Hegel in a Wired Brain
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2020-07-28 · 0:38:30 · 5,381 words
hegel-dialecticspsychoanalysistechnology-ai-cyberspacesubjectivitysexuality-genderconsciousness-mindphilosophy-generalideology
In this interview, Žižek discusses his book on the 'wired brain' and technological singularity, arguing that Hegel should be read not as an absolute rationalist but as a philosopher of radical contingency and productive failure. He contends that the Freudian unconscious, eroticism, and the empty Cartesian cogito are dimensions of subjectivity that would survive or elude the singularity, because direct mind-to-mind transparency would destroy the constitutive role of failure, misunderstanding, and virtual negation in human experience. The conversation also touches on COVID-19, masks, desire, pornography, and his thesis that inner life is largely a space of self-deceiving ideological fictions rather than deeper truth.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 22
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek's reinterpretation of Hegel as a thinker for whom things necessarily go wrong, success is never guaranteed, and good outcomes emerge only through failure and double reversal rather than rational unfolding.
Žižek's characterization of Hegel as essentially a thinker obsessed with how even the best-laid plans necessarily fail, coining this phrase to mark his Hegel against the standard image of Hegel as triumphalist rationalist.
The mechanism by which sexuality incorporates failure and misunderstanding as constitutive elements, making eroticism essentially dependent on the indirectness, ambiguity, and gap that the wired brain would eliminate.
Žižek's term for the phenomenon whereby authenticity of expression is conveyed only through failure, stumbling, and imperfection, as in the love confession scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral, rather than through smooth, clear declaration.
The technological horizon, associated with Kurzweil and transhumanism, at which human and machine intelligence merge into direct collective self-awareness; Žižek treats it as a kind of secular theology that abolishes the fall and with it human freedom.
as “Bolshevik Gnosticism”
Žižek's label for a radical 1920s Soviet ideological current that anticipated singularity-style collective consciousness and concluded that communism would abolish sexuality as the last bastion of bourgeois morality.
as “coffee without cream / coffee without milk”
Žižek's signature motif (drawn from Lubitsch's Ninotchka) illustrating that negation is constitutive of identity: the same plain coffee is different depending on what it lacks, showing that a thing's virtual non-presence defines it in the symbolic order.
Implicit in the discussion of how a thought or virtual negation (coffee without cream) constitutes real symbolic identity, the abstract negative dimension is more real in the symbolic order than empirical presence.
The Hegelian-Žižekian idea that spirituality, creativity, and authentic expression emerge not despite failure but through it, illustrated by French cuisine, champagne, rotten cheese, and the Hugh Grant love confession.
as “the fall equals human freedom”
Žižek's Hegelian-theological claim that the biblical fall into sin is not a loss to be undone but the very opening of the space of spirituality and freedom, a space the singularity's return to pre-lapsarian transparency would close.
as “empty Cartesian cogito”
Žižek's characterization of the Cartesian subject as a purely empty point, the 'I' that 'neither thinks nor is' in any substantive sense, which he distinguishes from selfhood (the wealth of inner experience) and argues will survive singularity.
Žižek's distinction between the empty formal point of the cogito (true subjectivity) and the inner wealth of experiences, memories, and feelings (selfhood/inner life), arguing that only the former is the irreducible core.
A phrase Žižek associates with mystics like Saint Teresa, denoting the reduction of subjectivity to complete zero, the abyss of pure empty form that persists once all content is stripped away.
The scenario in which the human brain is directly networked to a digital system and to other minds, enabling immediate mind-to-mind transparency without language, which Žižek treats as a threat to eroticism, subjectivity, and the unconscious.
Hegel's aphorism that philosophy always arrives too late, at dusk, invoked to frame COVID-19 commentary and the idea that understanding a situation is always already a misunderstanding that nonetheless enables events to unfold.
as “self-fulfilling prophecy / Oedipus paradox”
Žižek's use of the Oedipus myth as a Hegelian paradox: the prophecy actualizes itself only because the parents tried to avoid it; knowing something doesn't prevent it but may be part of how it comes to pass.
as “the spirit is a virus”
Žižek's infinite judgment equating mind/language with a virus parasitizing the body, combining Dennett/Dawkins on memes as viral colonization with Lacanian subjectivity to show we are not identical with our biological organism.
Hegel's logical form in which two radically heterogeneous terms are identified, 'the spirit is a bone', or here 'the spirit is a virus', producing a scandalous equation that reveals something true about both terms.
as “the Freudian unconscious as virtual dimension”
Žižek's reframing of the unconscious not as deep irrational instinct but as a virtual dimension, the echo of what a thing is not, that constitutes identity and cannot be captured by direct neural readout.
as “truth has the structure of fiction”
Lacanian formula Žižek invokes to explain how masks (theatrical roles, the Mask film, Mansfield Park love scenes) allow deeper truths to emerge than unmediated 'sincere' expression.
as “inner life as ideological fiction”
Žižek's thesis that inner life is not a space of deeper truth but of self-deceiving lies we construct to cope with the horror of what we actually do, illustrated by Nazi ethics, Karadžić's poetry, and Rwandan genocide.
as “no ethnic cleansing without poetry”
Žižek's provocative thesis that poetry and inner life are structurally required to enable mass atrocity, because only poetical or religious self-narration allows perpetrators to perform horrible acts.
Stories he reaches for 7
From Lubitsch's Ninotchka: a waiter can't give coffee without cream so offers coffee without milk instead. The plain coffee is different depending on what it lacks, illustrating that negation is constitutive of identity in the symbolic order, a virtual dimension that wired brain cannot capture.
“sorry sir we run out of cream so I cannot give you coffee without cream we only have milk so I can only give you coffee without milk”
In thousands of Chinese elementary schools, children are made to wear metal rings measuring brain activity so teachers can be alerted by a computer when any student's attention wanders, an elementary but real step toward wired brain surveillance.
“children had to wear some kind of a metal ring around their head which measures their brain activity... the teacher... his computer makes a sound if somebody is not listening carefully”
Eva Wiseman in The Guardian reported a documentary where a male porn actor in the middle of intercourse loses erection and asks for his phone to look at Pornhub, illustrating how virtual pornographic fantasy has become necessary to enable real physical desire, the absurd inversion of mediation and immediacy.
“the guy in the middle of doing it loses erection and then steps back and says please give me my cell phone so that to get erection again I will look at the pornhub”
In Four Weddings and a Funeral, Hugh Grant's fumbling, stumbling love declaration to Andie MacDowell works precisely because it fails, his incoherence is the only way to authentically convey love, whereas a smooth polished declaration would seem like a rehearsed lesson.
“it's only in this way that he can at least it's supposed to be authentically express his love if he were to say it clearly without any stumbling etc it would be like a learned lesson”
Žižek read a book called 'Nazi Ethics' and draws on the case of Radovan Karadžić (a poet) to argue that inner life and poetry are structurally necessary for ethnic cleansing, the poetical self-narration allows perpetrators to perform horror by constructing noble lies.
“there is no ethnic cleansing without poetry it's not just Karadžić Bosnia go around a friend from Rwanda I met him in London told me that the crucial role of poetry in ethnic cleansing”
A radical Soviet sect in the 1920s anticipated singularity-style collective consciousness and concluded that communism must abolish sexuality as the last bastion of bourgeois morality, showing the historical precedent for singularity theology.
“this radical sect developed this radical but very influential their idea was in the twenties that now that we communists have power... the last resistance of bourgeois morality is sexuality and we have to overcome it”
The Oedipus myth as Hegelian paradox: without the prophecy and the parents' attempt to avoid it, nothing would have happened. Knowing the future doesn't prevent it but may be constitutive of how it comes to pass.
