The Wired Brain & Neural Interfaces
Žižek's phrase for direct brain-machine interfaces (Neuralink) that breach the inner citadel of free thought and put in question the very existence of freedom.
In his words 3
“There is no flirting. Our mind just directly—'I want to fuck you,' 'yes okay let's do it' or whatever. It's over in a split, eroticism is over.”1:22:27 Disorder Under Heaven. · wired brain destroys eroticism
“the whole game of misunderstandings innuendos etc in the case of wired brain I think it disappears we look at each other and it's either I want to do it you don't want or we both want or whatever but it's immediately over eroticism disappears”~4:31 Hegel in a Wired Brain · wired brain eliminates the constitutive ambiguity of eroticism
“what is the real horror for me—but maybe there is some other emancipatory potential—is it's so-called wired brain”16:26 The future of transhumanism | Anders Sandberg, Slavoj Žižek, Nicky Ashwell, David Pearce and more · horror and emancipation in the wired brain
The stories that teach it
the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page
Stephen Hawking's brain-wired wheelchair
A man who knew Stephen Hawking told Žižek that in his last years Hawking no longer needed to move his finger, his brain was directly connected and he just thought 'forward' and his chair moved. If the signal goes out, it can also go in: who will control this?
coffee without cream / coffee without milk
A customer orders coffee without cream; the waiter says they have no cream but can offer coffee without milk. Even though the result is identical, the absent supplement matters, Hegelian negativity in a joke.
Remote-controlled rat
Žižek describes experiments where rats are connected to machines and controlled like remote-control cars, illustrating the potential for direct neural control in humans without the subject feeling controlled.
French cuisine as failure turned into success
Most canonical French dishes (rotten cheese, champagne from failed fermentation) originated as accidents or failures that were transformed into refinements, illustrating Žižek's dialectical point about human spirit transfunctionalizing biological drives.
Chinese schoolchildren wearing brain-activity rings
Chinese elementary schools equipped students with metal rings that measured brain activity so teachers could see on a screen when a student's attention fell, a primitive but real form of cognitive surveillance already in use.
Benjamin Libet's Experiment
Libet's experiment showed neurons fire before conscious decision, apparently proving free will illusory. Žižek notes Libet himself argued freedom lies in the capacity to say 'no' in that split second, freedom as veto, not initiation.
Where it comes up 59
70 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there