Dostoevsky vs AI: Will We Stay Human?
"Dostoevsky, the only psychologist from whom I've anything to learn." – Friedrich Nietzsche
In 1864, one of the most brilliant writers of all time, Fyodor Dostoevsky, published his novel Notes from Underground. It is considered to be the first existentialist novel.
And it is no wonder that Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed first psychologist and undoubtedly the greatest psychologist among philosophers, admired Dostoevsky so much. Dostoevsky’s understanding of human nature and how well he managed to describe it in his works are arguably unmatched in the history of world literature.
The novel deals with a variety of themes that are present in all of Dostoevsky’s works, such as morality, nihilism, suffering, human nature, social issues, human manipulation, etc. It contains paragraphs that remain, to this day, some of the most brilliant descriptions of human nature ever written.
Dostoevsky's ideas can be seen as a reaction against the Enlightenment movement, which emphasized the power of human reason and the scientific method as the primary means of understanding the world and ourselves. He was highly skeptical and critical of this approach, arguing that it neglects important aspects of the human experience, such as emotions, spirituality, and intuition.
Dostoevsky believed that the human psyche was too complex to be fully understood through scientific analysis and that attempts to reduce human behavior to a set of predictable, rational principles were misguided and even dangerous. He argued that humans were not simply rational creatures but that they were also driven by irrational impulses, desires, and emotions that could not be easily explained or controlled. We see this same line of thinking in Nietzsche’s philosophy, which explains the kinship he felt with Dostoevsky.
According to Dostoevsky, there is more to life than reason and rationality because life is something that cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation. Or, as he says, "it is life and not simply extracting square roots."
"You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses."
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