Observer Idea, Film & Book Discussions

Is there any ultimate meaning to human life? Maybe, maybe not. But if there is, where and how do we find it?

Let’s start by thinking about philosopher Albert Camus’ approach to this question. Then segue into philosopher Simon Critchley’s opinion that human thought & feeling is the only way to ever get there, and that AI is a dead-end.

Albert Camus was the great rebel philosopher who advocated living life in the face of the complete acknowledgement of its absurdity. And Camus himself did that to the hilt, totally involved in the social and political life of his time and place.

“You exist in an indifferent, Absurd universe that defies you truly knowing it and predicting it (and yet you keep trying!), and this leaves you alienated.
The absurd, for Camus, is the clash between our deep yearning for meaning and the universe’s indifferent silence.”

“Amrum is a 2025 German historical drama film directed by Fatih Akin, and co-written by Akin with Hark Bohm, based on Bohm's childhood on the German island of Amrum (off the North Sea coast) during the last months of World War ll.”

“The end of war has been handled in many ways on film. Here, it is through the eyes of a 12-year old boy with too much responsibility for a kid to have to bear.”

“Young actor Billerbeck gives an exquisitely nuanced performance as a boy at the start of a life journey.”

Adrian Woolfson has invented the term ‘artificial biological intelligence’ and defines it as “the ability to predict, generate, construct and boot up the genomes of all possible species.” Note that he uses the phrase “all possible species”. Woolfson, who is founder of the genome writing company Genyro, has recently written a book: On the Future of Species - Authoring Life by means of Artificial Biological Intelligence.

“In On the Future of Species, Woolfson describes how we are at the cusp of a technological revolution, driven by the convergence of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. Currently at the scribbling phase—writing the genomes of viruses, bacteria and yeast—we will eventually author the genomes of extinct and never-before-realized species. Life will become computable, detached from its past and no longer bound by Darwinian evolution.

While offering extraordinary opportunities, this power also carries great risk, and it is vital for everyone to understand what the future might hold. In this groundbreaking work, Woolfson provides a guide to this bold new world, offering a moral compass to help us do so safely, wisely and ethically.”

Woolfson writes: “It is time for humanity to initiate a debate, to define what it means to be human, and to decide how we will move forward safely, ethically and responsibly as a species. In doing so, we must not forget our obligation to protect and preserve Earth’s fragile species who will accompany us on this uncertain journey. We cannot truly be human without them.”

This meeting we’ll be discussing a non-fiction book published in 2025:
Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness, by Adam Weymouth. There are available copies of the book in all 3 local library systems.

“The wolf’s resurgence across Europe is a story that will be new to most American readers, and there is nobody better to tell it than Adam Weymouth. Highly recommended!”—New York Times

“Weymouth is an uncommon brand of travel writer, weaving natural history with culture and politics. . . . [Lone Wolf] is a vehicle for Weymouth to trace the fault lines splintering Europe and to examine how people respond when confronted by unwelcome change. . . . To observe and absorb the natural-human interface, as Weymouth does, is an art.”—The Atlantic

“Adam Weymouth has made a formidable, thousand-mile foot-journey, both in the tracks of a wolf and into the heart of human-animal relations in contemporary Europe . . . His prose has a glinting precision of analysis and evocation to it.”—Robert Macfarlane

Finalist for the Baillie Gifford Prize