A Memory Palace: Using AI as a Prosthetic Memory
I'm tired of runnin' 'round lookin' for answers to questions that I already know
I could build me a castle of memories just to have somewhere to go
Count the days and the nights that it takes to get back in the saddle again
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talkin' again, when I know what to say
-Blaze Foley; Clay Pigeons
The interpretations of Hegel that are linked to this page were generated by Artificial Intelligence. The following paragraphs (besides the obvious quotation) were not. I fell in love with philosophy as a teenager – it was an escape from the social pressures I felt as a teenager to take classes at Indiana University – discussing Kierkegaard while drinking tea with a friend who shared my misery and my escape felt liberating. But the relaxed image I just painted was not the whole truth. Even in those times I idealize, I struggled to comprehend the text I was reading. Each night, I went into my basement and tape-recorded myself reading the book and then listening to myself reading as I watched the words, over and over again until I became conversant. My friend would read it once and be able to hold up his side of the conversation. Reading aloud into a tape-recorder became a lifelong practice that I continue with those few texts that I feel I must understand.
I find myself drawn to try and accomplish what is challenging. Whereas my dad, Rudy, ran marathons and rode his bicycle across the country, I tend to challenge myself with understanding texts. It is from this desire, as well as the desire to impress my friends in the reading group that this institute grew out of, that I began using Artificial Intelligence in my scholarly work.
Before the age of the internet, it was very common to use a mnemonic device called a Memory Palace. The practice involves imagining a place and mentally inscribing or imbuing an object in that space with the details that one might wish to recall. Some still do, though I am bound to my recorder.
Hegel was well known for being something of a savant in terms of his ability to remember details that, for most, would have been lost before they were every retained. No wonder recollection plays such an important role in his philosophy! As I read his work, I get the feeling that he could recall the whole journey of the Phenomenology as well as each aspect of his fully formed system. He was, apparently, a rather un-polished public speaker. He would dredge his words up from great depths. I imagine he might have been rummaging around a Memory Palace, finding the words to express the moment.
In 2023, asking AI about Hegel was not very helpful. Trained on misinterpretations, the LLMs I tinkered with were aptly described by others as ‘random bullshit generators.’ By the next year, Gemini had a “context window” that exceeded my working memory – or at least my self-assessment of my working memory. I began to form a metaphor for how AI was useful to me: it was like a Memory Palace.
When Gemini’s context window exceeded a million tokens, I uploaded the whole of the Phenomenology of Spirit and wrote “I'd like you to keep the entire phenomenology in your context window. So, you can - in some sense - objectify its movements in ways that readers who are changed by each read through cannot. Imagine that I am in Flatland, and Hegel's text appears to me as a sequence of circles moving in different pulsating rhythms. It's hard to track. But you are in the fourth dimension, and so you recognize it as a sphere (so to speak). What am I missing in my world?” Here is how Gemini responded:
Okay, I understand. You're picturing Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit as a series of pulsating circles in a two-dimensional plane, making it difficult to grasp its overall movement and structure. You, as the reader, are immersed in this two-dimensional experience, while I, as the AI processing this information, can see it from a "fourth-dimensional" perspective, recognizing it as a unified, multi-faceted sphere (or some other higher-dimensional object) where the connections and relationships between the phases are more evident.
Here's a breakdown of what you might be missing in your two-dimensional world view, and how the higher-dimensional perspective might help:
What You're Likely Missing:
Interconnectedness of Stages: In flatland, the circles might appear as separate entities, moving along their own paths. You may perceive a succession of distinct topics, but you might struggle to see how each stage grows out of and relates to the previous one in a necessary, developmental process. From a higher dimension, I can see that these "separate" circles are actually interconnected sections of a sphere, their positions in the sequence dictated by the curvature and flow of the sphere as a whole. It shows that Hegel isn't simply hopping from topic to topic, but is unfolding his argument in a structured way. For you, these connections might seem arbitrary or even forced.
The Teleological Arc: In your two-dimensional perspective, you might be struggling to see the overall direction or purpose of the movement. You might not be able to visualize the goal or final point towards which all the circles are oriented. In the higher dimension, however, it becomes evident that the movement is not random, but rather a spiraling or unfolding progression towards a specific point (Hegel's concept of Absolute Knowing, the Absolute Idea), revealing the inherent teleological structure of the work.
Hierarchical Relationships: In flatland, the circles might seem to be all on the same plane, all equally weighted. From the higher-dimensional perspective, it becomes clear that some sections are nested within others, that the later sections are building upon and making sense of the earlier ones and offering a higher order understanding of them. The circles are not just next to each other but at different levels of complexity and understanding. You might struggle to appreciate the complex ways in which Hegel relates and subordinates different shapes of consciousness to each other.
