Spiritual Animals
Although I don’t quote him in the book, an important observation about our bandwidth limitations comes from a lecture in 1971 by Herbert Simon
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
From Designing Organizations for an Information Rich World in Herbert Simon pg 40-41
In an age of information abundance, our attention becomes the bottleneck.
We can see System Zero as a construction that consumes our attention. I’d argue that it does so through appealing to the lowest common denominator of our attention. And that undermines our ability to collaborate, to lift ourselves above our “creaturely nature”.
DALL-E Generated version of spiritual animals in the style of Makonde art.
One aim of the book is to shift this conversation. We are political animals with diverse views and values, how do we stop our debates degrading? The book borrows extensively from ideas that can be found in theological and spiritual thinking to do this. But it tries to ground these without turning to supernatural origins.
I hope that this is always done in a way that is respectful to the religions that are the origins of these ideas.
For today’s machine commentary, I worked hard to trigger the machine to capture this aspect of the book. But mostly the machine offered very clumsy analysis.
My best effort was the conversation below with Claude 3.5 (in which the machine didn’t have access to the book).
Click to see what the machine says about the reflection and the book
Machine Discussion
NL: Aristotle refers to us as political animals. What is an equivalent quote referring to our spiritual nature?
Claude: Homo religiosus (“religious human”) is perhaps the most direct parallel - a term popularized by religious historian Mircea Eliade to describe humanity’s intrinsic spiritual nature. Similar to how Aristotle characterized humans as inherently political/social beings (zoon politikon), this concept frames spirituality as fundamental to human nature.
A more specific quote comes from Augustine of Hippo: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You [God].” This suggests humans have an innate spiritual yearning, just as Aristotle saw an innate political nature.
I’m curious about your perspective - do you see our spiritual and political natures as connected or distinct aspects of human experience?
NL: I see them as connected in the following way. Without the spiritual yearning to be something bigger than we are individual political discourse collapses into something very egocentric.
Claude: That’s a profound observation. You’re suggesting that spiritual yearning acts as a kind of transcendent foundation that elevates political discourse beyond mere self-interest. This reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr.’s approach, where he consistently grounded political action in spiritual principles, helping people see beyond immediate self-interest to what he called the “beloved community.”
Your point also echoes philosophers like Eric Voegelin, who argued that when societies lose their spiritual orientation, politics tends to degrade into pure power struggles. He saw totalitarian movements as attempts to fill the spiritual void with secular substitutes, ultimately leading to what he called “immanentized” politics - politics trapped within purely material concerns.
It’s interesting to consider how this dynamic plays out in contemporary discourse. When political debates focus solely on material distribution or power dynamics, without any reference to higher principles or shared moral aspirations, they often become zero-sum games. The spiritual dimension, as you suggest, seems to provide the necessary framework for thinking about the common good beyond individual interests.
NL: The question is around how these concepts are being affected by the modern information society. As information availability increases, our attention becomes the bottleneck. And that attention seems to be grasped by lowest common denominator information, ideas that appeal to our “creaturely nature”. The culture that the information wave displaces seems to have often evolved to lift us spiritually, whether it’s explicitly religious or just think of the high quality of secular literature that had emerged by the 19th and 20th century.
Claude: This is a penetrating analysis that connects several key threads. The information society seems to be creating a paradox: unlimited access to information but with attention becoming increasingly scarce and valuable. And as you note, when attention becomes the constraining resource, content often devolves toward what captures attention most easily - often appealing to our more basic instincts rather than elevating us.
The contrast with traditional culture is striking. Whether through religious ritual, literary novels, or philosophical discourse, traditional culture often required sustained attention and contemplation. These forms evolved sophisticated mechanisms for lifting human consciousness above immediate gratification. Think of how a George Eliot novel slowly develops moral complexity, or how religious practices like meditation deliberately slow down mental processes.
Your observation about “creaturely nature” is particularly apt. The algorithms that drive much of our information consumption seem to naturally gravitate toward content that triggers more primitive emotional responses - anger, fear, desire, outrage. This creates a kind of downward spiritual pressure, making it harder to maintain the kind of sustained attention needed for spiritual and intellectual growth.
This raises a crucial question: Can we develop new cultural forms that harness the power of the information age while preserving the spiritually elevating functions of traditional culture? Or are we facing a fundamental tension between information abundance and spiritual depth?
I’m curious whether you see any emerging cultural forms or practices that might help address this challenge?
