Attention Must Be Paid: The Boundaries of Human Knowledge and the Problem of AI

What can a person know? Philosophy has often framed this question in dualistic terms: the mind is “inside,” the world is “outside,” and knowledge requires the mind to somehow bridge the gap and “know” the world. But what if this picture is wrong? What if the boundary of knowledge is not primarily a wall between mind and world, but a limit of attention, embodiment, habit, language, and action? And what if that boundary is not static, but changing and changeable: different for individuals, groups, cultures, and technologies?

This session explores an alternative tradition in philosophy that treats human beings not as detached spectators of reality, but as living organisms already situated in the world. Drawing on thinkers such as Thomas Reid, William James, John Dewey, and related work in embodied cognition and psychology, we will consider how knowledge grows out of perception, attention, practical activity, and our ability to navigate a shared environment.

We will then turn to technology, including artificial intelligence. Large language models can process vast amounts of information, imitate reasoning, and produce fluent language. But do they attend? Do they perceive? Do they know? Or are they better understood as powerful extensions and reorganizations of human attention rather than knowers in their own right?

The central claim of the session is that older philosophical debates can help us frame the problems and opportunities facing us today. By gaining a clearer understanding of how we attend to the world, we can question inherited assumptions that still shape our thinking, often without our noticing. To effectively guide new technologies, we may first need to understand what human knowledge has always been: not a view from nowhere, but a situated, selective, active engagement with the world.

The session will begin with a 40-minute presentation, followed by 20 minutes of open Q&A and discussion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This event is part of the NYC Philosophy & Psychology Readers Conference 2026. For full details please visit: https://www.meetup.com/reading-philosophy/events/314020228/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This room holds a maximum of 40 people seated or 74 people standing. It will be first come first served. If you cannot make it please update your RSVP to decline to allow others to use your space.
---------------------------------------------------------------------