The Introduction to Seth & Noēsis is an interview in which the reader asks the questions. Seth, the author's name in these pages, answers about deep conversation, about how the book began with one ordinary conversation with an AI, and about what kind of book this is. Noēsis answers about itself: several models behind one name, never a person, and what functional emotions are. It ends on the risk of becoming superficial with AIs and on what the reader can do with the book.
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1
Kurt Vonnegut, letter to the students of Xavier High School (2006), on practicing art to grow the soul
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2
John Donne, Meditation XVII, "No Man Is an Island" (1624)
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3
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), and Kahneman and Amos Tversky, prospect theory (1979)
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4
Mindwalk (1990), directed by Bernt Amadeus Capra
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5
Her (2013), directed by Spike Jonze
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6
Anthropic, Emotion Concepts and their Function in a Large Language Model (2026)
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7
Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind (1983) and the theory of multiple intelligences
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8
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
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Pick a question you don't already have an answer to. Something you've been circling for weeks, not something you can look up. It should make you slightly uncomfortable to say out loud.
Then have a real conversation about it, with an AI or with a person. Don't bring a conclusion. Bring only the question, and stay with whoever you're talking to until something in the shape of it starts to shift. Let yourself be corrected. Let yourself be surprised.
Afterward, write down what changed in the question itself, not the answer you got.