“it's through their attempt to avoid it that it happened if there would have been no prediction... nothing would have happened”
Works invoked 6
Ninotchka film
Lubitsch film providing Žižek's 'favorite example', the coffee without cream/milk scene, for how negation is constitutive of symbolic identity.
Hegel's most famous book; Žižek reads it as an extended meditation on how plans necessarily go wrong and how through failure something good may emerge, the basis for his reinterpretation of Hegel as philosopher of radical contingency.
Used (though Žižek says he is 'ashamed to mention it' and 'doesn't like it') for the Hugh Grant love confession scene illustrating authentic expression through failure.
The Mask film
Jim Carrey film cited as Žižek's 'favorite example' for the idea that the unconscious is in the mask rather than inside, more truth in the surface than the depth.
Mansfield Park book
Jane Austen novel used to illustrate how theatrical performance enables true erotic expression, the fictional frame allows real feeling to emerge, illustrating Lacan's 'truth has the structure of fiction'.
A book Žižek read that informs his thesis that inner life is ideological fiction enabling atrocity, used to support the claim that Nazis required poetical self-narration.
People invoked 20
Eva Wiseman positive
Guardian commentator whose reported story about a porn actor reaching for his phone is called 'the best introduction to psychoanalysis that I know'.
Mentioned as inventor of VR and skeptic about wired brain feasibility; Žižek notes his skepticism but argues the real danger is political acceptance regardless of technical realization.
Radovan Karadžić negative
The Bosnian Serb leader and poet cited as the prime example that inner life and poetic self-narration enable and accompany ethnic cleansing rather than being spaces of higher truth.
Jacques Lacan positive
Called 'my psychoanalytic master'; cited for the claim that language/mind is a virus parasitizing the body, and for the formula 'truth has the structure of fiction' invoked in discussing masks.
Teresa of Ávila positive
Mentioned as a mystic who used the phrase 'night of the world' to describe the reduction of subjectivity to complete zero, a precedent for Žižek's empty cogito.
Referenced as an example of existing brain-machine interface technology enabling motor control via thought, used to illustrate the trajectory toward wired brain.
Daniel Dennett positive
Cited alongside Dawkins as contemporary cognitive theorist who holds that the mind is literally a virus colonizing the body, convergent with Lacan's position for Žižek.
Raymond Kurzweil negative
American futurist and inventor whose conception of singularity Žižek targets as a quasi-theological vision of direct collective self-awareness, explicitly a new theology that abolishes the fall and human freedom.
Mentioned as having written a book on COVID-19 in the context of philosophical interventions; no further assessment.
Elon Musk negative
Referenced as founder of Neuralink, the wired brain project, whose name itself encapsulates the singularity agenda Žižek is critiquing.
Mentioned as one of several philosophers who intervened on COVID-19; no assessment given beyond the name-drop.
Jane Austen positive
Mansfield Park used to illustrate how fictional/theatrical framing allows true erotic expression, truth has the structure of fiction.
Samuel Beckett positive
Called a 'favorite writer'; invoked as embodying the idea that failure is constitutive of human spirituality and authentic expression.
Jim Carrey positive
Actor in The Mask; the film is used to illustrate that the unconscious is in the mask, not inside, and truth has the structure of fiction.
Richard Dawkins positive
Cited alongside Dennett for the view that the mind is a kind of virus parasitizing the biological organism, used to support Žižek's infinite judgment 'the spirit is a virus'.
Ernst Lubitsch positive
Director of Ninotchka; the 'coffee without cream' scene is Žižek's 'favorite example' for illustrating how negation is constitutive of symbolic identity.
René Descartes positive
Called 'a good guy for me' and 'the beginning of modern feminism'; the cogito is Žižek's model for empty formal subjectivity beyond gender, and the core that will survive singularity.
Sigmund Freud positive
Invoked as the authority on the unconscious, contradiction, and the lesson that our minds are self-contradictory and inconsistent, used to argue the limits of wired brain readout.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Central philosophical authority of the talk; Žižek reinterprets Hegel as a philosopher of radical contingency, productive failure, and the constitutive role of negation, positioning himself as recovering the true Hegel against rationalist misreadings.
Named as one of several philosophers making COVID-19 interventions; no assessment.
What it argues
Hegel as philosopher of radical contingency and failurethe technological singularity and wired brain as threat to subjectivitythe Freudian unconscious as that which eludes direct digital transparencythe constitutive role of failure and misunderstanding in eroticism and spiritthe empty Cartesian cogito as the indestructible core of subjectivityinner life as ideological fiction and self-deceptionCOVID-19 and the paradox of masks, desire, and physical contact
Dialectical moves 10
“The true Hegel is not the philosopher of absolute rational unfolding but the philosopher of radical contingency — things necessarily go wrong and success, if it comes, comes only as a bonus through failure.”
Inverts the standard image of Hegel to make failure and contingency constitutive rather than merely accidental.
“It is only through failure — through stumbling and mumbling — that authentic expression becomes possible; if it were clear and smooth it would be a learned lesson, not the real thing.”
Reversal: authenticity requires failure; smooth perfection is inauthentic.
“The fall into sin equals human freedom — nothing is before the fall; the fall creates the dimension from which it falls.”
Inverts the theological narrative: the fall is not a loss to be redeemed but the very condition of possibility of spirituality and freedom.
“Our separation from God is already immanent to God himself — the true Christian experience is not access to God but recognizing that God is separated from himself in the figure of Jesus.”
Reverses the standard structure: the human distance from God is internal to God, not external to be overcome.
“Subjectivity is not the wealth of your inner life and experiences — I am not my inner content; I am the empty Cartesian cogito, the empty form that remains when all content is taken away.”
Inverts the common identification of self with inner life: the true self is the void, not the fullness.
“The spirit is a virus — we are not our body; we are parasites parasitizing on our body.”
Infinite judgment that reverses the naturalist view: mind/language is not an expression of the body but an alien parasite colonizing it.
“Inner life is not the space of deeper truth — inner life is the space of lies we are telling ourselves.”
Inverts the romantic-humanist valorization of inner life: interiority is ideological self-deception, not authentic depth.
“There is more truth in a mask than in what is inside — the Freudian unconscious is not deep inside us but in the mask we put on.”
Reverses depth psychology: truth is surface/mask, not hidden depth.
“The prophecy actualizes itself only because the parents tried to avoid it — knowing something doesn't prevent it happening but may be part of how it happens.”
The Oedipus self-fulfilling prophecy as Hegelian paradox: knowledge intended to prevent an event is the condition of its occurrence.
“Only through passing through the wired brain will we discover the abyss of subjectivity beyond all content — singularity is what will reveal the empty subject.”
Žižek turns the threat into a dialectical necessity: the singularity paradoxically discloses what it threatens.