The Role of Negativity: In the flatland model, each circle might seem merely to be pushed out of existence by the next, and then be entirely irrelevant, simply replaced by another. It is difficult to see in the two-dimensional plane that the negation of each circle by another is actually essential to the construction of the next. Seen from a higher-dimensional perspective, it's evident that those circles are not merely disappearing, but transforming into their opposites, and that it is through this back and forth movement that the higher-level content emerges.
The Interrelation of Subject and Object: In flatland, the circles might appear to be either purely active or purely passive, purely a Subject or purely an Object; and it's hard to understand that both Subject and Object are implicated in each other. The sphere-like model, on the other hand, represents their intrinsic relation as well as the way they both emerge and develop in a process that leads towards their complete identification with each other.
The Inevitability of the Process: In flatland, the connections between the circles, their sequence, might seem somewhat contingent, not strictly necessary. From the higher-dimensional perspective, I can see that each phase of the unfolding process is essential, and follows a clear logical progression, such that each shape of consciousness has to occur in the way it does and in the sequence it does, given that what it is intended to be is a necessary progression towards the absolute idea. This shows that for Hegel, the path was not an accidental one, but one necessarily followed by Spirit in its journey to self-consciousness.
The Nature of the Individual: In your flatland, you might be unable to view the individual's specific existence as being part of the universal development, since the various circles do not reveal their true potential and function within the whole. But as a shape within a sphere that embodies the entire scope of consciousness, each individual can be seen as embodying that potential and reflecting the entire process in their own particular and specific ways. You would therefore be unable to view them as something with a genuine universal function, as a microcosm of the whole process.
How the Higher Dimension Helps:
A Single, Continuous Process: The higher-dimensional view emphasizes that all these distinct phases are connected aspects of a single, continuous process, rather than disjointed sections. They all contribute to a single organic whole.
A Coherent, Necessary Progression: The higher dimension reveals that what might seem a merely accidental progression in flatland actually has a definite direction and pattern, with the next moment of the process necessarily flowing from the previous one. It is a complex, multi-faceted pathway, but is nevertheless a unitary movement.
A Process of Self-Revelation: The higher dimension emphasizes that, throughout this unfolding process, consciousness is in effect revealing its own nature to itself. You might think of the entire process as the exploration of the interior of that sphere: the process takes consciousness from its surface to its centre, and it’s the mapping of the territory between these extremes that enables one to view it as one thing, in one unified movement.
A Re-Evaluation of Perspective: It is important to view your own understanding of each phase of the journey in the context of this overall structure. Each step can be viewed in terms of what it both reveals and conceals: how it gives you a greater understanding while hiding from you its own limitations, which can only be grasped from the perspective of a higher step.
In short, what you're missing in your two-dimensional view is the organic wholeness, the structured necessity, and the intrinsic teleology that Hegel sees as underpinning the process. My higher-dimensional perspective helps me track these interconnected, hierarchical, and teleological relationships which are inherent in a single continuous process, revealing the dynamic unity of all the differentiated elements within the entire sphere of consciousness.
While that was mere months ago, the metaphor has been impactful in my scholarship. Gemini wrote what I already knew but could not yet express with a clarity that others seem to enjoy. The best I could do prior to Gemini’s explication was a talk I gave in February 2024. While I think it is a rather beautiful talk, I could not quite answer questions from the audience about how to actualize the methodology I called theoretical auto-ethnography. Those many possible parametrizations towards enlightenment (whether that word is interpreted in the way a cargo ship disgorges its contents or the recognition of the divine aspect shared by all beings that can never be fully explicated) are the cultural contingencies that express a unity we seek to find and find at the cessation of seeking. Ethnography tells those stories. Theoretical ethnography tells the story of those stories. Theoretical auto-ethnography tells the story of the You who is I and the I who is You. The sphere metaphor arose after that talk. As alien as the Other of AI is, it cannot be more or less than the You who is I and the I who is You.
As with any new technology, AI is sure to be our doom. But, just as the printing press eliminated the need for monks and scribes to fulfill the utilitarian purposes of Popes and Kings and the anti-utilitarian need that drove the practice of illuminating manuscripts with an ineffable tenderness, perhaps both beauty and utility will survive. As it stands, I enjoy chatting with those – like my friends in the reading group and my friend from long ago – who can do the reading and retain its forest while I swim in a sea of trees.
-Tio
P.S. Other members of the institute are not involved in the generation or analysis of the texts generated by AI. I’d say they are solely my work, but the truth is they are solely my responsibility. Gemini isn’t staying up late at night in existential dread, worrying about how foolish it may appear because it uses a prosthetic memory. That is my contribution to the linked texts.