e come sempre discutibili, ma mi è stato utile ricordare a chi si sta confrontando McCarthy, magari per confermare un giudizio letto, oppure rivederlo del tutto, a propria scelta, dato che tutto ciò rientra nei gusti personali. 
Per pigrizia e incompetenza metto la lista stilata da ChatGPT (che ogni tanto si rende utile) alla domanda: chi sono i più grandi autori americani degli ultimi cento anni (ho pensato che "di sempre" fosse un po' troppo, ma vedi sotto per questa lista).
Ecco i primi dieci (prompt: best 10 American writers of past 100 years):
1) Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) - Known for his concise and powerful writing style, Hemingway's works include "The Old Man and the Sea" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls."
2) F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) - His novel "The Great Gatsby" is considered a classic of American literature, capturing the Jazz Age and the disillusionment of the American Dream.
3) Toni Morrison (1931-2019) - An important voice in African American literature, Morrison's novels, such as "Beloved" and "Song of Solomon," explore themes of race, identity, and history.
4) William Faulkner (1897-1962) - Faulkner's experimental and complex writing style is evident in novels like "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying," which explore the Southern Gothic tradition.
5) Harper Lee (1926-2016) - Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a powerful exploration of racial injustice and childhood innocence.
6) J.D. Salinger (1919-2010) - Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" became an influential coming-of-age story and has resonated with generations of readers.
7) Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) - Known for her Southern Gothic style, O'Connor's short stories, such as "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," delve into themes of morality, religion, and human nature.
8) John Steinbeck (1902-1968) - Steinbeck's works, including "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men," often portray the struggles of the working class and examine social and economic issues.
9) Saul Bellow (1915-2005) - Bellow's novels, such as "The Adventures of Augie March" and "Herzog," explore themes of identity, Jewish-American culture, and the complexities of modern life.
10) James Baldwin (1924-1987) - Baldwin's essays and novels, like "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "The Fire Next Time," confront issues of race, sexuality, and social injustice in America.
Tutti famosi e per fortuna letti... Ma mi sembrava che manchessero altri nomi altrettanto famosi, perciò ho chiesto a ChatGPT di elencare i dieci successivi:
11) Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) - Vonnegut's satirical novels, such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," blend science fiction with social commentary.
12) Maya Angelou (1928-2014) - An acclaimed poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist, Angelou's works include "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "And Still I Rise."
13) David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) - Wallace's novel "Infinite Jest" is often regarded as a seminal work of postmodern literature, known for its complexity and exploration of contemporary society.
14) Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) - Hurston's novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is considered a classic of African American literature, showcasing the experiences of black women in the early 20th century.
15) Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) - Ellison's novel "Invisible Man" explores themes of race, identity, and the search for self in America.
16) Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) - Plath's poetry, including her collection "Ariel," is known for its confessional style and powerful exploration of mental health and femininity.
17) Philip Roth (1933-2018) - Roth's novels, such as "American Pastoral" and "Portnoy's Complaint," often depict the complexities of American identity and Jewish-American culture.
18) Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) - O'Connor's works, including her short story collection "Everything That Rises Must Converge," are known for their dark humor and exploration of the human condition.
19) Annie Proulx (born 1935) - Proulx's novel "The Shipping News" won the Pulitzer Prize and her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was adapted into an acclaimed film.
20) Denis Johnson (1949-2017) - Johnson's novels, such as "Tree of Smoke" and "Jesus' Son," often depict characters on the fringes of society and explore themes of addiction, redemption, and spirituality.
Qui già passo male l'esame, alcuni e alcune non li conosco affatto... altro che non letti. Ma ancora nessuna traccia di Cormac McCarthy, quindi ho chiesto altri dieci ancora, per arrivare ai primi 30 ed ecco comparire il nostro autore:
21) Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) - Stevens was a renowned poet known for his richly imaginative and philosophical works, including "Harmonium" and "The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens."
22) Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) - Ginsberg was a leading figure of the Beat Generation and his poem "Howl" is considered a defining work of the era.
23) Eudora Welty (1909-2001) - Welty's short stories, including "A Worn Path" and "The Optimist's Daughter," capture the essence of the American South and explore themes of family, race, and memory.
24) Thomas Pynchon (born 1937) - Pynchon's complex and postmodern novels, such as "Gravity's Rainbow" and "The Crying of Lot 49," challenge traditional narrative structures and often delve into themes of paranoia and power.
25) Louise Erdrich (born 1954) - Erdrich, an acclaimed Native American writer, has written novels like "Love Medicine" and "The Round House," which explore Native American culture, history, and identity.
26) Raymond Carver (1938-1988) - Carver's short stories, including those in the collection "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," are known for their minimalistic style and exploration of ordinary lives.
27) Don DeLillo (born 1936) - DeLillo's novels, such as "White Noise" and "Underworld," often tackle themes of consumerism, media, and the anxieties of modern society.
28) Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) - Bambara was a prominent African American writer known for her short story collection "Gorilla, My Love" and her commitment to social activism.
29) Cormac McCarthy (born 1933) - McCarthy's novels, including "Blood Meridian" and "The Road," often explore themes of violence, nature, and human morality.
30) Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) - Bishop was a highly regarded poet known for her precise language and attention to detail. Her notable works include "North & South" and "Geography III."
Fine dell'esperimento. De gustibus, of course. E poi ChatGPT riassume solo la vox populi (poi dicono che il Classico non serve, e da dove viene tutto questo latinorum...).  L'intera lista include alcuni autori e alcune autrici di cui non ho mai sentito parlare (e devo anche controllare se ChatGPT ha inventato qualche dato) ... sarà bene che inizi a documentarmi e leggere più narrativa americana... per stilare la mia personale in modo meno disinformato.
PSIo per ora farei solo una correzione: al n. 10, nella mia lista personale, metterei Kurt Vonnegut e con i primi 10 sarei già felice.
PS Prima che mi arrivi una sgridata, lo so che le risposte cambiano a seconda del prompt, ecco che succede, per esempio, se uno chiede (prompt): who are the 100 most important american writers of all time? Cormac McCarthy è 64esimo. Sempre ChatGPT docet (ah, l'utilità del Classico). Mi dispiace per Jack London.

1. Mark Twain
2. Edgar Allan Poe
3. Herman Melville
4. Emily Dickinson
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Ernest Hemingway
7. William Faulkner
8. Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. Henry David Thoreau
10. Walt Whitman
11. Nathaniel Hawthorne
12. Toni Morrison
13. Harper Lee
14. John Steinbeck
15. T.S. Eliot
16. Langston Hughes
17. Zora Neale Hurston
18. James Baldwin
19. Sylvia Plath
20. Flannery O'Connor
21. William Faulkner
22. Saul Bellow
23. Philip Roth
24. James Fenimore Cooper
25. John Updike
26. Thomas Pynchon
27. Emily Brontë (though British, her work has had a significant impact on American literature)
28. J.D. Salinger
29. Wallace Stevens
30. Allen Ginsberg
31. Ralph Ellison
32. Robert Frost
33. Maya Angelou
34. Anne Bradstreet
35. William Carlos Williams
36. Herman Wouk
37. Gore Vidal
38. Truman Capote
39. Edith Wharton
40. Willa Cather
41. Ralph Waldo Emerson
42. Henry James
43. Tennessee Williams
44. Richard Wright
45. Margaret Atwood (though Canadian, her work has had a significant impact on American literature)
46. Jack Kerouac
47. James Joyce (though Irish, his work has had a significant impact on American literature)
48. Sandra Cisneros
49. Don DeLillo
50. Louise Erdrich
51. Thomas Jefferson
52. James Agee
53. Eudora Welty
54. Frederick Douglass
55. Kurt Vonnegut
56. Octavia Butler
57. Harriet Beecher Stowe
58. Sinclair Lewis
59. Ralph Waldo Emerson
60. Allen Tate
61. Adrienne Rich
62. John Dos Passos
63. Amy Tan
64. Cormac McCarthy
65. Richard Yates
66. James Dickey
67. John Berryman
68. Elizabeth Bishop
69. Jhumpa Lahiri
70. Raymond Carver
71. Henry Roth
72. Jack London
73. Kate Chopin
74. Djuna Barnes
75. Richard Ford
76. Carson McCullers
77. Nella Larsen
78. John Ashbery
79. Kurt Andersen
80. Jonathan Franzen
81. Charles Bukowski
82. Joyce Carol Oates
83. August Wilson
84. Alice Walker
85. William S. Burroughs
86. Bernard Malamud
87. Jonathan Swift (though Irish, his work has had a significant impact on American literature)
88. Nathanael West
89. Sherman Alexie
90. Leslie Marmon Silko
91. Richard Russo
92. John Cheever
93. Theodore Dreiser
94. Philip K. Dick
95. Gary Snyder
96. Anaïs Nin
97. Robert Penn Warren
98. Paul Auster
99. Adrienne Kennedy
100. Amiri Baraka

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Ho sempre criticato Berlusconi, i suoi votanti, il suo partito, il berlusconismo, gli italoforzuti, i suoi governi, la tragedia (soprattutto morale, ma anche istituzionale, politica, culturale ed economica) che tutto ciò è stato per il paese... Berlusconi è stato un disastro per l'Italia, una sorta di Trump al potere o vicino al potere per decenni. Servirà moltissimo lavoro e tanto tempo per riparare i danni fatti, ammesso che si possano riparare. 

Ma Mercoledì 14 Giugno ho spostato la lezione del corso che tengo a Bologna, affinché chi volesse potesse participare ai funerali di stato e commemorare la morte di Berlusconi, e perché l'attuale governo ha proclamato il lutto nazionale per un politico che (con mio scandalo e vergogna) è stato eletto democraticamente da milioni di italiani e italiane (che gli dei dell'Olimpo li perdonino, io non ci riesco, e posso solo rispettarne le scelte), e ha ricoperto la carica di primo ministro quattro volte. 

Non è stata una forma di rispetto verso l'uomo, che non ne meritava alcuno, o verso la figura politica, imbarazzante e giustamente criticabile. È stata una forma di resistenza. Non volevo concedere a Berlusconi l'ultima parola. Perché una cosa che Berlusconi non dovrebbe riuscire a fare, neppure da morto, è ridurci come lui, del tutto privi di valori, senza alcun senso dello stato, senza rispetto neppure per la morte e per il dolore altrui, incentrati solo su noi stessi, i nostri vantaggi e svantaggi, il nostro interesse, la nostra convenienza, i nostri pruriti, desideri, ambizioni, il nostro chiederci sempre, comunque e soltanto se qualcosa sia o non sia MIO, anche un lutto nazionale.