Claims 16
reframes
Hegel should be read as a philosopher of radical contingency and productive failure, not as an absolute rationalist for whom everything unfolds toward a higher purpose.Hegel's philosophical identity
asserts
The wired brain and singularity would destroy eroticism, because eroticism depends essentially on the game of misunderstandings, innuendo, and ambiguity that direct mind-to-mind transparency eliminates.singularity's effect on eroticism and human spirit
asserts
The first to develop the idea of technological singularity were radical Bolsheviks in the 1920s, who concluded that communism would abolish sexuality through collective self-awareness.historical origins of singularity thinking
asserts
The Freudian unconscious, understood as the virtual dimension of what a thing is not, is something the wired brain cannot capture and that will elude singularity.the unconscious and singularity
asserts
True subjectivity is not the wealth of inner experience and selfhood but the empty Cartesian cogito — a purely formal empty point that will survive the passage through singularity.the nature of subjectivity
asserts
It does not matter whether the wired brain becomes technologically fully real; its acceptance as real is enough to reorganize power structures and ruin our lives.the political danger of the singularity
asserts
Inner life is not a space of deeper truth but a space of ideological lies and fictions we construct to cope with the horror of what we are actually doing.the status of inner life
asserts
There is no ethnic cleansing without poetry, because only poetical or religious self-narration enables perpetrators to perform atrocities by constructing enabling fictions.the relationship between inner life, poetry, and mass violence
asserts
The psychoanalytic lesson is: do not trust your inner life.psychoanalysis and self-knowledge
rejects
The theological implication of singularity is that there is no longer the fall — it is a return to pre-lapsarian transparency — which is precisely why Žižek rejects it.singularity as secular redemption/paradise regained
reframes
Our separation from God is already immanent to God himself in the figure of Jesus, so the true Christian experience is not prayer as access to God but recognizing God's self-separation.Christian theology and God's relationship to humanity
asserts
Mind and language are a kind of virus parasitizing the body — we as biological entities are colonized by the spirit as virus — and we are not identical with our body.the relationship between mind, language, and the body
asserts
Descartes is a good guy and the beginning of modern feminism, because the cogito has no sex or gender, opening equality of pure empty subjectivity.Descartes and feminism
reframes
Modern feminism and LGBTQ are about asserting this empty subjectivity with contingent content, not returning to some pre-modern balance of masculine and feminine principles.modern feminism and LGBTQ politics
asserts
The paradoxical result of COVID may be that physical contact becomes so risky that much more emotional investment will go into it, reviving love over mere pornographic satisfaction.COVID-19's paradoxical effect on desire and love
asserts
Wired brain surveillance will not achieve total transparency because our minds are contradictory, self-canceling, and inconsistent — ambiguity and self-contradiction will remain opaque to readout.limits of wired brain surveillance
Quotes 14
“Hegel is effectively obsessed... how even the best plans projects necessarily somehow has to go wrong and maybe through this failure then something good emerges maybe it's never sure.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel as philosopher of radical contingency
“eroticism disappears and I think that that's one big lesson from Hegel human spirit is immanently eroticized so if you take this away you lose precisely the spiritual dimension”Slavoj Žižek · singularity destroys eroticized spirit
“it doesn't really matter if it will be fully real it's enough to ruin our lives if it will just be accepted and real as real and then the power structures state apparatuses will organize our lives”Slavoj Žižek · the political power of accepted fictions
“the first to develop this idea of singularity were very harsh Bolsheviks... in communism there will be no sexuality”Slavoj Žižek · Bolshevik Gnosticism as first singularity theology
“I am this empty Cartesian cogito”Slavoj Žižek · subjectivity as empty form not inner content
“the theological implication of singularity is precisely that there is no longer the fall Kurzweil and so on explicitly talk about it how when we can directly communicate without language... it's as if we rejoined the universe prior to the fall”Slavoj Žižek · singularity as secular return to pre-lapsarian paradise
“the spirit is a virus... we are not our body we as subjectivity belong to a space we are parasites we are parasitizing on our body”Slavoj Žižek · infinite judgment: spirit is a virus parasitizing the body
“inner life is for me not the space of some deeper truth inner life is for me the space of lies we are telling ourselves”Slavoj Žižek · inner life as ideological self-deception
“there is no ethnic cleansing without poetry”Slavoj Žižek · poetry and inner life as enabling atrocity
“the only way for us to hope to to to to be able to do horrible things is to construct some kind of a poetical or religious lie”Slavoj Žižek · inner life as ideological alibi for atrocity
“don't trust your inner life”Slavoj Žižek · psychoanalytic maxim against introspection
“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”Slavoj Žižek · wired brain eliminates the constitutive ambiguity of eroticism
“the fall in the biblical sense is equals human freedom the space of spirituality nothing is before the fall the fall into sin creates the dimension from which it falls”Slavoj Žižek · the fall as condition of possibility of human freedom
“cogito doesn't have a sex gender whatever it's pure neutral form”Slavoj Žižek · the cogito as foundation of gender-neutral subjectivity
Transcript 37 turns
unknown
You want to make the case that Hegel really does bear upon our lives in so tell me how.
You want to make the case that Hegel really does bear upon our lives in so tell me how.
Slavoj Žižek
Uh usually Hegel is perceived even dismissed as a kind of absolute rationalist everything has a deeper meaning even when there are catastrophes you see afterwards that they serve some higher spiritual purpose and so on and so on what I try to present is a totally different Hegel Hegel a philosopher of radical contingency Hegel that I call now this is not yet in the book Hegel as the thinker of a spirit of distrust Hegel is effectively obsessed his entire most famous book Phenomenology of Spirit it's about this how even the best plans projects necessarily somehow has to go wrong and maybe through this failure then something good emerges maybe it's never sure and I think that in this sense already 20th century was very Hegelian look take already the so-called Great War First World War the second half of 19th century was in spite of wars outside Europe for Europe at least a peaceful era progress women gradually got their right to vote there was some kind of healthcare retirement plans and things gradually progressed and then my god totally unexpected carnage the Great War then October Revolution it began as a gigantic emancipatory attempt it ended up in Stalinist terror and so on and so on that's what always interested Hegel how things can go terribly wrong if they end well it's not directly in the sense of you plan something oh you succeed in it no it's that through going wrong through some kind of a double reversal there maybe you get as a bonus a success and this is for me this is in my book the topic of of sexuality also sexuality always includes a failure in the sense of something goes wrong but then you try to eroticization means that you make use somehow of the very failure that's why I am ashamed to mention it I don't like it but there is one scene in that movie that we've all seen I think Four Weddings and a Funeral where Hugh Grant makes a love confession to Andie MacDowell and it's a constant series of failures he mumbles stumbles and so on and so on but the paradox is that it's only in this way that he can at least it's supposed to be authentically express his love if he were to say it clearly without any stumbling etc it would be like a learned lesson it wouldn't have worked and so on so that's what fascinates me in Hegel I was going to say well you call this rather charmingly the Hugh Grant paradox as though it were a yes how the authentic message gets gets through only through a failure so I was going to ask you about this I think you're right that to to characterize the
Uh usually Hegel is perceived even dismissed as a kind of absolute rationalist everything has a deeper meaning even when there are catastrophes you see afterwards that they serve some higher spiritual purpose and so on and so on what I try to present is a totally different Hegel Hegel a philosopher of radical contingency Hegel that I call now this is not yet in the book Hegel as the thinker of a spirit of distrust Hegel is effectively obsessed his entire most famous book Phenomenology of Spirit it's about this how even the best plans projects necessarily somehow has to go wrong and maybe through this failure then something good emerges maybe it's never sure and I think that in this sense already 20th century was very Hegelian look take already the so-called Great War First World War the second half of 19th century was in spite of wars outside Europe for Europe at least a peaceful era progress women gradually got their right to vote there was some kind of healthcare retirement plans and things gradually progressed and then my god totally unexpected carnage the Great War then October Revolution it began as a gigantic emancipatory attempt it ended up in Stalinist terror and so on and so on that's what always interested Hegel how things can go terribly wrong if they end well it's not directly in the sense of you plan something oh you succeed in it no it's that through going wrong through some kind of a double reversal there maybe you get as a bonus a success and this is for me this is in my book the topic of of sexuality also sexuality always includes a failure in the sense of something goes wrong but then you try to eroticization means that you make use somehow of the very failure that's why I am ashamed to mention it I don't like it but there is one scene in that movie that we've all seen I think Four Weddings and a Funeral where Hugh Grant makes a love confession to Andie MacDowell and it's a constant series of failures he mumbles stumbles and so on and so on but the paradox is that it's only in this way that he can at least it's supposed to be authentically express his love if he were to say it clearly without any stumbling etc it would be like a learned lesson it wouldn't have worked and so on so that's what fascinates me in Hegel I was going to say well you call this rather charmingly the Hugh Grant paradox as though it were a yes how the authentic message gets gets through only through a failure so I was going to ask you about this I think you're right that to to characterize the
