How Did You Develop a Brain That Synthesizes Technology and Spirituality?
I grew up in a very religious family and I had large passages of Bible memorized as a child. It was actually shortly after I left Christianity that I first encountered that Ray Kurzweil book, The Aegis Spiritual Machines. And so the book was really an attempt to try to trace those ideas and put them in conversation with one another. What is the history of people talking about technology and religion in the same breath? We don't often hear those terms spoken of but there is deep history of thinkers who put those ideas in talks with each other.
What is the impact of technology on the psyche? Author and Wired Magazine columnist Meghan O’Gieblyn talks with host Patricia Martin about consciousness and the self in the machine age, and the implications for living a meaningful life.
Meghan O’Gieblyn writes about spirituality and technology and is the author of God, Human, Animal, Machine (2021) andInterior States (2018), which won the 2018 Believer Book Award for nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Wired,The Guardian, The New York Times, Bookforum, n+1, The Believer, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and her work has been anthologized in The Best American Essays 2017 and The Contemporary American Essay (2021). She also writes the “Cloud Support” advice column for Wired.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