Come ha detto un amico: il danno lo aveva già fatto, c'è poco da rallegrarsi. Come ho detto per anni: l'Italia si libererà di Berlusconi solo biologicamente, come la Spagna ha fatto con Franco.  Come previsto, gli italiani e le italiane lo hanno votato fino all'ultimo giorno. Alla fine ci si è liberati di questo scandalo politico solo con la sua morte. Resta il dispiacere per coloro che sono addolorati - "I have suffered with those that I saw suffer", The Tempest, insegna questa civiltà, da esercitare in questo caso anche verso gli incivili come Berlusconi - e soprattutto il profondo dolore per il fatto che il berlusconismo precede Berlusconi e gli sopravvive. Chi si illude che morirà con lui ha una visione meramente burocratico-istituzionale della cultura politica. Berlusconi ha solo incarnato meglio di chiunque altro il berlusconismo, lo ha ipostatizzato, si direbbe in filosofia, metastatizzato, si direbbe in medicina, in un' Italia che di sua natura è da sempre più berlusconiana che fascista, o comunista, o democratica, o liberale, o conservatrice. La questione è se il berlusconismo tornerà a sciogliersi come un veleno sempre presente nella cultura del paese - come mi auguro - o tornerà ad aggrumarsi in qualche altra figura che abbia lo straordinario vuoto morale di farsene contenitore e promotore. C'è da sperare, perché il vuoto morale, come quello fisico, è raro, e le circostante affinché abbia successo sono eccezionali. Aggettivi come "unico", "irripetibile", "insostituibile" usati in questi giorni suggeriscono a persone come me che forse il peggio è passato e che uno come Berlusconi non ricapiterà mai più, ma meglio stare in guardia. 

PS L'italiano non è la mia lingua, ma la lingua della comunità alla quale appartengo, volente o nolente. Il lutto nazionale non è il mio lutto, ovviamente, perché è quello della nazione in cui sono nato e dalla quale sono emigrato anche a causa del suo berlusconismo, insopportabile. L'unico vero modo di ribellarsi non è negare l'appartenenza storica - gesto retorico inutile, facile e non molto civile di fronte alla morte di una persona - ma cambiare eticamente la natura di quello al quale si appartiene. Sforzandosi di pensare meglio, comunicare meglio, votare meglio, agire meglio, e di dare il buon esempio, per quanto sia possibile. Tutte cose difficili, tanto quanto raggiungere il vuoto morale di un Berlusconi. Ma necessarie, affinché il dover essere prevalga sull'essere sbagliato.

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

There are some famous parables in the New Testament in which people travel, arrive, go away, or come back (for example, Matthew 25:1-13 on the ten virgins; Luke 15:11-32 on the prodigal son). But I have one in mind that has puzzled me for a long time: Matthew 25:14-15 (on the talents), about the man, probably representing God, who is “going on a journey” (ἀποδημῶν) and “comes back after a long time” (πολὺν χρόνον). 
The word ἀποδημῶν means “about to go on a journey”, and it is the same word used in another parable, when God goes away, again (Matthew 21:33-46). In both cases, he leaves the house for reasons that are not provided. Why does he have to go? Can he not stay? It seems that more pressing business calls him elsewhere. Something or someone is more important than us, who live in the house. An emergency? Or perhaps just a test? Maybe he just wants to see what the mice do when the cat is away. Whatever the motives, there is a journey, a time before and after his presence, and then the long time of his absence, that πολὺν χρόνον. And a house left behind.
God’s absence has consequences, as one should expect. God becomes a past memory, for those who were with him before he left, and a future expectation, for those who believe that he is coming back. The parable speaks of a prolonged (πολὺν is a lot of time) but not a permanent absence. And it cannot be that long because the people who saw him leaving are the same ones who welcome him back. But what if God were to come back much, much later? Not days, weeks, months, or even years, but decades later? What if his absence is sine die? What would happen to the people left behind? 
A new generation may grow up knowing only the reports of those who knew him. The grandchildren of the servants, who inherited the house, may become doubtful. They never met him, never saw him, never spoke to him. And he is gone for such a long time. Maybe he never existed. Perhaps he is dead. Doubtful people, agnostics who live in this empty house, do not know what to think. We hear the reports, the stories, and the narratives, we understand the expectation, the tradition, the customs, and the rites. We know so many families now claiming that different Gods owned the house. But we have no memory of any of those owners, and met nobody with that memory. We are not witnesses and know no witnesses. God left so long ago that we doubt he ever was present in the house in the first place. He may be just an impostor, or an old story, which people kept embellishing for centuries and then millennia, invented to shed responsibility for their lives and the house. For if the place is not yours, you may be forgiven for the frequent oversights, even the systematic neglect. You may even think that God will take care of your planet. You may even kill in the name of the right owner of the house who one day will come back. If your life depends on someone else, who can give meaning to it or destroy it, that may feel quite comforting, especially if living in the house is tough and challenging, too uncertain without God's ownership and return, too difficult to manage and accept. A great owner who is coming back is the perfect excuse for a lazy life of postponements, delays, procrastinations, delegations, and deresponsabilisations.
Many believe he does not exist. Many others that they deserved to be abandoned. Some have faith in his return. Those more doubtful, the agnostics again, may decide that the best thing to do is to live as if God will never come back, as if he were only a nice story but never existed, and take care of the house and themselves, for there is nobody else who will, while still hoping against hope (the beauty of some English phrases) that they may be wrong. They assume the worst scenario, knowing that the best, God’s return, will take care of itself. Should God ever come back, he will find them caring for his house and their well-being.
All this may sound like Pascal’s wager, but it is not. Pascal wants to cheat God. His suggestion is to assume his return and borrow from that return whatever added value may be available, which is the semantic capital that gives meaning to your life. If God never comes back, if he never existed, that borrowing will have been interest-free, and you won’t have to repay what was never yours. But if he does, you will still have borrowed interest-free, but as long as you invested wisely, you will be able to repay him. This may be smart, but it does not seem a nice way to treat the master who left, assuming he actually left. Assuming his return, banking on it, taking his money, investing it well, and being ready to give the money back, should he ever show up again: no wonder Pascal thought it was a win-win. But it seems to me a bit dishonest. Using God and his return as a means, not an end, to have a meaningful life now whose meaning is not yours but merely borrowed, not created through hard work or real commitment, but thanks to a mere calculus of what would be the most convenient strategy. Pascal’s faith is like borrowing at no cost, having no intention to pay back unless one is asked. It may work logically. People have debated whether it does for a long time. But morally, I don’t like it. Much better to operate on the opposite assumption. If in doubt, as an agnostic (and rationally you should be in doubt), act as if God will never come back and will never reward your efforts. Act as if you were alone. Act morally and meaningfully in a gratuitous way. Take care of the empty house. Make your life meaningful, do not merely assume it is meaningful just because you think it’s more useful to bet that God may be coming back. If he has left forever or was never around in the first place, you will be the master of your life and the house. There are worse things on earth. But if, against all odds, he does return, if the house really is his, as you strongly doubt yet still cannot help hopping, you will be able to welcome him as a self-made man, with presents, sound investments, and your business in order. How much more praiseworthy to say “I did the right thing, even though I assumed you would never come back”, than “I assumed you would come back, that’s why I did the right thing”. The lesson about God’s absence is not that we should wait for God to come back, or cheat by borrowing divine meaning that is not ours, but that we should create our own semantic capital that will be enjoyable in itself and our gift, should God ever come back. 
So, for an agnostic like me, a meaningful life must be, as much as possible, an entirely immanent, historical, and human creation, not based on faith, or the belief in some transcendent reward. I don’t want to borrow freely, knowing that I could be rewarded for cheating, but create my own semantic capital, and in case be rewarded for not cheating. Not because I know that God is not coming back, for I do not and cannot, but because I wish to have a present if he returns after all, even if I strongly doubt it. 
Contrary to what Pascal suggests, I prefer to live as if God did not exist while hoping I might be wrong.
A dear friend once told me that people in Naples have a beautiful way of saying: when you visit someone, you must knock on the door with your feet. The explanation: because your hands are full of presents. That is how we should knock on the door of the kingdom of heaven, with our arms carrying a meaningful life, as a gift we neither stole nor borrowed surreptitiously, but created and accumulated by ourselves. Strongly doubting, and yet still hoping, that someone may open the door.

PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra
Photo by Alexander Andrews on UnsplashOnlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Why does one publish anything at all? In a world that is always distracted. That already has millions of books. That has more classics than anyone will ever be able to read. In a world that does not read, does not care, does not mind. Why, really?
If writing were just a dialogue with oneself, there would be no need to make it public. Why involve others in a private struggle? What is this need to share one's own thoughts? Something is wrong.
Let me exclude some obvious answers. Of course, there are professional requirements: an academic, for example, will struggle to get a job without publications. There may be commercial needs: hoping to make some money, or just being able to support oneself. Commitments and promises can also play a role. Ambitions of fame and hopes for glory should never be underestimated, no matter how groundless. And with them, the glimpse, or just the illusion of a slice of immortality, or at least of a less short memory. Someone may read you, one day, in the distant future. 
Perhaps. But all this seems a distraction, not yet the real answer. Let's assume there is no pressure, no further reason, no heteronomy: no job, no money, no fame, no contract, no expectations, no promise, no need or reward of any kind, no nothing of the sort. Why would you make the production of your mind public, assuming that this is what publishing means? It's the same question one could ask about a rich artist or writer. Why do they care so much to make their intellectual creations public? Perhaps one wouldn't, it may be retorted. No carrot, no stick, no publishing. But I'm not convinced. 
Suppose you were the last man on earth. You know you will not be read. And yet, you may still publish, so to speak (mind the qualification), your thoughts. Write them down, revise them, edit them, and make them accessible at least in theory, counterfactually, as if there were someone who could read them. People write diaries while hoping that such diaries may remain secret. They "publish" without wanting or wishing to make their thoughts public. This is not the same, but it is much closer to the publishing I have in mind. It is the unread publishing, the bringing it out into the open, but invisibly so, that seems to matter. This seems closer to answering the difficult question, but there is more.
I do not know a word to express this idea of public unreadigness. I searched, but "samizdat" will not do, it is another "almost", like a secret diary, even if for other reasons. Because the term refers to the clandestine publication of banned literature in communist countries of Eastern Europe, but that was still meant to be read by the right people. Still, "samizdat" does help a bit, by pointing towards the practice of self-publishing, as it derives from "sam" ("self, by oneself") and izdat (an abbreviation of izdatel'stvo, "publishing house"), and thus means "self-published". We are getting close.
Secret diaries, clandestine literature... can be forms of self-publishing which of course refer to the publication by an author directly, without the intermediation of a publisher. But here I like to interpret it differently, as publishing not by oneself but for oneself, no matter whether directly or indirectly, with or without the mediation of others, the publishers.
Being published is not being read, obviously. So one could seek to "self-publish" even if longing for secrecy, or not minding public unreadingness. And that, I think, it's the significant difference. For the whole point of publishing is first of all ensuring that one's own thoughts finally solidify into a permanent artefact. Distilled and deposited into a some-thing. Stratified, like living organisms now dead, into layers of words, paragraphs, sections, pages, volumes. This happens even in secrecy, even without readers. Indeed, publishing may be more successful if it is "self-publishing", because the eyes and ears of the readers, imagined by the writer, corrupt the process of writing, like clumsy and oblivious anthropologists mingling with prehistorical people, influencing their customs and behaviours. The reader must remain an invisible presence, for the writing to be authentic. 
Self-publishing is a job done properly, even if nobody will ever know, and it is done better if nobody is expected to know, even if they may. In this, self-publishing as publishing for oneself is like broadcasting: the formulation and transmission of one's own thoughts, even if no one is listening, even if the universe is dead, even if you are the last man on earth. 
And so, by committing your thoughts to some external support, by "self-publishing" without minding whether reading will follow, you reify your thoughts and make them external, and enable more thoughts to develop, building these new thoughts on the calcified ones now in the world. In this, self-publishing as publishing for oneself resembles the private mourning of one's own thoughts, which have completed their journey and can now rest, ultimately detached from that mind that kept them alive.
But publishing as "self-publishing" is also about liberating oneself from the mental pressure of thoughts that have become unbearable, from thoughts that are ready to be born. Any Athena gives an awful headache to her Zeus, no matter how small both divinities may be. It is about being able to use those self-published thoughts as new input for other thoughts, new explorations, enjoyable at first, soon to become painful, and later ready to be self-published themselves, in a cycle of genesis, expulsion, and leverage. A bit like the God of the Bible, who could not help having us, but needed to get rid of us to have other thoughts, apparently to save us.
And so, the answer to the question is that, ultimately, you publish because you publish for yourself, and your only good publishing is this self-publishing, so that your thoughts may be dead to you, external compost for more internal thoughts, no matter whether they may be alive to others, should they wish to welcome them.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on UnsplashOnlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Call for expressions of interest: research position for a project on Digital Sovereignty and the Governance, Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (GELSI) of digital innovation.
The Centre for Digital Ethics of the University of Bologna https://centri.unibo.it/digital-ethics/en invites expressions of interest (EOI) from early career researchers, with a relevant Master or PhD degree, interested in developing a research project in the field of Digital Sovereignty and the Governance, Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (GELSI) of digital innovation.