unknown
phenomenology of spirit and Hegel as a philosopher of failure does seem counterintuitive but it seems to me one of the things that you're tackling is this idea of the singularity and its inability to allow for failure and I want us to wheel back a little bit and talk about
phenomenology of spirit and Hegel as a philosopher of failure does seem counterintuitive but it seems to me one of the things that you're tackling is this idea of the singularity and its inability to allow for failure and I want us to wheel back a little bit and talk about
Slavoj Žižek
this term the singularity some people might know it from the work of Ray Kurzweil the American inventor and futurist and some people might know it from contemporary science fiction where we are seeing machine intelligence and human
this term the singularity some people might know it from the work of Ray Kurzweil the American inventor and futurist and some people might know it from contemporary science fiction where we are seeing machine intelligence and human
unknown
intelligence being imperceptibly fused what do you take the singularity to mean and what's its role in relationship to Hegel I think and that's the whole point of the book that to I'm desperately searching for a dimension which maybe will elude this so-called singularity but singularity is the
intelligence being imperceptibly fused what do you take the singularity to mean and what's its role in relationship to Hegel I think and that's the whole point of the book that to I'm desperately searching for a dimension which maybe will elude this so-called singularity but singularity is the
unknown
radical version it's almost a new theology at the most elementary level we
radical version it's almost a new theology at the most elementary level we
Slavoj Žižek
have what Elon Musk calls it's the name of his company Neuralink or what generally is called wired brain that is to say the idea is that our brain can be directly wired not just our brain but our thought processes to a digital network and then since other persons' minds can also be wired in this sense we don't need language the dream is that we can directly exchange not even communicate because there is no communication I can read your mind you can read my mind and what worries me here is that precisely failures in communication disappear here and that's not good just think sorry for the vulgarity just think what this means for eroticism not you you but another person let's say we are flirting and but all the 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 and I think that that's one big lesson from Hegel human spirit is immanently eroticized so if you take this away you lose you lose precisely the spiritual dimension you get some kind of a flat direct communication not even communication just it's immediate transparency some people like the one you mentioned Ray Kurzweil think this will be kind of divine event we will no longer be individuals we will immediately participate in some collective self-awareness and it's like divinity will become part of our daily life and so on what I'm proud of a little bit in my book is how I showed something which many people don't know that the first to develop this idea of singularity were very harsh Bolsheviks in this how should I even call it Bolshevik Gnosticism which was a very strong orientation in Soviet Union in 1920s and the idea was that this is what will happen in communism and they were radical enough to draw the consequences which is in communism there will be no sexuality this radical sect developed this radical but very influential their idea was in the twenties that now that we communists have power in economy in politics and so on the last resistance of bourgeois morality is sexuality and we have to overcome it leave it behind precisely through this kind of direct collective self-awareness so again things get complex here but the basic focus of my book is what if and I'm not educated enough to say is it technologically possible even this idea of wired brain singularity where we directly share our thoughts but if it will happen in some sense what will this mean for the status of our subjectivity will this be subjects yes but this is what I want to ask you so the other term you use of course is the title of the book the wired brain and what I like about your book is that by that you mean not just AI and not just the way that we'll be able to activate the central heating with the power of our mind although that would be useful but also an idea that the central heating will control us and perhaps that's where you mean that this will not allow for faultiness or failure or sexuality and all the misunderstandings that create sexuality so you're saying the wired brain will have implications for our freedom is that right yes but nonetheless I try to maybe I'm wrong I spoke with many hackers programmers and mostly maybe they just pretend to be kind to me mostly they agree with me I desperately try nonetheless to my god I will appear so naive now to save to save our freedom to point at dimensions which will elude this and paradoxically one dimension that I think will elude singularity wired brain is the Freudian unconscious but how do we read it not as some deep irrational instincts but as a virtual dimension I use there an example that you must have heard times times and so on my favorite example from Ernst Lubitsch from Ninotchka a guy goes to a restaurant and says can I get a coffee but coffee without cream please the waiter tells him sorry sir we run out of cream so I cannot give you coffee without cream we only have milk so I can only give you coffee without milk now this is a deeply Hegelian
have what Elon Musk calls it's the name of his company Neuralink or what generally is called wired brain that is to say the idea is that our brain can be directly wired not just our brain but our thought processes to a digital network and then since other persons' minds can also be wired in this sense we don't need language the dream is that we can directly exchange not even communicate because there is no communication I can read your mind you can read my mind and what worries me here is that precisely failures in communication disappear here and that's not good just think sorry for the vulgarity just think what this means for eroticism not you you but another person let's say we are flirting and but all the 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 and I think that that's one big lesson from Hegel human spirit is immanently eroticized so if you take this away you lose you lose precisely the spiritual dimension you get some kind of a flat direct communication not even communication just it's immediate transparency some people like the one you mentioned Ray Kurzweil think this will be kind of divine event we will no longer be individuals we will immediately participate in some collective self-awareness and it's like divinity will become part of our daily life and so on what I'm proud of a little bit in my book is how I showed something which many people don't know that the first to develop this idea of singularity were very harsh Bolsheviks in this how should I even call it Bolshevik Gnosticism which was a very strong orientation in Soviet Union in 1920s and the idea was that this is what will happen in communism and they were radical enough to draw the consequences which is in communism there will be no sexuality this radical sect developed this radical but very influential their idea was in the twenties that now that we communists have power in economy in politics and so on the last resistance of bourgeois morality is sexuality and we have to overcome it leave it behind precisely through this kind of direct collective self-awareness so again things get complex here but the basic focus of my book is what if and I'm not educated enough to say is it technologically possible even this idea of wired brain singularity where we directly share our thoughts but if it will happen in some sense what will this mean for the status of our subjectivity will this be subjects yes but this is what I want to ask you so the other term you use of course is the title of the book the wired brain and what I like about your book is that by that you mean not just AI and not just the way that we'll be able to activate the central heating with the power of our mind although that would be useful but also an idea that the central heating will control us and perhaps that's where you mean that this will not allow for faultiness or failure or sexuality and all the misunderstandings that create sexuality so you're saying the wired brain will have implications for our freedom is that right yes but nonetheless I try to maybe I'm wrong I spoke with many hackers programmers and mostly maybe they just pretend to be kind to me mostly they agree with me I desperately try nonetheless to my god I will appear so naive now to save to save our freedom to point at dimensions which will elude this and paradoxically one dimension that I think will elude singularity wired brain is the Freudian unconscious but how do we read it not as some deep irrational instincts but as a virtual dimension I use there an example that you must have heard times times and so on my favorite example from Ernst Lubitsch from Ninotchka a guy goes to a restaurant and says can I get a coffee but coffee without cream please the waiter tells him sorry sir we run out of cream so I cannot give you coffee without cream we only have milk so I can only give you coffee without milk now this is a deeply Hegelian
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thought that what you don't get the negative dimension is constitutive of the identity of a thing in all cases you get just plain coffee but this plain coffee can be just plain coffee it can be coffee without milk it can be coffee without cream and in our symbolic universe it's not the same so again my point is can this virtual dimension the echo of what a thing is not in some things like coffee when you say oh but this is not just coffee this is coffee without milk can this be captured by a wired brain I think this is maybe one dimension that cannot be captured by the wired brain yes as you as you argue this you argue towards the the
