The personal and the philosophical
Epistolary podcast, plus AI and Pyrrhonism
I’ve got two more podcasts for you!
The personal
First, I released an experiment I’ve been wanting to try since 2020. This was to release a series of “voicenotes” as a podcast.
Voice notes are much like voicemails, but within apps like WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram. They’re asynchronous audio files that can record up to 30 minutes (in WhatsApp at least). But they show up like messages and can be played back at any time.
In the early lockdown, I got to know a lot of people from the internet through voicenotes. They were a great way of getting deep conversations without the hassle of Zoom or worrying about timezones.
In sending and receiving many of these, I concluded that they are a medium more like writing and receiving letters than they are like phone calls (even though they use voice) or texts (even though they’re asynchronous).
So I’m calling this series of podcasts “epistolary” (which means “letter-like”).
I’m extremely excited that my friend Joachim Brackx agreed to send some of these via Telegram with me so that I could release them as a podcast. We each recorded 1 minute, then 2, 4, and 8 minutes to make a 30 minute podcast.
You can listen to this first epistolary podcast, which meandered its way from choice to desire and thence to purpose.
See more about Joachim (and hear his mellifluous podcast!) at Relating to Self.
The philosophical
In another episode, I continue my discussion Isabela Granic. Isabela has been incredibly kind in offering to do a series of interviews with me on the ideas contained in the philosophy book I’m writing. This series is currently the best place to find out about that thinking.
This episode is Part 3 in a series of interviews on the book I'm working on, Neither/Nor. In this episode, Isabela Granic and I discuss how AI technologies like ChatGPT relate to living textual traditions. We then move into Socrates versus the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. We then move into an ancient Greek form of scepticism called “Pyrrhonism” which, like Buddhism, charts a "middle way" between dogmatism and nihilism.
Listen here.
Oh, and if you’ve lost track, I’ve started a thread that describes each podcast:
As always, I’d love to hear from you, so please reply!
All the best,
Bryan
"In the early lockdown, I got to know a lot of people from the internet through voicenotes. They were a great way of getting deep conversations without the hassle of Zoom or worrying about timezones. In sending and receiving many of these, I concluded that they are a medium more like writing and receiving letters than they are like phone calls (even though they use voice) or texts (even though they’re asynchronous)."
I remember you saying that, about voice notes being more letter-like than phone call- or text-like. Brought a smile to my face to remember that little era! Hoping you are well, Bryan!