The EOI should include three documents (all in English):

1. a letter (ca. 500 words), including relevant details about personal motivation, relevant skills, experience, and a link to a Google Scholar profile;

2. a short CV (max 3 pages), including a list of publications; and

3. a short (ca. 1,000 words) outline of the proposed research project about digital sovereignty and the GELSI of digital innovation, indicating: topic, methodology, deliverable, and timeline.

Deadline for the EOI: 1 June 2023.

The position is envisaged to last two years, with an initial appointment of one year renewable upon satisfactory progress. It is not expected to be residential.

Please send your complete EOI to CEDE Segreteria Amministrativa by email (also in English) to: segreteria.amministrativa.cde@gmail.com



Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Interview by Adele Sarno for HuffPost, the Italian original is here
The following English translation is provided by Google, apologies for any imprecision.




Luciano Floridi, the digital philosopher, works between Oxford and Bologna, from next summer, he will leave Oxford to direct the Center for Digital Ethics at Yale. He has received the highest honour granted by the Italian Republic: Cavaliere di Gran Croce. According to the Elsevier Scopus database, he is the most cited living philosopher in the world. If today we talk about the "philosophy of information", it is thanks to him, who for 30 years, studied the connections between philosophy and the digital world.




Professor Floridi, ChatGPT has been at the centre of the debate, especially these days. Elon Musk and a thousand other experts have written a letter asking for its development to be stopped for six months. In Italy, on the other hand, the privacy guarantor has decided to stop for 20 days until it complies with the privacy regulations. What's going on?

"As soon as ChatGPT came out, the controversy started, but I suggested not to block such tools, and to teach their proper use in school. They are handy tools, flexible, powerful, and easy to use. It makes no sense to demonise them. But when there is something new, the first instinct is to stop it, waiting for something to happen. You see the problem, but you don't offer a solution."

What can happen now that the Italian Data Protection Authority has stopped the use of ChatGPT in Italy?

"It is a draconian reaction which to me seems potentially excessive because the solution should be a compromise, not a blockade. The Italian Data Protection Authority is right when it says that the service is aimed at those over 13, but the program has no real verification filters. It collects all your data when you interact with it; they inform you clearly before using it. And advertising will probably come too. Not to mention the training data and the data leaks. So there is a privacy risk, and data management is certainly not up to European standards. But introducing more serious online registration, and a more regulated use of data should be the way forward. In short, going from 'free for all, do anything' to 'blocked' seems excessive and risky. I believe that looking for other possible solutions is a must. I hope that we are working in this direction".

The Italian Data Protection Authority on HuffPost says he has nothing against progress. But innovation cannot be done at the expense of people's rights. In particular, he claims that ChatGPT is trained thanks to billions of data from billions of people, so it must be blocked.

"There are at least two main problems with doing this. The first is that ChatGPT will continue to be used, because, in this case, a VPN is all you need, and therefore an underground usage and the usual rift will be created between those who know how to do these things and those who have no idea. With consequences that reach even a deeper level: just think of the schools where it will be impossible, at least legally, to educate in the good use of this tool, of the world of research - I use GPT4 daily - or of the world of work, where for example, it is commonly used to write lines of code. Furthermore, a context is created which replaces dialogue with confrontation. Then there is the uncertainty regarding all those contexts in which systems, such as ChatGPT and other so-called Large Language Models, are already integrated into search engines, as in the case of Microsoft".

The Italian Data Protection Authority also says that the block depends on the fact that the information provided by this technology is inaccurate.

"On inadequacy, two aspects can be distinguished. On the one hand, the system errs on the side of caution because you have to work hard to make it say something bad or wrong. It's a do-gooder, doesn't even give you the recipe for horsemeat, and lectures you if you don't ask the right question about it. On the other hand, it is a statistical system, and sometimes the answers are completely unreliable or made up. I recently had to summarise my work for the usual, bureaucratic, mindless reasons, and GPT4 described me as a Belgian philosopher. At the same time, the summaries of the books were very good.".

So the block doesn't make much sense?
I don't know all the reasons that led to the decision. The effect is that Italy is now out of the development of this technology. Because I expect that, for consistency, the block should be applied to all the various similar applications produced by Google, Meta, Microsoft, and so on. But how can we curb a phenomenon that is already underway? Do we stop search engines along with ChatGPT? In a context where there is commercial competition, and where the interests are tens of billions of dollars, it is difficult to stop everything voluntarily, for fear of science fiction scenarios, as in the case of the letter, or by going through a total blockade of technology, as in Italy. Not only will no one stop. But, in the case of the letter, it is a hypocritical operation. If then one requires that the instrument, to be usable, must be infallible like a calculator, we know that it will never be, because it is neither deterministic nor controllable like a calculator. It is inherently fallible because it is based on statistical analysis done on billions of data points. If this is the reasoning, then you are asking the impossible; in fact, you are saying that this tool can never be used. It reminds me of what happened with synthetic meat in Italy [note: the production has been banned]. Instead, we should try to understand how best to regulate the use of these technologies, mind you, not the technologies themselves, but how they are used, for what purposes, what we do with them, and in which contexts. In part, European legislation is coming to this, but only in part".

Yet Musk and a thousand other GPT4 experts wrote a letter saying we are creating super-powerful digital minds.

"The letter is a bad soup of things: good and a little trivial, wrong and science fiction. That passage about super-powerful digital minds sounds like something from a bad Hollywood script. It disinforms and scares, distracting from the real issues. A bit like raising the alarm for the possible arrival of zombies.".

Yet it was signed by over a thousand experts in the AI sector.

"It's as if we had a rope with many strands. One is that of disinformation. Another is that of mass media fame and prominence as an influencer. Then there are the naive, those who want to feel part of a community, those who think it's better than nothing, those who believe that zombies are coming, those who have good intentions and click on "sign here" without thinking twice, following the flock, those who want to shift attention to technology and not to those who produce or use it, those who wish to promote self-regulation and postpone the arrival of legislation. I certainly won't sign it. A single rope is created from all these strands that drags the same effects: alarmism about the wrong things, scientific disinformation, protagonism, and public distraction. Two small examples: there is no reference to all the significant legislative developments on AI, not only in Europe but also in America, or to the environmental impact of these technologies. And it is omitted that we have been recommending self-regulation for a decade, without any effect, remaining unheard of precisely by the producers of the AI in question and by some promoters of the letter, such as Elon Musk. In the rope, there is, therefore, also a strand called hypocrisy.

He talked about it several times on HuffPost. The infosphere is still a new place in the common imagination and is based on the circulation of information, here whoever controls the information has the keys to everything. Isn't there a risk that in the absence of clear rules, the same mistake that the Clinton administration made 30 years ago will still be made? Leave such fundamental decisions to the big Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, and somehow delegate everything to self-regulation?

"I don't know if this is the end of the letter. But that's the risk we run. As I was saying, there are many strands in the rope, and the reasons that hold them together are different, but together these strands deliver something. And I fear that this something is delaying legislation, a further attempt at self-regulation, a mass distraction on problems that are not the real ones, namely manipulation, disinformation, the extraordinary power of control of the producers of these tools over who uses them, and then the misuse by those who ordinarily deploy these tools for immoral or illegal purposes, just think of organised crime or regime propaganda. All of this is without mentioning the environmental impact, which is very significant. It is sensational to shift the attention and blame for everything on generative and non-generative artificial intelligence, when actually the real problems are upstream, with those who produce it, and downstream, with those who use it badly and hence with their misuse. I fear that there is bad faith in those who lead this operation, and a lot of naivety in those who have joined the queue".

Let's talk about legislation, a fundamental element that unites the provision of the Guarantor and the letter. Where are we?

"ChatGPT is a great tool, and one needs to know how to use it well. But above all, we need to understand how to manage it from a regulatory point of view. European legislation is on the way, with the AI Act. It can be criticised and improved, but it is a good step in the right direction. However, it has a fundamental problem: it focuses on artificial intelligence as if it were a product whose safety must be guaranteed, imagine a microwave oven, and not on its use and applications, which can be benevolent, or malevolent and highly risky. But AI is not an artefact or a product; it is a service, i.e., a form of agency, an ability to carry out tasks or solve problems. For this reason, now is the time to understand what regulatory framework must be designed for this technological innovation. There is still time to regulate its uses, straighten the course, and work on the "how" and not the "what".

So, without a clear regulatory framework, did the Italian Data Protection Authority appeal to the GDPR?

"The Italian Data Protection Authority has requested Open AI to comply with the GDPR. But if we are asking – and I emphasise the if – that these systems must, for example, obtain permission to use all public web pages written in Italian to learn how to interact in Italian, and that they must then always be correct when they provide the requested information from an Italian user, then we are asking for the impossible. It seems to me that the regulatory framework is not adequate, because the only thing that can be done with it is to ban it. A bit like using the legislation on carriages to apply it to cars. But history teaches us, prohibition is useless: it's like blocking the sea with a colander. This is why I hope that the initial "if" is just my interpretative error".

Much ado about something that someone has compared to a parrot.