thought that what you don't get the negative dimension is constitutive of the identity of a thing in all cases you get just plain coffee but this plain coffee can be just plain coffee it can be coffee without milk it can be coffee without cream and in our symbolic universe it's not the same so again my point is can this virtual dimension the echo of what a thing is not in some things like coffee when you say oh but this is not just coffee this is coffee without milk can this be captured by a wired brain I think this is maybe one dimension that cannot be captured by the wired brain yes as you as you argue this you argue towards the the
Slavoj Žižek
latter part of the book you say that there is no room for the unconscious in the singularity and this is the thing that might elude it and I was interested in this because in the psychoanalytical language of the unconscious the unconscious is is a necessary part of us it constitutes us but it's also you know the thing that trips us up the thing that betrays us why does it matter that the unconscious that there is no room for the unconscious in the singularity and that it's the thing that eludes it why does it matter and you give us the example of Beckett Samuel Beckett I wonder why he helps us [unintelligible] favorite writer incidentally yes because I think again that this dimension of failure is constitutive again of human spirituality and unconscious means precisely a success in failure you fail but through failure you create another virtual dimension and so on and so on so I think that I even ironically in the book probably you remember I mention the paradox of French cuisine a very anti-French guy told me how all specific dishes or drinks in France can be explained through a failure they were producing wine something got wrong and they said okay this is champagne they were making cheese the cheese got rotten again oh they said but that's our cheese and so on and so on and I think that this passage through failure this dimension and I'm following now all these new programs of artificial intelligence I don't think they can do that so again my point is of course computers can be artificial intelligence can be infinitely brighter than us and so on and so on but can it incorporate failure in this specific sense which I think you find it even in Christianity that what I think I mentioned it in the book that's what I admire in
latter part of the book you say that there is no room for the unconscious in the singularity and this is the thing that might elude it and I was interested in this because in the psychoanalytical language of the unconscious the unconscious is is a necessary part of us it constitutes us but it's also you know the thing that trips us up the thing that betrays us why does it matter that the unconscious that there is no room for the unconscious in the singularity and that it's the thing that eludes it why does it matter and you give us the example of Beckett Samuel Beckett I wonder why he helps us [unintelligible] favorite writer incidentally yes because I think again that this dimension of failure is constitutive again of human spirituality and unconscious means precisely a success in failure you fail but through failure you create another virtual dimension and so on and so on so I think that I even ironically in the book probably you remember I mention the paradox of French cuisine a very anti-French guy told me how all specific dishes or drinks in France can be explained through a failure they were producing wine something got wrong and they said okay this is champagne they were making cheese the cheese got rotten again oh they said but that's our cheese and so on and so on and I think that this passage through failure this dimension and I'm following now all these new programs of artificial intelligence I don't think they can do that so again my point is of course computers can be artificial intelligence can be infinitely brighter than us and so on and so on but can it incorporate failure in this specific sense which I think you find it even in Christianity that what I think I mentioned it in the book that's what I admire in
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Christianity although I'm an atheist of course we have God up there we cannot access God what's the Christian solution not if you are pray enough you somehow get in contact with God no the true Christian experience is how your separation from God is already immanent to God himself God
Christianity although I'm an atheist of course we have God up there we cannot access God what's the Christian solution not if you are pray enough you somehow get in contact with God no the true Christian experience is how your separation from God is already immanent to God himself God
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himself is separated from himself in the figure of Jesus who for a moment thinks stops to believe when he's dying on the cross and so on and so on so again this idea of how as Hegel put it precisely the fall in the biblical sense is equals human freedom the space of spirituality nothing is before the fall the fall into sin creates the dimension from which it falls so what I'm and that's what I
himself is separated from himself in the figure of Jesus who for a moment thinks stops to believe when he's dying on the cross and so on and so on so again this idea of how as Hegel put it precisely the fall in the biblical sense is equals human freedom the space of spirituality nothing is before the fall the fall into sin creates the dimension from which it falls so what I'm and that's what I
Slavoj Žižek
don't like in the idea of singularity because the theological implication of singularity is precisely that there is no longer the fall Kurzweil and so on explicitly talk about it how when we can directly communicate without language and so on it's as if we rejoined the universe prior to the fall sorry well I was going to say one of the can I tell you one of the things that I like about the book is tell me also then a thing that you don't like I will I will the thing I like about the book and perhaps I don't like it too is that it's hard but I think it happily so because I was very glad that it isn't and I wouldn't expect this of you it isn't an anodyne book one of those myriad pop-science books about how technology is changing our lives I wouldn't expect you to write that and that's because you are thinking ontologically you are thinking about the implications for human subjectivity and the idea of selfhood itself and that's what I want to ask you about because philosophy one of its strengths is that it allows us to think of ourselves we place ourselves in the world as reflective intelligent sensory beings and we make selfhood the object of our attention but am I right in thinking that you are suggesting that the singularity this you know perfectly wired mind machine universe is a challenge to our idea of selfhood itself that we would no longer be able to place ourselves in that world is that right yes but nonetheless again I try to describe a space which will survive this passage through singularity I think and I do something which is pretty crazy philosophically my claim from the last chapter is that Cartesian cogito pure subjectivity will survive but I do something I try to introduce a distinction between subjectivity and what we usually refer to as selfhood my inner life the wealth of my the wealth of my experiences and so on and so on I don't think this is the true core of subjectivity I think the horror of the Cartesian cogito I think therefore I am is that in some sense it neither thinks nor it is it's just a purely empty point this is maybe also what some mystics called like Saint Teresa and so on the night of the world this reduction of subjectivity to complete zero so my thesis is that subjectivity is not the wealth of your experiences inner life and so on and so on precisely subject is the empty point the empty form which remains even if you take all content from me the machine other people can have access to all my
don't like in the idea of singularity because the theological implication of singularity is precisely that there is no longer the fall Kurzweil and so on explicitly talk about it how when we can directly communicate without language and so on it's as if we rejoined the universe prior to the fall sorry well I was going to say one of the can I tell you one of the things that I like about the book is tell me also then a thing that you don't like I will I will the thing I like about the book and perhaps I don't like it too is that it's hard but I think it happily so because I was very glad that it isn't and I wouldn't expect this of you it isn't an anodyne book one of those myriad pop-science books about how technology is changing our lives I wouldn't expect you to write that and that's because you are thinking ontologically you are thinking about the implications for human subjectivity and the idea of selfhood itself and that's what I want to ask you about because philosophy one of its strengths is that it allows us to think of ourselves we place ourselves in the world as reflective intelligent sensory beings and we make selfhood the object of our attention but am I right in thinking that you are suggesting that the singularity this you know perfectly wired mind machine universe is a challenge to our idea of selfhood itself that we would no longer be able to place ourselves in that world is that right yes but nonetheless again I try to describe a space which will survive this passage through singularity I think and I do something which is pretty crazy philosophically my claim from the last chapter is that Cartesian cogito pure subjectivity will survive but I do something I try to introduce a distinction between subjectivity and what we usually refer to as selfhood my inner life the wealth of my the wealth of my experiences and so on and so on I don't think this is the true core of subjectivity I think the horror of the Cartesian cogito I think therefore I am is that in some sense it neither thinks nor it is it's just a purely empty point this is maybe also what some mystics called like Saint Teresa and so on the night of the world this reduction of subjectivity to complete zero so my thesis is that subjectivity is not the wealth of your experiences inner life and so on and so on precisely subject is the empty point the empty form which remains even if you take all content from me the machine other people can have access to all my
