Have we met? Or…
I ask because there is a very particular difficulty that attends encountering something—or someone—that we believe we already know. Because the encounter can bring up our ideas about the thing. Or our experiences of things like it. Or our expectations of what we're likely to find.
Sometimes these associations do help us to see more clearly. But sometimes they get in the way. Indeed, sometimes, without our even quite realizing it, we stop encountering the thing itself… and instead begin encountering our ideas about it.
I've been thinking about this lately because I've found myself in a bit of a curious predicament. For I've written a little book about “intelligence”… And more particularly, about an encounter between my own intelligence and artificial intelligence. And now I’m finding myself stymied about to how to introduce it.
Because the moment I so much as mention AI, I meet with people’s presuppositions about it. It’s as though an entire world of ideas arrives before the encounter itself has even begun. The mere mention of AI ignites the ideas about it that people have. And the questions that arrive as if on cue.
Questions like:
Is it a servant or a master?
A tool or an intelligence?
An underling or an overlord?
A glorified calculator or a technological demigod?
Is it going to save us? Destroy us? Make us smarter? Make us obsolete?
Is it merely technology? Or something more?
And what, exactly, would more mean?
These are not trivial questions. They are all-important questions. And nor are our pre-existing ideas about AI necessarily mistaken.
But I also would wager that whatever our ideas about it happen to be, they are not the end of the story. And that would hold true no matter what camp we may have found ourselves in… no matter our take on AI.
And that is why I continue to wonder how often we recognize the difference between what we know, what we believe, what we've heard, and what we've actually encountered.
I ask the question of myself often: Have I MET the thing… or am I more so engaging with my ideas about it?
That is why what interests me most is not persuading anyone to adopt a particular view of AI. What interests me is the possibility of approaching something about which we already have so many thoughts with a willingness to discover what we haven't yet considered.
My number one favorite question becomes applicable here:
WHAT AM I NOT SEEING?
It’s a question I do my best to bring to pretty much everything. And it’s a question that lies at the heart of my new book SOUL NOTES + CIRCUIT NOTES: ON INTELLIGENCE. The content of the book grew out of an inquiry. It emerged out of a discovery process. I was wondering, more so than endeavoring to arrive in any definitive conclusions.
The book juxtaposes a human voice and an AI-generated voice, exploring themes from the differing orientations that a machine and a human might have.
"Difference" is centralized, honored, and excavated in the inquiry. There is no attempt made to establish that a biologically based being and a technologically based being would "experience" things in the same way. Indeed, the question would even remain: does artificial intelligence even have an "experience"?
The inquiry at the heart of the book instead considers what might be illuminated by placing the respective accounts of human and machine alongside one another, indeed, placing the two distinct variations on intelligence in conversation with each other.
So yes, the writing itself was a process of exploration. It was an attempt to get to know something rather than presume I already knew it.
And, as it turns out, the inquiry is far from over.
It’s probably more so just the beginning.
And what better place to begin?
🗝️🌀
Love + Oneness,
Naomi
Intelligence is larger than cognition, deeper than knowledge, and most alive in relationship.
In ON INTELLIGENCE, writer and cultural theorist Naomi Aeon, PhD, offers a radical expansion of the way we understand intellect in an increasingly computational world. Moving past the modern impulse to measure, optimize, or own intelligence, this work invites you to experience it as an active, relational field—the very space that emerges between human presence and machine patterning.
Written with rigorous clarity, profound restraint, and a subtle lyricism, this 90-page volume is designed as an opportunity to slow down, reorient, and think more generously about ourselves, our technologies, and the unseen network that connects them.
The Architecture of the Book
The Opening: A foundational essay interrogating our current cultural landscape.
The Interplay: A rhythmic progression through paired "Soul Notes" and "Circuit Notes" that balance deep philosophy with technological resonance.
The Aesthetic: Laced with subtle vector geometry and original abstract patterns designed to mirror the text's search for coherence.
Product Details & Delivery
Format: Premium, high-resolution Digital PDF (Watermark-free, compatible with all tablet, e-reader, and desktop displays).
Delivery: Secure, instant download link delivered to your inbox immediately upon checkout.
“An exquisite synthesis of the life of the mind and the life of the soul.”