"No, no, a parrot is much smarter. GPT4 is much more like a "linguistic calculator", shall we say. It is a syntactic calculator, which treats natural language as if it were mathematics: it doesn't memorise and repeat a solution, it creates it. The question is not what answers it can give, but what you do with those answers. Plato already said it: the expert is the one who, above all, knows how to ask the right questions. It is better to understand how to use and teach it, than to ban it. It seems to me that the arrival of these tools actually purifies the true essence of human intelligence, because it detaches it from any form of encyclopedism, the ability to remember a thousand facts, and mere erudition. It is the question, and the purpose of the question that makes the difference.".

Is there a risk, especially in the absence of legislation, that our social networks are literally overwhelmed by fake news and deepfakes?

"It is a severe danger, which is also briefly indicated in the letter, one of the few good things about that text: we run the risk of deep and serious pollution, especially on social media. This can be summed up in two words: disinformation and manipulation. For those who want to perpetrate both, such powerful tools, which create and manage any content, language, image, sound, or video, are ideal. They allow for industrial processing. This problem is serious. The solution is: more and better legislation, as soon as possible. No sci-fi worries or Draconian blocks".

PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra

 

 

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Pale colours are the hues of discrete affluence. Often green or brown, sometimes blue, less frequently red, all deeply tinted with white, greyshed and matted, they speak of detached lives and tastefully expensive houses.
They match the oaky, automatic gate; the spacious, walled gardens; the grass, carefully mowed by invisible others; the roses, hobbily attended by the well-mannered owners; the expensive, conscientious electric cars in the courtyard; the old carpets to warm the creamy, stony floors; the terracotta in the spacious kitchen; the solid, timbered ceilings; the wooden doors;  the immaculate linen; the bathrooms' ivory basins.
Pale colours are quiet and unobstructive. They wish to be old, like unembarrassing money. Even when recently painted, they pretend to have been washed by centuries of tradition, smoothed by classic virtues and family reunions. They are meant to smell like musky wealth that does not age but accrues, of private schools for the children, of Oxbridge sports, of a library with forgotten ex libris, of old and silveryframed pictures next to the accomplished piano, of graphite fireplaces that never stopped working, of waxed furniture inherited with the crystal glasses and the silver spoons, of ancestors' jewellery, of paintings whose collectors have been forgotten. 
Pale colours bridge generations. They want to be educated not merely acculturated, refined not sophisticated, stylish not fashionable. They are soft and unchanging, smoothed to hide the corrosion of time, polished to pretend never to be eroded. They whisper stories of continuity, solidity, stability, permanence. 
And as I walk, and I see them around me, I know they are just a layer of discreteness on the indecent caducity of the objects they cover, a grey and pudic veil that seeks to hide the world from violent loudness and aggressive change.
I cannot help it. I like them. But I know I should cover my eyes like Odysseus his ears, because they are lying.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra


Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

In poche battute: Brevi riflessioni su cultura e digitale 2011-2021 è disponibile presso Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/85KTDpC 
Qui il testo originale pubblicato sull'HuffPost
Elly Schlein: otto motivi per sperare, otto motivi per temereUn vantaggio dell’essere lontano dall’Italia è quello di poterla “vedere da lontano”. Ovviamente il rischio è di prendere abbagli e fischi per fiaschi, ma forse si riescono a vedere meglio le cose, con più distacco e in prospettiva. Sperando che quest’ultimo sia il caso in questione, ecco un breve commento su come appare l’elezione di Elly Schlein come Segretaria del Pd.

È un evento importante. Prima donna al comando del Pd, e altra donna di spicco, in una politica sempre più personalizzata, Elly Schlein è l’alternativa a Giorgia Meloni. E per questa alternativa, a leggere e sentire le varie opinioni, mi pare che si presentino due scenari, due linee di sviluppo all’interno delle quali si collocano gli altri scenari misti, insomma il bianco e il nero da cui nasceranno i vari grigi. Dal punto di vista di quelli che hanno votato, li chiamerei Speranza e Timore, un po’ Jane Austen, un po’ Fëdor Dostoevskij. E siccome non c’è spazio, li delineo in pochi punti più facilmente criticabili da chi non sarà d’accordo.
A) SPERANZA (basata sui 12 punti del programma di Schlein)

1. Il Pd si rinnova, liberandosi della sua casta interna e delle varie correnti, e facendosi portatore di una politica da 21° secolo, puntando sulla maggiore partecipazione della società civile, sull’apertura all’immigrazione e alla cittadinanza allargata, sulla difesa e l’implementazione di diritti e doveri civili, sulla promozione di riforme profonde, e anche inizialmente impopolari per gl’interessi costituiti, al fine di svecchiare e dinamicizzare il paese, sull’investimento nel digitale, nella formazione, nel lavoro, nella sostenibilità, nell’innovazione tecnologica, e nella crescita economica, sull’adozione di una solidarietà diffusa, su più presenza nell’Ue, sul sostegno all’Ucraina e alla Nato, etc.; in tal modo...
2. il Pd, pur perdendo voti di protesta, populisti e d’interesse, assorbe molti voti sia dal centro, indebolendo Calenda-Renzi, sia dal M5S, portando quest’ultimo verso posizioni più costruttive e meno demagogiche o di mera protesta e rivendicazioni, pur di contare e non restare isolato, creando così...
3. una rinnovata fiducia in una politica alternativa al centro-destra, di stile lib-dem o Labour (ma non quello di Jeremy Corbyn), con una identità chiara e incisiva, che dà fiducia in termini di competenza e rigore, anche economici, e che riesce ad...
4. attrarre gli indecisi, i non-votanti, i neo-votanti, chi si astiene in modo programmatico, chi ha sempre la tentazione di non votare, ma soprattutto chi dalla politica vorrebbe meno ideologia e più soluzioni concrete (sul che cosa) e fattibili (sul come), disegnate da un partito che fa opposizione costruttiva mentre si prepara a governare; questa nuova attrattività porta...
5. alla vittoria del Pd + M5s + alleanze alle prossime elezioni, con il Pd come partito di governo, quindi...
6. alla riduzione dell’importanza dei partiti di centro, alleati del, o assorbiti dal Pd, irrilevanti o non più esistenti, mostrando che il termine “centro” in centro-sinistra ha altrettanto peso e valore quanto “sinistra”, e...
7. alla frammentazione del centro-destra (venendo meno l’interesse emergono le differenze e i dissensi) e alla migrazione di alcune sue parti, più liberali e solidali, verso accordi ad hoc con un Pd + M5s+ alleanze al governo, in conclusione...
8. (abbiamo dieci dita, diciamo quindi che) si va verso un decennio di centro-sinistra come forza nazionale, e non solo regionale.

B) TIMORE

1. Pd e M5s si avvicineranno ma, assumendo che l'alleanza riesca, l’unione-alleanza-intesa non sarà un partito progressista/riformista, diciamo una sorta di nuovo lib-dem, ma un centro-sinistra un po’ indifferenziato, populista e di protesta, più movimento di denuncia e indignazione che piattaforma progettuale, con il rischio ulteriore della M5s-ificazione del Pd; ne segue che...
2. ci saranno troppe operazioni da centro-sinistra intellettuale – casta e correnti varie saranno ancora influenti – e poca concretezza sul come rimettere a posto il paese, si parlerà tanto di diritti e poco di doveri, tanto di assistenzialismo e supporto e poco di crescita e investimenti, molto di lavoratori e poco di datori di lavoro, mentre riforme serie o politiche lungimiranti – che costano in popolarità – non saranno pop e quindi non verranno elaborate nel dettaglio, ma solo accennate a grandi linee, insomma si cercherà di recuperare consenso, cavalcando malcontento, rivendicazioni ottimistiche, mode, proteste, aspirazioni idealistiche e promesse utopistiche più che disegnando serie proposte di buon governo, competenti, e fattibili, che risolvono i problemi passati, riformando il presente, e affrontano quelli futuri con una gestione costruttiva del progresso per il benessere di tutti e dell’ambiente; anche per questo...
3. il Pd sarà percepito come un partito di opposizione ma non di governo da tutti quelli già elencati nel punto (4) sopra; il voto al Pd sarà visto come un voto perso, o di protesta, e tutto ciò metterà in crisi la natura unitaria del Pd, già molto fragile; quindi...
4. il Pd vedrà una ulteriore emorragia di voti dei delusi (per esempio gli iscritti che si aspettavano un netta vittoria di Stefano Bonaccini), degli stanchi, di quelli che sono più di centro che di sinistra o che appartengono al mondo cattolico, o ad altre correnti più vicine a politiche liberali (emorragia verso Renzi+Calenda), o che sono più populisti che di sinistra (emorragia verso M5S), per non parlare di coloro che smetteranno di (o non inizieranno neppure a) votare qualsiasi partito, Pd incluso; anche per questo si arriverà a...
5. una probabile scissione del Pd (non avverrà subito ma con i tempi definiti dal bon ton della politica); questa renderà...
6. il centro-sinistra più debole, frammentato, meno centro e più sinistra, e un centro riformista/progressista con un ipotetico triumvirato Bonaccini-Calenda-Renzi (NB i nomi non contano, potrebbero cambiare nei prossimi anni, portando anche a fusioni) leggermente meno minoritario, e potenzialmente “king maker”, cioè ago della bilancia, almeno nelle velleità, non tanto nel decidere chi va al governo (una simile coalizione con il centro destra sembra improbabile) ma soprattutto nell’influenzare quale legislazione e quali politiche verranno implementate con alleanze ad hoc, e quale “cultura politica” di centro-destra/centro e aspettative sociali e economiche domineranno nel paese; in questo caso...
7. un centro minoritario ma leggermente più influente potrebbe portare più facilmente il centro-destra a spostarsi verso posizioni più centriste-riformiste e meno reazionarie e conservatrici, mentre è improbabile che centro e centro-sinistra trovino un accordo; visto tutto questo...
8. (sempre con le stesse dieci dita) si va verso un decennio di permanenza della destra o del centro-destra al potere, con un Pd indebolito e cronicamente all’opposizione e un M5s privo di una reale filosofia politica e chiari criteri che differenzino i due partiti, se non diverse enfasi su rivendicazioni, denunce, e forme di assistenzialismo (oltre alle ovvie strutture di potere, segreterie, etc.).