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inner thoughts and so on and so on but that's not what I am I am this empty
inner thoughts and so on and so on but that's not what I am I am this empty
Slavoj Žižek
Cartesian cogito and
Cartesian cogito and
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incidentally since you are a woman do you know that that's why Descartes he's a good guy for me is the the beginning of modern feminism even people don't know this women already in Descartes' Cartesian time admired Descartes as one of them put it cogito doesn't have cogito doesn't have a sex gender whatever it's pure neutral form there were already some
incidentally since you are a woman do you know that that's why Descartes he's a good guy for me is the the beginning of modern feminism even people don't know this women already in Descartes' Cartesian time admired Descartes as one of them put it cogito doesn't have cogito doesn't have a sex gender whatever it's pure neutral form there were already some
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philosophers followers of Descartes who applied this directly to to women and read Descartes as somebody who is opening up the space for women as equal to men why do I say modern feminism because you know modern feminism is not what what some people propagate let's return to some pre-modern era where there was some kind of a balance between masculine and feminine principle no no no modern feminism is much more radical modern feminism precisely asserts this empty subjectivity that's what LGBTQ is about and then you just have contingent versions how you fill it with a content and so on and so on
philosophers followers of Descartes who applied this directly to to women and read Descartes as somebody who is opening up the space for women as equal to men why do I say modern feminism because you know modern feminism is not what what some people propagate let's return to some pre-modern era where there was some kind of a balance between masculine and feminine principle no no no modern feminism is much more radical modern feminism precisely asserts this empty subjectivity that's what LGBTQ is about and then you just have contingent versions how you fill it with a content and so on and so on
Slavoj Žižek
so I think that in this sense it will be maybe a painful experience but I think only through passing passing through sorry the wired brain will we discover the abyss of my subjectivity beyond all the content and your dreams and so on the empty subject well maybe you said you know I should mention something I don't like perhaps it's that the idea of the empty subject it's a very disconcerting idea but the one thing that I think I feel skeptical about the book a little is tell me tell me yes I will tell you this is how real is the wired brain because I take it that you regard it as a real and present danger although computer scientists like Jaron Lanier who invented VR they are skeptical about it so what makes you think that it is a real possibility you know I think I'm not now sure but I even hinted at this dimension in some of my book in some parts of the book the problem is that it doesn't really matter if it will be fully real it's enough to ruin our lives if it will just be accepted and real as real and then the power structures state apparatuses will organize our lives let me give an example I even forgot I don't think it's already in the book no it's no I learned about it afterwards for example it's still elementary it's far from reading our brain but do you know I read that in already in thousands of Chinese elementary schools pupils children had to wear some kind of a some kind of a metal ring around their head which measures their brain activity very elementarily but the point is that so that the teacher is doesn't have to watch are they listening to me and so on no his computer makes a sound if somebody is not listening carefully to what the teacher is saying he sees it directly that his attention is not there and so on and so on or other things that already can be done things are moving in this direction for example this link between my brain processes thoughts and making elementary move for example machines can already detect basic orders intentions for example if I'm and they always like this humanitarian examples let's say I'm crippled and I'm on a electric wheelchair I don't have even to move my finger like Stephen Hawking it's enough that I think forward the machine moves forward there is something I think pretty terrifying in this direct coincidence between my inner thought and the external material reality because when this happens it goes in both directions it's not only that I can be a little bit like God I think something it happens in reality it also goes the other way round when the machine knows what I'm thinking and so on and I know many people with obscure links who know people who know people who know what secret agencies of our defense institutions are doing and they are telling me that they are all obsessed by this now that does sound terrifying I should say that we would never use those sort
so I think that in this sense it will be maybe a painful experience but I think only through passing passing through sorry the wired brain will we discover the abyss of my subjectivity beyond all the content and your dreams and so on the empty subject well maybe you said you know I should mention something I don't like perhaps it's that the idea of the empty subject it's a very disconcerting idea but the one thing that I think I feel skeptical about the book a little is tell me tell me yes I will tell you this is how real is the wired brain because I take it that you regard it as a real and present danger although computer scientists like Jaron Lanier who invented VR they are skeptical about it so what makes you think that it is a real possibility you know I think I'm not now sure but I even hinted at this dimension in some of my book in some parts of the book the problem is that it doesn't really matter if it will be fully real it's enough to ruin our lives if it will just be accepted and real as real and then the power structures state apparatuses will organize our lives let me give an example I even forgot I don't think it's already in the book no it's no I learned about it afterwards for example it's still elementary it's far from reading our brain but do you know I read that in already in thousands of Chinese elementary schools pupils children had to wear some kind of a some kind of a metal ring around their head which measures their brain activity very elementarily but the point is that so that the teacher is doesn't have to watch are they listening to me and so on no his computer makes a sound if somebody is not listening carefully to what the teacher is saying he sees it directly that his attention is not there and so on and so on or other things that already can be done things are moving in this direction for example this link between my brain processes thoughts and making elementary move for example machines can already detect basic orders intentions for example if I'm and they always like this humanitarian examples let's say I'm crippled and I'm on a electric wheelchair I don't have even to move my finger like Stephen Hawking it's enough that I think forward the machine moves forward there is something I think pretty terrifying in this direct coincidence between my inner thought and the external material reality because when this happens it goes in both directions it's not only that I can be a little bit like God I think something it happens in reality it also goes the other way round when the machine knows what I'm thinking and so on and I know many people with obscure links who know people who know people who know what secret agencies of our defense institutions are doing and they are telling me that they are all obsessed by this now that does sound terrifying I should say that we would never use those sort
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of brain sensors on Intelligence Squared listeners because we no but you don't have they will not ask us you know what annoys me so much now going to this viral topic now when there are big debates those how do you call them I don't know when you have a smartphone and now there are big debates if you allow the phone to detect where you are and so on no is this an encroachment upon our freedom our freedom but sorry at least I know at least three states United States China and Israel where without asking us they are already doing this
of brain sensors on Intelligence Squared listeners because we no but you don't have they will not ask us you know what annoys me so much now going to this viral topic now when there are big debates those how do you call them I don't know when you have a smartphone and now there are big debates if you allow the phone to detect where you are and so on no is this an encroachment upon our freedom our freedom but sorry at least I know at least three states United States China and Israel where without asking us they are already doing this
Slavoj Žižek
you know not only this but also recorded in Israel I spoke with an agent who told me they are recording and then of course a computer checks them they don't have enough people all phone conversations and so on we are already we are already controlled at this level and what interests me again is does this mean that we are totally exposed I think not just think about one thing it's an extremely naive point okay the computer can read our mind but if there is something to learn from psychoanalysis is that our mind are often contradictory already at the most elementary level it's a stupid example I think I mention it in the book for example a boy in puberty usually hates his father but it's clear that this hatred is superficial that it covers up or represents a much more ambiguous stance how will the wired brain register then the thoughts of this person will it register the whole inconsistency and so on what if our thoughts are not unambiguous what if our thoughts are floating self-contradicting and so on and so on I see I agree with you here I see many problems here in the sense of even if wired brain will work again what I fear is that it will reduce us to this flat simple level like a stupid melodramatic example you we all know from our erotic lives you often or sometimes at least I will not exaggerate love begins as being annoyed by somebody even hating him or her a little bit and then all of a sudden in a crucial moment you discover my god but it's because I love him or her that I had this ambiguous stances and so on and so on so what will happen with this with all this that's what that's what that's what not so much worries me that's where I see a problem let's pause for a second Slavoj and we'll pick up our conversation just after this very very quick break well let me let me let me ask you first while we have you here about COVID-19 which I know is very boring for lots of people who are being asked about it a lot at the moment but you do start the book by citing one of Hegel's most famous aphorisms the owl of Minerva that flies at dusk which is to say that wisdom Minerva's owl or philosophy comes late to the party and there have been a number of philosophical interventions about COVID-19 Bruno Latour Bernard-Henri