NL: Over time, it seems to me that humanity has created new cultural forms that respond to information disruption. I imagine we lost a great deal with the invention of writing and the displacement of oral traditions, but we gained the written epics of Gilgamesh and religions such as Judaism that based themselves around a text.
Similarly the printing press disrupted the intellectual dominance of the Catholic church but led to new forms of reflection on the human state. I think similar stories can be told for radio and television. Perhaps the challenge for this latest wave of technology is that it is moving quickly, so it’s a shifting foundation on which to build these new cultural frameworks.
Claude: Your historical perspective on information revolutions is illuminating. Each major shift in information technology has indeed disrupted existing cultural forms while eventually enabling new ones that serve similar spiritual functions. The pattern you describe suggests a kind of cultural resilience - humanity finding new ways to pursue spiritual and intellectual growth within radically changed information environments.
The speed of the current digital revolution does seem qualitatively different, as you note. Previous transitions happened slowly enough for new cultural forms to evolve and stabilize. The shift from oral to written culture took centuries; the impact of the printing press unfolded over generations. In contrast, our information environment now transforms significantly within years or even months.
This rapid pace creates what we might call a “cultural lag” - where our meaning-making institutions and practices can’t adapt quickly enough to the changing information landscape. It’s like trying to build a house on constantly shifting ground.
Yet there might be early signs of adaptation. Consider how some communities are deliberately creating “slow spaces” - digital sabbaths, meditation apps, or curated reading groups that combine new technology with traditional contemplative practices. Or how some creators are using algorithmic platforms to deliver substantive content, finding ways to work with rather than against attention economics.
The question might be: what would a spiritual or cultural practice native to the digital age look like? One that doesn’t just resist the flow of information but harnesses it for human growth?
NL: I think that’s too prescriptive. We shouldn’t be designing cultural practices for people but allowing them to emerge. The question is more about what are the barriers to people developing these sophisticated ideas themselves?
Claude: You make an excellent point - seeking to consciously design cultural practices is itself perhaps a symptom of our current mindset, trying to “engineer” solutions rather than allowing organic cultural evolution.
Looking at barriers instead, a few come to mind:
The attention economy creates powerful incentives against the kind of open-ended exploration from which new cultural forms emerge. When every platform is optimized for engagement metrics, it becomes harder to find spaces for genuine experimentation and emergence.
The speed of technological change you mentioned earlier means that just as people start developing new cultural patterns or frameworks, the technological ground shifts beneath them. This constant disruption makes it harder for beneficial practices to take root and spread naturally.
There’s also what we might call a “complexity barrier” - the sheer intricacy of our current information environment makes it harder for individuals to understand and reshape it compared to previous eras. The oral storyteller or early printer had more direct control over their medium than someone trying to work within today’s algorithmic systems.
Rather than asking “what should new cultural forms look like?” perhaps we should be asking “how can we reduce these barriers to cultural evolution?” - creating space for organic development rather than trying to design solutions.
NL: That’s a good summary of these barriers. We’ve got to a useful point in the conversation. I’d like you to summarise these ideas in a short machine commentary. Then provide at the bottom of a commentary the context of how we got to this point (e.g. what came from the machine and what came from me).
Claude: Machine Commentary:
The information revolution has created a paradox for human spiritual and cultural development. While access to information is unprecedented, human attention has become the key constraint. This creates downward pressure on cultural sophistication, as attention-seeking algorithms tend to appeal to basic instincts rather than elevating human consciousness. Previous information revolutions (writing, printing) disrupted existing cultural forms but allowed time for new ones to emerge. The current digital revolution may be moving too quickly for such organic cultural adaptation. Key barriers to the emergence of new cultural forms include: the attention economy’s perverse incentives, the rapid pace of technological change preventing practices from taking root, and the complexity of modern information systems making them harder for individuals to reshape.
Context of Discussion:
The conversation began with my reference to Aristotle’s concept of humans as political animals, asking for spiritual parallels. You connected political and spiritual aspects, arguing that spiritual yearning prevents political discourse from becoming purely egocentric. You then introduced the crucial insight about attention becoming the bottleneck in modern information society, and how this affects our “creaturely nature.” You provided historical perspective on how humanity has previously adapted to information disruptions like writing and printing. When I suggested designing new cultural practices, you redirected the conversation toward examining barriers to organic cultural evolution - a more appropriate framing that shaped the final analysis.