C) CONCLUSIONE
A e B sono frutto di un po’ di analisi logica, niente determinismo e niente fatalismo, solo due ipotesi, in cui ogni punto potrebbe essere errato non solo in parte, ma anche del tutto, e ribaltato completamente, o mescolato per ipotesi alternative meno polarizzate. La storia è imprevedibile, ma se dovessi puntare, purtroppo punterei sulla realizzazione del timore e non della speranza.Spero di sbagliarmi. Ma soprattutto sono felice di non dover puntare.Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Call for Papers for American Philosophical Quarterly’s special issue on The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Editor in chief: Patrick Grim
Guest editor: Luciano Floridi





Artificial Intelligence (AI), from machine learning to robotics, generates enormous opportunities and significant challenges. In the past few years, many of them have led to a flourishing of international initiatives and growing research concerning the ethics and governance of AI. This special issue solicits the submission of original articles that investigate how AI is transforming classic questions or leading to new ones in moral thinking, and how such questions may be addressed successfully. Topics of special interest include but are not limited to AI and: authenticity, creativity, and intellectual property rights; bias, discrimination and fairness; the digital divide; digital sovereignty; capabilities and empowerment; cyberconflicts and cybersecurity; fake news and deep fakes; ethical frameworks and principles; ethics-base auditing; human autonomy and self-determination; sustainability and sustainable development goals.
All approaches, methodologies, and schools of thought are welcome, with particular attention to sound and evidence-based reasoning. Purely historical or speculative articles are not encouraged.
To submit a paper for this special issue, authors should send an email to
Elisabetta Bulla, Centre for Digital Ethics, University of Bologna
segreteria.amministrativa.cde@gmail.com
including name, surname, academic affiliation and preferred email in the body of the email and the submitted article, fully anonymised, in word format, as an attachment.
The deadline is 31st of July 2023.Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Condivido la versione corretta dell'intervista uscita su Arttribune. Purtroppo la versione pubblicata per errore è la prima bozza.

LA FILOSOFIA DELL’INFORMAZIONE, LA FILOSOFIA DELL’INFORMATICA E L’ETICA INFORMATICA SONO I CAMPI DI INDAGINE DI LUCIANO FLORIDI, AL QUALE ABBIAMO CHIESTO DI RIFLETTERE SUL DOMANI

Il filosofo Luciano Floridi (Roma, 1964), naturalizzato britannico, è professore ordinario di Filosofia ed etica dell’informazione presso l’Oxford Internet Institute dell’Università di Oxford. È anche professore di Sociologia della comunicazione presso l’Università di Bologna, dove dirige il Center for Digital Ethics. 

Dall’arte agli auspici (e ai timori) per il domani, ecco una sintesi del pensiero di Floridi.

 

 

Quali sono i tuoi riferimenti ispirazionali nell’arte?

 

Evitando i grandi classici come Raffaello, Michelangelo e Caravaggio l’arte contemporanea che trovo più vicina a me, anche filosoficamente, e da cui traggo ispirazione è la Land Art. Ho come la sensazione che forse sia avvenuta troppo presto e si sia consumata in un periodo in cui non la si è capita abbastanza e oggi sia talmente scontata che abbia superato il suo momento di rottura e quindi non sia più di moda. È partita così tanto in anticipo e in un momento in cui la nostra comprensione per l’ambiente non era così raffinata che credo che se si sviluppasse oggi sarebbe dirompente. Per Land Art non intendo solamente le installazioni in natura di Richard Long ma anche l’arte urbana che racconta un modo di vivere l’habitat che è sensibile nei confronti degli aspetti più estetici della nostra esistenza. Infine, un’opera che di recente mi ha colpito particolarmente sono le sinopie degli affreschi di Mezzaratta nella Pinacoteca di Bologna [LF: vedi immagine sopra in questo blog]. Le figure vagamente accennate, quasi etere di questi disegni preparatori, rimossi da una chiesa ed esposti nella pinacoteca, hanno un aspetto estraneamente contemporaneo che tracciano a mio parere con la Land Art un filo rosso in cui l’umano si fonde con il naturale e con l’ambiente.

 

Quale progetto ti rappresenta di più? Puoi raccontarci la sua genesi?

 

Dal punto di vista biografico, quasi intimistico, è um libricino che ho realizzato recentemente che si chiama Notes to myself - Notes wrapped around a bottle with a rubber band (la copertina è un dettaglio delle sinopie di cui parlavo). Il sottotitolo prende ispirazione dal libro di John Steinbeck, Viaggio con Charley, in cui ad un certo punto parla di alcune note che ha messo insieme nel corso di quel viaggio, in cui descrive un’America che sta sparendo: "And I made some notes on a sheet of yellow paper on the nature and quality of being alone. These notes would in the normal course of events have been lost as notes are always lost, but these particular notes turned up long afterward wrapped around a bottle of ketchup and secured with a rubber band.” Questo mio libro è una selezione di note che raccolgo in un blog e che ho deciso di pubblicare su Amazon al prezzo più basso possibile per il cartaceo e gratuito in formato digitale. Mi piacerebbe aggiornare l’edizione regolarmente, con nuove note. Sono note brevi, non strettamente collegate, idee per libri che non scriverò mai, ricordi che mi hanno formato. Sono note non fatte per apparire in un certo modo, ma solo per raccontare le tante cose che passano per la testa e che probabilmente non andranno mai da nessuna parte. Scrivendole riesco a sgombrarmi la testa da esse. Lo diceva bene Gilbert Ryle che pubblicava testi proprio per toglierseli dalla testa, per fare un dumping di idee. Ovviamente queste note nel libro sono curate, ma, come per la barchetta di carta lasciata andare sul fiume, la cura è un modo per liberarsi di queste idee.  

 

Quale è l’importanza per te del Genius Loci nel tuo lavoro?

 

È fondamentale, e paradossalmente avrei una risposta duplice: esiste un Genius Loci esterno e uno interno.

Grazie a mia moglie, che è il vero genio della famiglia, ho capito che ho un Genius Loci agostiniano, interno, uno spazio mentale al quale accedo con una facilità impressionante ovunque io sono. Mi assento mentalmente senza difficoltà. Agostino diceva: “Noli foras ire. Non uscire fuori, la verità abita al tuo interno" e questa frase, che rimane famosa nella storia della filosofia, viene anche ripresa da Rilke in Lettere a un giovane poeta. Questo interno è il mio Genius Loci agostiniano.

Il secondo Genius Loci è rappresentato dagli spazi in cui lavoro. Abbiamo scelto apposta una casa bellissima, una vecchia fattoria ristrutturata nella campagna inglese, con grandi spazi e un immenso silenzio. In questo caso il Genius Loci è un po’ bucolico e anche qui si può rintracciare la mia passione per la Land Art. Non ho un senso della natura come qualcosa di immacolato, genuino o primordiale. Per me la natura è in realtà un concetto culturale, una produzione della nostra concettualizzazione del mondo e del nostro esperirlo. In ogni differente cultura ciò che è naturale è differente, basti pensare alla promiscuità sessuale dei greci che con il cristianesimo diventa innaturale, o la naturalità di un giardino fatto solo di pietre e ghiaia. L’idea è che la natura è un prodotto concettuale e questa campagna inglese in cui vivo non ha niente di intoccato: ogni filo d’erba è stato curato da generazione, ogni albero è stato potato, ogni rosa è stata importata, ogni pietra è stata spostata… però questa cura ci da un senso di abitabilità di uno spazio che è consono alla cultura interna.

Infine, l’altro Genius Loci esterno è Guarcino, un paesino in provincia di Frosinone dove abbiamo una casa che appartiene alla mia famiglia da secoli e che per me rappresenta le mie radici. La mia famiglia ha vissuto a Guarcino sin dalle crociate e lì c’è la tomba di famiglia. È da quando ho cinque anni che mio padre mi ricorda che sarò seppellito lì, entrando a destra.

 

Quanto è importante il passato per immaginare e costruire il futuro

È assolutamente fondamentale ma deve essere fatto in maniera nietzschiana, liberandoci da esso. Nel testo Sull'utilità e il danno della storia per la vita Nietzsche ci mostra quanto la storia possa essere un fattore completamente bloccante. Se tu sai troppo del passato la tua capacità di innovazione è paralizzata. Qui ad Oxford, come in ogni università, gli studenti si dispongono su una curva gaussiana, a quelli più bravi, che si trovano completamente a destra della gaussiana, la prima cosa che raccomando è di smettere di leggere, prendere carta e penna e cominciare a pensare, togliersi da davanti agli occhi la luce accecante dei grandi maestri, rimanere nella penombra, farsi qualche idea propria, e armarsi di quelle idee per affrontare, il pensiero altrui, la tradizione scientifica, umanistica e culturale in cui si lavora, il passato, in poche parole la storia. La storia è fondamentale ma come secondo momento dialettico, è ciò con cui dobbiamo confrontarci ma non deve essere il punto di partenza, non ci deve fronteggiare, se si parte dalla storia quasi sempre ci si rimane invischiati. Il progresso si fa in seconda battuta confrontandosi con la storia, ma in prima battuta pensando qualcosa di nuovo. Prima arrivano le idee e poi il riscontro con la storia.

 

La cultura italiana ha grandi difficolta a scardinarsi dalla storia e per questo rischia di essere ingessata, e quando arrivano delle reazioni, come quella dei futuristi, sono spesso di strappo poiché si sente la necessità violenta di reagire a quella che sarebbe una presenza soverchiante. Chi invece riesce a confrontarsi in seconda battuta con la storia lo può fare senza bisogno di quella violenza iniziale. L’innovazione non è necessariamente rivoluzione, ma può essere una evoluzione sulla base di un rapporto dialettico. Faccio un esempio fuori dal mondo artistico. Pensiamo a Adriano Olivetti. La storia di un uomo geniale e di una straordinaria azienda può diventare soffocante. Celebrando e musealizzando Olivetti andremmo esattamente in direzione opposta a ciò che lui ha fatto, e invece di seguire la sua lezione, di costruire qualcosa a latere e poi confrontarsi con la tradizione, rischieremmo di fare di lui un riferimento mummificato, che può essere solo ammirato. Sarebbe il modo peggiore di celebrare la memoria di un genio che ha fatto esattamente il contrario. Questo succede sempre con tutti i grandi innovatori che abbiamo avuto in Italia, li si mette sull’altare e poi si cominciamo ad accendere le candeline. La filosofia moderna la facciamo partire con Cartesio che è un ingegnere militare e la filosofia la contemporanea la facciamo partire con Wittgenstein che è un ingegnere aeronautico. Loro facevano filosofia venendo non da anni di studi di filosofia medievale né venendo da anni di studi di filosofia moderna ma arrivando a latere con le loro idee che confrontano poi con la storia e la tradizione in seconda battuta.

 

Che consiglio daresti ad un giovane che vuole intraprendere la tua strada?

Caute ambizioni.

L’esempio perfetto si trova nell’alpinismo, anche se parlo da dilettante. Pensate all’ambizione di voler scalare la vetta più alta che riuscite ad immaginare ma con la cautela di chi fa un passo dopo l’altro, e che in montagna c’è stato e ne conosce i rischi. A volte consigliamo troppa cautela o troppa ambizione ma la combinazione tra le due per me è l’approccio giusto. Mete ambiziose, grande cautela nella metodologia e nella preparazione preparazione.

Abbiate il coraggio di avere grandi ambizioni ma anche la cautela di misurare i passi per arrivarci. E quello è un grande lavoro. L’ambizione è qualcosa di buono se alimentata dallo sforzo necessario per soddisfarla.

E poi pensare con la propria testa, iniziare sempre ogni volta con la volontà interna di chiedersi: che cosa voglio fare? Chi voglio essere? E solo dopo confrontarsi con che cosa il mondo vorrebbe farci fare, vorrebbe che fossimo.