you know not only this but also recorded in Israel I spoke with an agent who told me they are recording and then of course a computer checks them they don't have enough people all phone conversations and so on we are already we are already controlled at this level and what interests me again is does this mean that we are totally exposed I think not just think about one thing it's an extremely naive point okay the computer can read our mind but if there is something to learn from psychoanalysis is that our mind are often contradictory already at the most elementary level it's a stupid example I think I mention it in the book for example a boy in puberty usually hates his father but it's clear that this hatred is superficial that it covers up or represents a much more ambiguous stance how will the wired brain register then the thoughts of this person will it register the whole inconsistency and so on what if our thoughts are not unambiguous what if our thoughts are floating self-contradicting and so on and so on I see I agree with you here I see many problems here in the sense of even if wired brain will work again what I fear is that it will reduce us to this flat simple level like a stupid melodramatic example you we all know from our erotic lives you often or sometimes at least I will not exaggerate love begins as being annoyed by somebody even hating him or her a little bit and then all of a sudden in a crucial moment you discover my god but it's because I love him or her that I had this ambiguous stances and so on and so on so what will happen with this with all this that's what that's what that's what not so much worries me that's where I see a problem let's pause for a second Slavoj and we'll pick up our conversation just after this very very quick break well let me let me let me ask you first while we have you here about COVID-19 which I know is very boring for lots of people who are being asked about it a lot at the moment but you do start the book by citing one of Hegel's most famous aphorisms the owl of Minerva that flies at dusk which is to say that wisdom Minerva's owl or philosophy comes late to the party and there have been a number of philosophical interventions about COVID-19 Bruno Latour Bernard-Henri
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Lévy has just written a book Simon Critchley but do you think philosophy should be late to the party will we only be able to
Lévy has just written a book Simon Critchley but do you think philosophy should be late to the party will we only be able to
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understand COVID-19 long after the fact do you think but I think that nonetheless philosophy is not totally lost here yes we are always
understand COVID-19 long after the fact do you think but I think that nonetheless philosophy is not totally lost here yes we are always
Slavoj Žižek
late but Hegel is not just
late but Hegel is not just
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implying
implying
Slavoj Žižek
that philosophy comes late but that some kind of the way I read Hegel is that our understanding of a situation always comes too late but it's precisely through this understanding which is a misunderstanding that things then happen for example my favorite example I don't know if I mention it in the book is people forget how paradoxical the Oedipus story is it's a prediction which actualizes itself only because the parents of Oedipus knew what will happen but it's through their attempt to avoid it that it happened if there would have been no prediction nobody would have told mother and father of Oedipus or I think only father knew it I'm not sure that your son will kill you father and marry you mother without this prediction without letting them know what will happen nothing would have happened that's a beautiful paradox for me how how knowing something doesn't prevent it happening but it's maybe part of how things happen I love these paradoxes what does this mean for COVID I in one of my comments I tried to develop this among other things Hegelian reading of COVID that you know okay virus the most primitive entity you can imagine virus for some biologists even is not a living entity is just a kind of a self-replicating chemical mechanism virus is now posing a threat to us but what fascinates me is that at the same time if you know and I'm sure you do anything about contemporary cognitive thought from Richard Dawkins to Daniel Dennett for them and I find this a very convincing theory at the different level Jacques Lacan my psychoanalytic master is saying the same thing at the same time our mind and especially language is kind of a virus parasitizing on our brain on our body and so on and so on Dennett and Dawkins are say telling this literally they said our mind is a virus and we we as biological entities are colonized by a virus so I my idea would have been to read the statement the spirit is a virus
that philosophy comes late but that some kind of the way I read Hegel is that our understanding of a situation always comes too late but it's precisely through this understanding which is a misunderstanding that things then happen for example my favorite example I don't know if I mention it in the book is people forget how paradoxical the Oedipus story is it's a prediction which actualizes itself only because the parents of Oedipus knew what will happen but it's through their attempt to avoid it that it happened if there would have been no prediction nobody would have told mother and father of Oedipus or I think only father knew it I'm not sure that your son will kill you father and marry you mother without this prediction without letting them know what will happen nothing would have happened that's a beautiful paradox for me how how knowing something doesn't prevent it happening but it's maybe part of how things happen I love these paradoxes what does this mean for COVID I in one of my comments I tried to develop this among other things Hegelian reading of COVID that you know okay virus the most primitive entity you can imagine virus for some biologists even is not a living entity is just a kind of a self-replicating chemical mechanism virus is now posing a threat to us but what fascinates me is that at the same time if you know and I'm sure you do anything about contemporary cognitive thought from Richard Dawkins to Daniel Dennett for them and I find this a very convincing theory at the different level Jacques Lacan my psychoanalytic master is saying the same thing at the same time our mind and especially language is kind of a virus parasitizing on our brain on our body and so on and so on Dennett and Dawkins are say telling this literally they said our mind is a virus and we we as biological entities are colonized by a virus so I my idea would have been to read the statement the spirit is a virus
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as another example of what Hegel calls infinite judgment his example is der geist ist ein knochen the spirit is a bone where now we learn that the spirit is also a virus we are not our body we as subjectivity belong to a space we are parasites we are parasitizing on our body I don't believe in all this holistic stuff of be one with your body no there is a radical gap we are not our body the whole lesson of psychoanalysis is in this that we [unintelligible] that's why our sexuality is perverted and so on we don't fit well I want well I want to ask you a bit more about desire but and perhaps this is the connection because I did notice that you
as another example of what Hegel calls infinite judgment his example is der geist ist ein knochen the spirit is a bone where now we learn that the spirit is also a virus we are not our body we as subjectivity belong to a space we are parasites we are parasitizing on our body I don't believe in all this holistic stuff of be one with your body no there is a radical gap we are not our body the whole lesson of psychoanalysis is in this that we [unintelligible] that's why our sexuality is perverted and so on we don't fit well I want well I want to ask you a bit more about desire but and perhaps this is the connection because I did notice that you
Slavoj Žižek
do mention masks at one point in the book not surgical sanitary masks but the mask as a metaphor perhaps like the virus did you see the movie with Jim Carrey The Mask yes I did what's that's my favorite example precisely how you see this is Freudian unconscious it's not deep in him he puts on a mask and there is more truth in a mask than in what is inside him that's why I always forget which Jane Austen novel is this is it Northanger Abbey or which one you know where you mentioned Mansfield Park the one Mansfield Park sorry yes you know where a couple of young people they have erotic tensions they cannot directly reenact them so they stage a play where a boy can tell a girl I love you because it's part of the of the theater piece and so on and so on I like this idea of how as Jacques Lacan put it truth has the structure of the fiction well that that's what I take that's what I take you to mean that in Mansfield Park the young lovers are able to show the truth of their feelings when they're performing these parts and the singularity too might be a mask that feels artificial but it might allow for reality and then I mean alongside Mansfield Park you also give us a very striking example and it speaks to the conversation having about desire you talk about glory holes which are you know that's quite a stark contrast to Jane Austen frankly but glory holes are a [unintelligible] but I understood the parallel you were trying to draw out which is that you know these anonymous sexual encounters usually in men's lavatories there is a kind of mask here where that that there is not there is a kind of pretense but perhaps it allows for something real real desire to emerge and my question was maybe maybe the COVID masks are doing that too maybe sanitary surgical masks they are veiling us but maybe they are permitting us to be our true selves you know where I agree with you but this is unfortunately not in the book the book was written too early maybe no you know where I agree with you because people are usually saying now we will regress to masturbation no touching and so on and so on but I think that would you agree with this or is this too crazy a thesis that from what I know from my sons from their teachers and so on you know that with this explosion of hardcore pornography on digital media and so on I spoke with many psychologists sociologists in my country in United States and they told me you