 

In un’epoca di post verità il concetto di sacro ha ancora importanza e forza?

C’è secondo me la possibilità che la nostra cultura vada verso un concetto di sacro che non è religioso. Che ci sia una sorta di rispetto sacrale per quello che abbiamo intorno a noi, sia di non creato da noi sia di creato da noi (per la natura e per la cultura) e che questo rispetto abbia qualcosa in se di sacrale ma non trascendente. Fatto questo chiarimento la domanda diventa complicata, perché il concetto del sacro ha una forza enorme se vissuto in maniera immanente e non trascendente. Se ci riuscissimo il mondo sarebbe un posto migliore, poiché implicherebbe cura e rispetto dell’altro come qualcosa di irripetibile e preziosissimo. Mi sembra possibile ma, detto questo, non è la direzione che vedo. Al momento infatti mi sembra che si stia andando o verso l’assenza del sacro, per cui tutto può essere distrutto e ricreato, o verso una sacralità di tipo trascendente e quindi assoluta, in cui si generano anche scontri intolleranti tra diversi assolutismi. Vorrei una sacralità che fosse di tipo culturale e naturale, come mi piace immaginare fosse quella dei greci.

Ci sono due libri che recentemente mi hanno trasmesso questo senso di sacralità di cui parlo, il primo è Gli Anni di Annie Ernaux (confesso di averlo letto e ammirato prima del Nobel) e il secondo è di Salvatore Satta, Il giorno del Giudizio (un libro che avrebbe meritato il premio Nobel). In entrambi si percepisce la forza della sacralità dell’umano, la forza della vita mentale: non quella della pianta, ma la forza del capitale semantico.

 

Come immagini il futuro? potresti darci tre idee che secondo te guideranno i prossimi anni

 

A questa domanda posso rispondere in due modi: il primo è come temo che vada, il secondo è come desidero che vada.

Se devo fare una previsione penso che il futuro sarà molto difficile perché l’ambiente non ci perdonerà i nostri comportamenti e ciò che stiamo vedendo oggi è solo un’anticipazione di ciò che sarà in futuro. Abbiamo scatenato forze che non possiamo controllare, ci sarà anche un’alba ma la notte sarà molto buia.

Ogni anno c’è un giorno in cui terminiamo le risorse disponibili nel mondo per far funzionare la società umana e quel giorno arriva sempre prima. La tecnologia in questo ci può aiutare moltissimo e forse ci sarà un’alba in cui l’umanità sarà più intelligente, più attenta, più tollerante.

Le tre idee che mi chiedi forse servono per capire come superare questa nottata in maniera un po' più semplice, ma qui inizio a parlare di come mi piacerebbe che il futuro fosse. 

La prima idea è la resistenza culturale all’imbarbarimento che esiste ed è sempre esistito in ogni generazione. È da sempre che noi siamo sia barbari sia civilizzati e da sempre la civiltà deve resistere alla barbaria, l’umanità deve resistere a se stessa. È una lotta continua, si deve continuare a vincere, non si vince mai una volta per tutte. La velocità con cui si crea la civiltà è identica alla velocità con cui la si distruggere. Va costantemente rinnovata.

Il vandalismo contro il capitale semantico deve vedere un enorme impegno nella sua cura e tutela. 

Insieme alla cura direi che la seconda idea è l’accrescimento e l’arricchimento dello spazio all’interno del quale operiamo, lo spazio che da senso all’uomo e all’esistenza. Che cosa vuol dire oggi arricchire il capitale semantico, come metterlo a frutto come evitare di sprecare i talenti (come insegna la parabola del vangelo, e lo dico da agnostico)?

La terza idea è politica. Abbiamo bisogno di un enorme rinnovamento politico, reinventare il capitalismo e riformare la democrazia. Dobbiamo riuscire ad approfittare della grande eredità che abbiamo. Ancora una volta, con una difficolta nuova però, che è quella di avere avuto successo in passato. Quando hai avuto un grande successo, come quello dello sviluppo del capitalismo e della democrazie novecentesche, è molto difficile innovare, tendi a ripetere un vecchio successo che non funziona più. 

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

They say there are only six connections between any two people on this planet. Maybe. My mum once danced with Juan Carlos I (her mother taught piano at the Spanish Embassy in Rome). My sister-in-law knew the Queen. And my brother met Pope Benedict XVI. I should be indirectly connected to a lot of people. But the most amazing link is another. And this is the story I wish to tell you.
21 June 1970, Mexico, world cup final. A memorable game, even for a child born in Rome in 1964. Italy lost against what is still considered the greatest Brazilian football team of all time.
But this is still history, not my story yet, which beings a year earlier. In 1969, the Brazilian team was training in Rio de Janeiro. They had their headquarters in São Conrado. At the time, the place was far from downtown. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, with people meeting the players, and the occasional BBQ. 
One girl, six years old, was often seen mixing with the team. She liked football. Her parents took her to see the game at the Maracanã on the weekends. Her name was Anna Christina de Ozorio Nobre, but everybody called her Kia. 
She was already very curious, and often got in their way. One day, accidentally, she got so close during a penalty training session that one of the players did not see her coming and hit her by mistake with a ball so fast that she passed out. 
Pelé was a family friend. 
In the picture, you can see him patiently listening, smiling, to a lecture given by Kia, who clearly thought that he had something to learn from her homework. They are in Kia's Godmother's house.
They all liked her. So they gave her a ball and two tiny t-shirts of her size, which she still owns, with their signatures (see below). 
The ball is long gone, having been kicked around by her and her friends during recess at school. And she wore one of the t-shirts so many times, that the washed names can barely be recognised. Luckily, she never used the other one, and got a jersey too large for her. It was Tostão's, who gave it to her as a present.
In the end, she was so popular among the players that they invited her to be their mascot. 
She was very excited. But that was another time, and a little girl flying all the way to Mexico did not seem a good idea to her father. So a little boy, the son of her Godmother, who also lived nearby, went instead. 
When they came back, they gave her this picture, from a newspaper, signed by the whole team. 
She told me this and other amazing stories many years later, when we first met. And so, the other day, with the sad news of Pelé passing away, it was time to listen to more Brazilian adventures, of a magic time and a magic team, in love with a magic little girl from Rio de Janeiro.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra









































































Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

Of all the philosophical problems crowding my mind, four are recurrent and pressing. They are like two roundabouts to which I return regularly, inevitably. If I let my mind wander, there I am, thinking about one of them. I hear them silently, like earworms that take turns, melodies stuck in my head. Let me tell you about two of them (the other two will have to wait for another note).
One is about the nature of reality. What comes first, things or relations? Not chronologically, of course, but in terms of ontological priority. We cannot help but perceive and conceptualise the world in terms of stuff. We are stuff. We are surrounded by stuff. We eat stuff and bump into stuff. Stuff does stuff, causally. Stuff is made of more stuff, it changes, moves, grows and shrinks, is gathered, modelled, built and broken. Stuff everywhere, every time. Anything else is what happens to stuff. Properties, transformations, relations. From Aristotle onwards, the problem of Being is the problem of stuff: substance, essence, thing-hood. Ontology is a topology of stuff as entities, existent or not existent, whose properties are preserved under continuous changes.
Yet stuff is what it is only because it has the properties that it does, the relations it entertains, the functions it exercises. Wittgenstein remarked that there is no artichoke left once you remove all leaves. Substance is made of relations, it seems, like roundabouts, which are very real places made by roads when they meet. Nodes do not precede links in a network or arches in a graph. Ontology is more like graph theory.
But if relata are what they are because of their relations, if Romeo and Juliet are defined by their love, how can relations be, without relevant bearers, without the right relata? What sense does it make to speak of love without Romeo and Juliet, as ontologically prior to them?

I suspect that a decent ontology should be relational, but I cannot see how it may be formulated properly without becoming too mystic, obscure, confusing, incoherent, or all of the above. When an ontology of relations meets an ontology of relata, the ontology of relations is a dead ontology, because the ontology of relata has a rifle called set theory (with all its great properties, see Lindstrom's theorem proving that first-order logic is the strongest logic with the compactness and Lowenheim-Skolem properties).
There are two additional difficulties. One is linguistic and conceptual. Our Indo-European languages (our mammalian brain?) do not help, for they like to speak of cars and their colours or speed, not of colours and speeds being implemented by cars. "The car is red" is how we think, at least in this corner of the world, at least linguistically.  We struggle to imagine a sentence like "Redness is 'car-ed' [as in 'thing-ed']". The other difficulty is logical. All our logic, from Aristotle to Frege, is substantialist. It starts from (classes of) entities and moves to properties (as unary relations), and relations (binary, ternary, ... n-ary). In particular, it quantifies on variables that stand for elements of a set. This set-theoretic approach is very powerful, but it makes it almost impossible to reason in terms of an ontology of relations. You get to relations in second-order logic, but that still fails to quantify on relations, for it is entirely grounded on first-order logic, which is set-theoretical. As Quine once said, "to be is to be the value of a bound variable", and this, I add, is the curse of Western metaphysics. (PS even category theory and graph theory presuppose entities or classes of entities).
And so, all I am left with is an intuition - that a better way of modelling (more on this below) reality is in terms of an ontology of relations, not of things - and a handful of metaphors: the love between Romeo and Juliet, some roundabouts, or the nodes of a network. 
This earworm keeps crawling until my mind tires of it and switches to the other problem.
This is about meaning. Yes, the big issue of the meaning of life. Can life have meaning that is entirely immanent, or does it always need some residual transcendence in order to work and not to be a mere illusion? Is our semantic capital dependent on more than history can provide? Is it really the case that either there is no God and hence no ultimate, permanent meaning, or there is such meaning but then God as well? Are theology and semantics just two sides of the same piece of paper, so that you cannot cut the recto without cutting the verso, and if you burn one, if God is dead, so is the other? It seems that the universe is too big and indifferent, too godless to provide any meaning but the one we secrete. The only semantic pearls available are ours, and they are formed whenever irritants become trapped in our minds. Semantics is the result of our reaction to living. But then, how can an immanent semantic capital, that is entirely secular, possible? Is it possible - truly, entirely, satisfactorily - to eliminate any residual religion, not for the sake of atheism (a religion about the non-existence of God), but for the sake of moral autonomy? To be able to say: we gave sense to our lives, even if God does not exist. It seems impossible. The same mind that, through consciousness, demands that its life has meaning is also incapable of restraining itself within its own historical limits and accepting a horizon of reflection that enables the construction of meaning without breaking into the religious. The mind would like to construct its own meaning without being bounded by a historical horizon - the casual, chancy nature of existence, the accidental nature of events, the contingent nature of anything human and historical  - that would make that construction possible. Ideally, there should be a way of developing a philosophy that can speak sensibly of secular transcendence, of the ability of the mind to transcend itself without falling into supernatural or religious beliefs. But this religion without god, this spirituality without spirit, this semantic capital without otherworldly grounds, seems impossible to theorise logically, reasonably, rationally. It seems to need at the same time a bounded, historical horizon for the construction of meaning, but a boundless, non-horizon for the understanding of life, the very life to which the historical horizon is supposed to give meaning. How can this double horizon - one forced to shrink around history and the other allowed to expand soundlessly, pushed by knowledge and understanding - be designed in a stable and robust way?
And as if all this were not yet knotted beyond measure, there is an additional difficulty concerning both problems. That I cannot, for the life of me, understand how anybody can possibly believe that we have some direct access to the nature of anything that is not formatted by some level of abstraction. In other words, I cannot understand how anybody can disagree with Kant's transcendental turn. We know what we construct, and the construction is very robust and reliable, but it does not tell us about the nature of the source. To put it more metaphorically, the world provides the data, but we generate the information from the data, and the information is not a copy or a mirror image of the source of the data. We have no direct epistemic access to the noumenon, we know only the phenomena. And so, from within an informational realist position (my translation of Kant), the question of Being, the ontological question, becomes a question about the most reasonable way of conceptualizing a system we can know only through our models. And the question of Meaning, the semantic question, becomes a question of what non-metaphysical and non-transcendent ground can there be, if any, to give sense to life, good and evil, and death itself.
At the end of the day, I feel less annoyed. At least I realise that both earworms are crawling on the same side of the epistemic divide. Neither is metaphysical (neither is asking about the nature of the Ding an sich, the world as a system), both are ontological, insofar as they ask about the nature of the model of the system. One wants to know whether a relational conceptualisation of the source of our epistemic models makes more sense than a substantialist one. The other wants to know whether history can be not only necessary but also sufficient to make life fully and satisfactorily meaningful. They both presuppose that we inescapably design the reality in which we live conceptually.
I know that the two earworms will keep eating my brain, but at least I have a name for each of them, Being and Meaning. And I can hear distinctly the questions they are asking: can ontology model reality without first-order logic? That is, more constructively, is there a logic of relations that could support a relational ontology? And, can semantics work fully and satisfactorily without theology? That is, more constructively, is an immanent semantics possible that could support a non-religious spirituality?
An ontology without first-order logic, and a semantics without theology ... it's not going to be easy.
One day, I hope to find the answers, but I fear I may run out of time.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra
Picture: Marcus Aurelius, Yale University Museum.



Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

I must have been eight or nine years old, for I had just finished my third (or was it fourth?) grade (terza o quarta elementare). It was the usual long summer in Guarcino, the small village between Rome and Naples, where I spent all my childhood holidays. Soon we would have returned to Rome, the school would have restarted, and I would have failed all the geography tests. Again.
I had no memory. Never did and never will. Yet the teacher kept quizzing me about the names of the regions of Italy, the names of the cities in the regions and of the main rivers, and their length, the names of the highest mountains in the Alps and the Apennine... There was no reasoning, no logical inference, nothing to understand, criticise, or debate. I remember her asking me about the “orography” of the Val d’Aosta region. The word in Italian is very similar: “orografia”. I had no recollection. So I started talking about the importance of “oro” in Val d’Aosta (“oro” means gold in Italian). She kindly and gently, but clearly and firmly, put me to shame. She was a great teacher. But I still remember where I was in the classroom as if it were now. Piles of facts. And I could not care less. I saw no exit, no safe alternative, only a thrashing failure.
Time was running out. The summer would soon be over. I was terrified.
Then, one day, in a small restroom that no longer exists, I was reflecting on my fear while looking outside the window at the giant sycamore tree in the park in front of our house. It was so strong. It had no fear of any challenge or test. If only I could have been like that giant sycamore tree. I was trying to understand my predicament. Instead of being afraid, I asked myself why I was worried and how I could stop being worried. Could I be just like that giant sycamore tree, withstanding rain and winds, snow and heat? Looking for a way to remove or at least manage that dread of geography and the related anxiety, I realised that the only way to overcome it was to decide that I would memorise all the information the teacher needed from me. I was going to stand on my own feet. I had to be able to do it, and I discovered that I had the determination to do it. I was a child and did not know the phrase, but for the first time in my life, the implicit sense of “no matter what” – or perhaps “whatever it takes” – emboldened me in all its reassuring strength. That was it: my fear could be conquered because I was determined to pay whatever price it would take to do all that was needed. All I had to do was to rely on myself, trust my determination, never give up, and finally get all those stupid facts engraved in my brain, regurgitate them at the right time, and forget them afterwards. Surely I could do this much. It only took complete, utter, relentless determination for a kid with no memory. I looked at the giant sycamore tree and its long branches. Such a symbol of strength. I could breathe again. Sleep again. All I had to do was commit myself, rely on my goodwill, and get things done. The solution was entirely within my power. Goodbye fear and anxiety. I was free. I enjoyed the rest of the summer.
When school started, I was ready. There was a red carpet in my room. It was rectangular. We still have it somewhere in the attic of the old house in Guarcino. I walked across its perimeter, repeating aloud, endlessly, for hours, the list of names that I had to be able to memorise. Again. And again. And then again. … All I had to do was to persist until I could recite them without hesitation or mistake. I was writing on my skin, but I could take the pain. Indeed, I could take even more pain if I wanted. The scant memory I had must be exercised. It was like winning in the stupid game of holding one’s finger on the candle’s flame longer than any other child. I knew I could burn alive rather than lose. I always won. I could take more pain than the teacher could inflict.
And so, when the teacher interrogated me that year, she was astonished. I knew all the regions’ cities, in alphabetic order, starting from the “capoluogo di provincia” (provincial capital). That was how they were listed in the textbook. And to this day, I still have no idea where some cities are, but I can locate them by reciting that list, even if it is half a century old, and new cities were added later. Torino, Alessandria, Asti, Cuneo, Novara, Vercelli (no Biella and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, they were not in my textbook). Milano, Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Mantova, Pavia, Sondrio, Varese (Google says I am now missing Lecco, Lodi Monza-Brianza, added later). Bologna, Ferrara, Forlì, Modena, Parma, Piacenza Ravena, Reggio Emilia (no Rimini at that time). And so on.
Geographically, it was a pointless lesson to learn. And yet, existentially, it made me discover, at a very early age, what kind of person I was (determined is an understatement), the importance of willpower and self-reliance, the value of being able to summon, use, and direct such strength, the peace of mind that comes with it, and the ability of self-reflecting about all this. Get the problem clear, understand the solution, discover how to get from the problem to the solution, and then be ready to do whatever it takes to reach it. And if the journey requires much pain and effort, so be it. I can bear it.
Now, when I feel that I cannot take it anymore, that enough is enough, I search for that little kid in my mind, and the giant sycamore tree, and I know that if he could do it, so can I.
I often return to that moment, which I remember as if I were there right now, and that enlightening understanding, when something hard, seemingly insurmountable, too difficult, or too demanding, challenged me to the limit of my abilities. I have spent decades honing that inner self-reliance, the certainty that, with patience, determination, goodwill and willpower, tenacity, and perseverance, you can deal with almost any problem that has a solution within human reach, even problems that seem much bigger than your ability to cope with them. It’s like walking, one step at a time, pacing yourself. You can get anywhere with enough time.
I learned the lesson of commitment. Then, much later, I had to learn the lesson of not committing myself. Because if you are so determined, the risk is the inability to understand when it is time to stop, to give up, to let things go, to change your mind, to modify your course of action, to cut your losses and realise that something or someone is not worth the pain or the determination, after all. Perseverance may quickly become pig-headedness. This is why I never run a marathon. I know I would spend way too much time preparing for it, but above all, I would be unable to stop before finishing it, even if it may cost me a heart attack. Some challenges are better left alone if you know that you are too strong-willed to handle them wisely. I am still learning to commit myself more measuredly.
As life shortens, I’m trying to become more judicious in choosing the challenges worth tackling. It’s not tolerance, patience, flexibility, or even intelligence. It’s just the sense that, yes, a step at a time and I will get there, but there are many “there” that are not worth the effort, and time is running out to get where I really want.
One meets many people through time. Some are friendly, and some are not. To those enemies (not many, yet more numerous than I wish), who have enjoyed making my life more difficult, or exercised their power to sprinkle my work with gratuitous challenges, to the arrogant, the envious, the mean, the obtuse, and to all those who have sought to give me some hard time, I have learnt to reply in my mind that they have no idea how much more determined I can be to make things work. Every “dare” fuels more energy to accomplish what I’ve been told I cannot, may not, or shall not. Every obstacle becomes a stepping stone for that kid who still remembers all those cities. To all the little Napoleons I have met in my life, I wish I could remind them never to challenge someone who can take so much more pain than they can endure.
The giant sycamore tree is still there. I see it less often now, but it still reminds me of that geography lesson. Many years later, as a teenager, I learnt about the first of the Delphic maxims, γνῶθι σεαυτόν, “know thyself”. The Greeks distinguished between “episteme” as scientific or systematic knowledge, the sort of knowledge which the teacher was trying to convey through the geography lectures. And “gnosis”, understood as knowledge by experience, perception, or intimate relationship. This is the “gnōthi” in the Delphic maxim. And that was the lesson of the giant sycamore tree, which a long time ago helped a little kid to discover a bit of himself.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra
Foto: Guarcino, Floridi House, and the "Parco della Rimembranza".
Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

We live as if we added time to our existence. Days pile up, like read books. Age increases, like memories. Years accumulate, like old photographs yellowing in an album. The journey accrues special moments, like points in some loyalty card. Not knowing the end, we consider only the beginning, and we start counting from there. Like using a digital calendar that has as many days as you need, our time as boundless as the natural numbers, plus one being the rule.
But I remember that in our old house, in the small village, in the countryside, when celebrating the end of the year, we used to get a daily, tear off calendar. It was a free gift from a local shop. Days did not pile up, you tore them off, once a day, every day, until only the 31st of December was left, a lonely square of white paper, the date written in red, large and bold, deprived of all its dead siblings, already thrown into the dustbin. Going back to that house months later, you had to cut off a whole block, months were gone, visibly, like thick leaves in your hands, they had some perceivable weight.
That calendar was nailed to the wall, easily consultable. It would tell you the name of the saint celebrated on that day. As a little kid, I would flip through the pages (they were only glued at the top, to be easily removable) and imagined being already on that day, jumping in time, forward and backwards. I thought that if I could have the perfect instantaneous moment of concentration I could travel through that calendar. The fact that I failed only proved that I should concentrate better. 
Later, as an early teenager, I realised that being older was not having more years of experience but fewer to experience. I stopped cherishing the act of removing a page - I used to love to volunteer, and I was disappointed when my mother beat me to it. I started to count “backwards”: time left to the end of the academic year, to the end of high school, to the end of life itself.
Since I can remember, I have always had that tear off calendar in my mind. I have been generous and allowed myself 100 years. And every birthday is one year less in that, more realistic countdown. Maybe I would have always been inclined to plan, to manage the future as a shrinking space, to play the chess moves strategically, seeking to get to the right ending. That tear off calendar taught me the good habit of treating time as the most precious resource we have, finite and irreversible, and the bad behaviour of running through it “as if there were no tomorrow”, a beautiful phrase that few seem to grasp in full, feeling that there is never enough time for everything you would like to learn. 
I no longer believe that I can jump between its days. I know I cannot concentrate well enough. But I also know that if I wish something to happen much later in that calendar it is often essential to move the pieces on life's chessboard much earlier. Because by the time I shall tear off that day, it may be too late.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra
Photo: Valparaiso, Chile.Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