do mention masks at one point in the book not surgical sanitary masks but the mask as a metaphor perhaps like the virus did you see the movie with Jim Carrey The Mask yes I did what's that's my favorite example precisely how you see this is Freudian unconscious it's not deep in him he puts on a mask and there is more truth in a mask than in what is inside him that's why I always forget which Jane Austen novel is this is it Northanger Abbey or which one you know where you mentioned Mansfield Park the one Mansfield Park sorry yes you know where a couple of young people they have erotic tensions they cannot directly reenact them so they stage a play where a boy can tell a girl I love you because it's part of the of the theater piece and so on and so on I like this idea of how as Jacques Lacan put it truth has the structure of the fiction well that that's what I take that's what I take you to mean that in Mansfield Park the young lovers are able to show the truth of their feelings when they're performing these parts and the singularity too might be a mask that feels artificial but it might allow for reality and then I mean alongside Mansfield Park you also give us a very striking example and it speaks to the conversation having about desire you talk about glory holes which are you know that's quite a stark contrast to Jane Austen frankly but glory holes are a [unintelligible] but I understood the parallel you were trying to draw out which is that you know these anonymous sexual encounters usually in men's lavatories there is a kind of mask here where that that there is not there is a kind of pretense but perhaps it allows for something real real desire to emerge and my question was maybe maybe the COVID masks are doing that too maybe sanitary surgical masks they are veiling us but maybe they are permitting us to be our true selves you know where I agree with you but this is unfortunately not in the book the book was written too early maybe no you know where I agree with you because people are usually saying now we will regress to masturbation no touching and so on and so on but I think that would you agree with this or is this too crazy a thesis that from what I know from my sons from their teachers and so on you know that with this explosion of hardcore pornography on digital media and so on I spoke with many psychologists sociologists in my country in United States and they told me you
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know that actually now there is less physical love in younger generation in puberty in high school and so on you have now a certain stance which I find very sad which is who has time to go through all the courting process
know that actually now there is less physical love in younger generation in puberty in high school and so on you have now a certain stance which I find very sad which is who has time to go through all the courting process
Slavoj Žižek
and so on you need satisfaction open a pornhub and masturbate or maybe one-night stand but who has time to do all that and I think that maybe the paradoxical result of COVID will be that since to really touch another
and so on you need satisfaction open a pornhub and masturbate or maybe one-night stand but who has time to do all that and I think that maybe the paradoxical result of COVID will be that since to really touch another
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person
person
Slavoj Žižek
you risk a lot much more will be invested in this it will not just be a superficial sexual satisfaction it will be something like love and I think this is all the difference for me brutal sex is
you risk a lot much more will be invested in this it will not just be a superficial sexual satisfaction it will be something like love and I think this is all the difference for me brutal sex is
unknown
becoming virtual more and more why bother with real women or men when you can have it in a pornhub and so on and so on while to have real contact it has to be more than just sex do I quote I don't think I quote in this book I quote a wonderful comment that I read in the Guardian I think where one of the commentators there Eva Wiseman reports a wonderful story the best introduction to psychoanalysis that I know she said that she so a so a documentary on hardcore making where the guy in the middle of doing it loses erection and then steps back and says please give me my cell phone so that to get erection again I will look at the pornhub but isn't this in some sense absurd
becoming virtual more and more why bother with real women or men when you can have it in a pornhub and so on and so on while to have real contact it has to be more than just sex do I quote I don't think I quote in this book I quote a wonderful comment that I read in the Guardian I think where one of the commentators there Eva Wiseman reports a wonderful story the best introduction to psychoanalysis that I know she said that she so a so a documentary on hardcore making where the guy in the middle of doing it loses erection and then steps back and says please give me my cell phone so that to get erection again I will look at the pornhub but isn't this in some sense absurd
Slavoj Žižek
you have there a real woman contact it doesn't work you have to look at a digital fiction that makes me me doubt how you're going to answer my final question because and you've already you've already talked about the subject being this empty empty point this empty vessel and and perhaps there is an emptiness in this version of desire even though it might be the truest form of desire and towards the end of the book you pose the a question which goes as follows what if subjectivity cannot be undone and it will persist in its negation by subjectivity I mean the traditional notion inner life and so on and so on well I wonder in the end do you still have faith in the inner life and its survival in a wired world no I think inner life is basically a lie you know what no it's not that inner life doesn't matter you know where I got this pessimistic stance I read a couple of years ago a book called The Nazi Ethics and then I know from the experience of my own ex-state Bosnia Karadžić the poet inner life is for me composed of fictions ideological fantasies that we construct to cope with the horror of what we are doing in real life inner life you know every criminal will tell you but I didn't mean it as bad I wanted something more noble and so on and so on inner
you have there a real woman contact it doesn't work you have to look at a digital fiction that makes me me doubt how you're going to answer my final question because and you've already you've already talked about the subject being this empty empty point this empty vessel and and perhaps there is an emptiness in this version of desire even though it might be the truest form of desire and towards the end of the book you pose the a question which goes as follows what if subjectivity cannot be undone and it will persist in its negation by subjectivity I mean the traditional notion inner life and so on and so on well I wonder in the end do you still have faith in the inner life and its survival in a wired world no I think inner life is basically a lie you know what no it's not that inner life doesn't matter you know where I got this pessimistic stance I read a couple of years ago a book called The Nazi Ethics and then I know from the experience of my own ex-state Bosnia Karadžić the poet inner life is for me composed of fictions ideological fantasies that we construct to cope with the horror of what we are doing in real life inner life you know every criminal will tell you but I didn't mean it as bad I wanted something more noble and so on and so on inner
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life is for me no we will not get rid
life is for me no we will not get rid
Slavoj Žižek
of
of
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it but inner life is for
it but inner life is for
Slavoj Žižek
me not the space of some deeper truth inner life is for me the space of lies we are telling ourselves which is why poets who are specialized in inner life are this is my brutal thesis for which I'm so hated there is no ethnic cleansing without poetry it's not just Karadžić Bosnia go around a friend from Rwanda I met him in London told me that the crucial role of poetry in ethnic cleansing Hutu Tutsis in Rwanda whatever wherever Nazis had their poets etc because why because the only way for us to hope to to to to be able to do horrible things is to construct some kind of a poetical or religious lie so yes I agree with you there will be inner inner life but it doesn't impress me the whole psychoanalysis the lesson of psychoanalysis is don't trust your inner life
me not the space of some deeper truth inner life is for me the space of lies we are telling ourselves which is why poets who are specialized in inner life are this is my brutal thesis for which I'm so hated there is no ethnic cleansing without poetry it's not just Karadžić Bosnia go around a friend from Rwanda I met him in London told me that the crucial role of poetry in ethnic cleansing Hutu Tutsis in Rwanda whatever wherever Nazis had their poets etc because why because the only way for us to hope to to to to be able to do horrible things is to construct some kind of a poetical or religious lie so yes I agree with you there will be inner inner life but it doesn't impress me the whole psychoanalysis the lesson of psychoanalysis is don't trust your inner life
unknown
thank you Slavoj Zizek for that very lively conversation
thank you Slavoj Zizek for that very lively conversation