I grew up with two conceptions of immortality in my mind. It took me a while to realise that they shaped my behaviours and my choices. My identity. Neither turned out to be credible. But both were useful, for they taught me a lesson.
As a Catholic, I was brought up believing in a dream. I was immortal. Not backwards, for I was born. But forward, because I would not die. Actually, this is not the dream, for it may be the worst of all nightmares. It is the second part that turned it into the best deal ever. I was taught, since I can remember, that if I behaved decently and repent about the rest, I was going to live a life of heavenly bliss forever, and ultimately resurrect, just the way I was (or even better), and join all the people I had ever loved and indeed billions more. 
As a kid, I worried, not deeply yet frequently, about eternal damnation, the nasty side of being immortal. Speak of side effects! Better be annihilated, I calculated, than suffer horribly forever. And sometimes I also worried about missing people who may not make it. I knew what I had to do, but what if my best friends ended up on the wrong side of the divine divide? I would have never met them again. I pictured myself alone, in the dusty courtyard behind the church, nobody to play with, baking alone under the cicadish sunshine of an endless Sunday afternoon, looking at the plastic football like an empty planet. The priest suggested a solution: pray for your friends, he said, it may help, he reassured me. It made sense. Well, contextually, it did. 
A good eternity was a matter of personal effort, mostly in avoiding sins, not making a mess of my life, being a nice person, and making sure everybody else I liked would join the ultimate party. Success did not depend on anybody else but me. It was entirely my choice, and a choice I could make, no matter the circumstances. I would be judged fairly and knowingly. It was only my responsibility, regardless of who did what around me, when, or how. Want it enough, and eternal happiness was yours.  Meritocracy at its best, with a top prize for anyone trying hard enough. I liked that a lot. Heaven was a self-made boy's project. I was going to make it a great success. In fact, I was going to overdo it. I was going to be a saint. Just in case. 
But then I grew up. And while I was losing my faith through a long, slow, painless and meandering erosion that did not become obvious until much later, like a shell turning into sand one gentle wave at a time, I was taught that immortality is not of this soul or body, but of your deeds. That it is based on memory. I was going to die, of course, because entropy was the only omnipotent force in the universe, and it had no mercy. But I had a chance to be remembered forever. It did not matter that my body would soon rot. That I had no immortal soul. And it did not even matter whether my deeds would be the worst or the best. They just had to be memorable. An Oscar, a Nobel, a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games, a Fields Medal, a Pulitzer Prize, ... or the most heinous crime, a genocide, a revolutionary assassination, ... anything... because everything depended just on how deeply and permanently I was going to engrave history. This sounded more realistic. Indeed, more classic, because the Greeks and the Romans I was reading at the time often seemed to suggest this much. There was no transcendent heaven. Immortality was an entirely immanent business. It was Leonidas'. 
As a teenager, I wasn’t too happy about the bargain. You got so much less for so much more. Eternity had become an individual trace, a permanent scratch on history’s stone. But a very hard goal to achieve. It's much easier to be sinless than to make history. And I thought it was too passive. I was not going to be there to enjoy the eternal memory of myself. Besides, now there was nothing I could do for my friends, apart from hoping that they too would leave some lasting record somehow.  It was a second-class eternity, difficult to get, enjoyed only in absentia, and too timely bounded. Even if one could be remembered for as long as human history could, I knew this too had a limit. It was a merely human eternity. One day, in five billion years or so, the sun will go, and unless we will have established colonies elsewhere, any earthly immortality will come to an end, I reasoned, slightly disappointed. I consoled myself by thinking that at least it was historical immortality. Yes, the end of history would mean the end of me, if I managed to do something so significant to be remembered for as long as there was human memory in the universe, but there would be nobody around to notice. I would not be forgotten because there would be nobody who could forget me. I would disappear with the last record. I would finally die, but like Samson, under the collapsing temple of human existence in the universe, with everybody else. I would die with memory's death. I liked that. It had a sort of logical elegance in it. It seemed quite heroic. Tragically. Biblically.
But then I grew up a bit more. And I realised later in life the meaninglessness of my two eternities. One seemed more and more just a childish fancy. Unregainable. It had the advantage of making immortality achievable, and not dependent on anyone but me and a judge fair by definition. But it required a whole metaphysics that made no sense. The other had no such cost. No paradise and hell, no soul or God, no final judgement involved, no resurrection of the body. But it exacted a different, steep price: not just the Herculean effort to leave a mark, but the unpleasant reliance on others and their whimsical tastes, their feeble options, their fashionable interests to be remembered at all. Their willingness to notice me and keep their memories of me alive, renew them generation after generation, transmitting the record faithfully, omitting no crucial details, adding no apocryphal stories, through more millennia than I could count. I was asked to do something extraordinary but left in the hands of unreliable, messy, perhaps even unfriendly scribes for that to count at all. Eternity was theirs to give, not mine to conquer. Being remembered by humans seemed to be so much more difficult than being sinless in God's eyes. 
An inexistent Heaven through self-reliance, or a fragile Mnemosyne through others' whims. I did not like the alternative. But I learnt something from both.
Today I know that I am not and cannot be immortal. That nobody and nothing is or can be. That everybody and everything I love will die forever, permanently and irreversibly inexistent, and I shall never see them again. That, ultimately, life on this planet will disappear like a shadow under the sun. Trivial truths, obvious to anyone, but it took me time and courage to absorb them. And even more to live according to them. To be honest, I'm still working on them. There is no eternal Heaven. And all that remains are some memories of us that will fade more quickly than the ivy grows on the walls of a tombstone. There is no lasting Mnemosyne. She is a tricky goddess, quick in changing preferences, and not half as reliable as we would like her to be.
But despite the absence of Heaven, I still appreciate the self-reliance that it taught me and a sense of standalone justice that now has no supernatural justification, just itself to support itself. And from the untrustworthy Mnemosyne, I know that what matters is how I live, not my inexistent soul or my transient body. The importance of a life lived justly: the hollow eternities have taught me this much, and it's not too bad. For while they disappeared, they left behind some dust of their timeliness. A lesson about a different conception of infinity. Not the boundless kind, like the natural numbers that grow forever, year after year. But the endless kind, like the moments between the day I was born and the day I shall die, a finite segment made of infinite moments. This is the eternity that I was gifted. Not wasting it, thinking of Mnemosyne without trusting her, and not expecting anyone else to make it worth living but myself, remembering a  Heaven that is nowhere to be found. Not to live as if I were immortal. This is the lesson I learnt from my two young immortalities.
Picture: Roman sarcophagus, collection fo the Bank of Italy, Rome.
PS "Notes to myself" is available as a book on Amazon: ow.ly/sGyh50KfRra


Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

There are people who think they know better, and those who know better than to convince them that they don't. I now belong to the second group, but I regularly meet many members of the first: confident, opinionated, patronising. I know them well. For I was one of them. Their beliefs are not improvable, because they are perfect in their views and unfixable in mine. They don't simply know what the case is. They know better than anyone else what the case really is. And they will tell you, even if you don't ask.

Life, if you are not too obtuse, teaches you the hard way to enrol in the other group, of those who should have known better, and now know better than to engage. Mistake after mistake - even if you re-arrange facts with a Herculean effort, even if you resist the pressure of mounting evidence, no matter how self-self-preserving your attitude is (yes, it is the self-preserving nature of the self) - sooner or later should teach you some humbleness. Hammer it home, you the reluctant rod that would rather not bend, but shall.

The certainties have not vanished, but they have become rounder, softer, kinder, more like piles of cushions in your mind than steel scaffolding. The rational irritations still rasp, but less sharply, and more seldom. The urgency to reply is a more resistible temptation, often overcome. You have discovered that mistakes can be left alone, errors do not need to be rectified, irrationalities can be disregarded and nothing happens. Not because you don't know better what the case is. Or at least not because you no longer think that you know better. That vice is still there. After all, you were one of them. But because you increasingly know better than to engage in pointless discussions.

There was a sense of victory and satisfaction in driving home a point, in forcing someone to change their minds, in proving that you were right and they wrong, in seeking admiration for your arguing skills. But the other is now humiliated, resentful, offended. He cared about his opinions and had to abandon them, or admit he should, or pretend he would. A small act of violence, with little value to show. Even assuming the arguments had any effect. For they usually don't. Because if they did, then the fool whose mind you are trying to change would not hold the opinions he does in the first place.

You wish this knowing better were a sign of wisdom, or maturity, or at least some hard-earned toleration. A matter of moral improvement. Ethics teaching a lesson to Logic. But you know better than to fool yourself. This knowing better of yours looks more like tiredness, because arguing takes too much energy now. Or maybe stinginess, for your time is shorter and way more precious, and you feel you cannot waste it in meaningless debates. Or probably just indifference, because maybe you don't care anymore whether someone will have their way. They are welcome to crush against the wall of facts and truths. It is their skulls, not yours.

Or maybe, just maybe, could it be a bit of open-mindedness? A touch of patience, which is not tolerance, but a close friend of hers? Maybe you just want to be better than you are, less eager to prove people wrong, less earnest to put things right. Less unbearable. More accommodating. Less confrontational. More amicable. Perhaps.

Or maybe it's just age, and that sense of selfish preservation that comes with the extra years. For at the end of the day, wrong opinions can be avoided, idiocies ignored, falsities disregarded, dogmas left to others, unreasonable doubts brushed off, and ungranted certainties rejected. You don't have to convince anybody. You can simply walk away.

To know better than to engage is also to know better than to waste your shrinking time, while searching for truths. It is only distracting, the fools won't change, but you will have lost your path and a chance to attend one more lecture in Nature's classroom. You better know better than that.

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"Notes to myself" is available as a little book on Amazon:
- ebook shorturl.at/crV09
- paperback: shorturl.at/ahvxY Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog

The Centre for Digital Ethics https://centri.unibo.it/digital-ethics/en invites expressions of interest (EOI) from early career researchers, with a relevant Master or PhD degree, who would like to develop projects in the field of the Governance, Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (GELSI) of digital innovation.

The EOI should include three documents (all in English):

1. a letter (ca. 500 words), including relevant details about personal motivation, relevant skills, experience, and a link to a Google Scholar profile if available;

2. a short CV, including a list of publications, if any; and

3. a short (ca. 1,000 words) outline of the proposed research project about the GELSI of digital innovation, indicating: topic, methodology, deliverable, and timeline.

Deadline: 7 November 2022.

Please send your complete EOI to CEDE Segreteria Amministrativa by email (also in English) to: segreteria.amministrativa.cde@gmail.com

Onlife - Luciano Floridi's blog