Table Of ContentGoethe in the Age of
Artificial Intelligence
Enlightened Solutions for
a Modern Hubris
Malte Ebach
Goethe in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Malte Ebach
Goethe in the Age of
Artificial Intelligence
Enlightened Solutions for a Modern Hubris
Malte Ebach
UNSW Sydney
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-981-19-6740-5 ISBN 978-981-19-6741-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6741-2
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For Giesela
P
rologue
Modern Hubris: when human experience is replaced by the tools that sup-
plement them, resulting in a disconnection between the observer and Nature.
The idea of (parts of) this book came to me during a walk along the
North Downs Way in East Surrey in the summer of 2004. I had decided
to give up academia since postdoctoral positions were scarce as no one
wanted a palaeobiogeographer fascinated with modern biotic distribu-
tions. Not wanting to give up research entirely, I decided to fund it by
working part-time at a local county library. The system worked well, that
is, until a dear friend and colleague came to visit later that year. In 2005, I
found myself back into the meat mincer that is modern academia, having
to find a new postdoctoral position every 12–18 months, while not letting
the number of publications slip. All academics know this life and some
love and others find it rather tiring. I was one of the latter and bid farewell
to academia for the second time in 2020.
A lot happened in those 15 years. Artificial intelligence blossomed and
so too did big data. Every time I came across big data projects within my
own field of research, I wondered what Goethe would have made of it all.
Herein lies the genesis of the second part of this book, the Modern Hubris.
I tried to get funding to investigate the Modern Hubris, but no luck.
There was no interest in understanding the technology that is slowly
replacing human experience and our connection with Nature. I started
reading Goethe again and remembered the walk along the North Downs
Way that long summer afternoon. Finally, after 18 years, the book is fin-
ished… or is it? There is much more to discover about Goethe and his
vii
viii PROLOGUE
scientific life, as well as the why’s and how’s of his method, which he
applied across a multitude of fields, including geology, comparative biol-
ogy, geography, colour theory and much more.
I hope, dear reader that you get something from this book other than
a headache. Perhaps, you too may learn something from Goethe that may
help you and others. I am grateful to Bernard Michaux, Fred Amrine,
Robin Bruce, Evangelos Mantzios, Marcelo de Carvalho, Penelope
Gordon, Evgeny Mavrodiev, Wendy Shaw and Melinda Tursky for reading
through drafts of this book. I also thank two anonymous reviewers for
their valuable feedback. I am also grateful to Simone Meakin for her help
with editing.
Wentworth Falls, Australia Malte Ebach FRSN
May 2022
N l t
ote oN aNguage aNd raNslatioN
Nature1 and Earth will be written in capitals (with the exception “of the
earth”) as these are names. Earth is the name of our planet, as opposed to
“soil” or “ground”. I also use the term “natural world” to refer to the
biota (life forms), geology and landscapes of our planet. In the case of the
name “Nature”, I refer to Mother Nature, namely, the creative force that
includes the earth, and human experience, and is greater than the sum of
its parts. The notion that humans are disengaged from Nature is analo-
gous to people no longer engaging with the other inhabitants of our planet.
Translations from German to English either are made by the author or
are from original sources as described. I have used translations from recent
texts because older texts, particularly from the nineteenth century and
early twentieth century, show a degree of bias.
The following abbreviations are used in citations by the author:
WA = Goethes Werke. Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Großherzogin
Sophie von Sachsen. IV. Abteilung: Goethes Briefe, Bd. 1–50, Weimar
1887–1912.
LA = Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft, herausgegeben im Auftrage der
Deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher (Leopoldina). Kuhn D,
Matthaei R, Troll W, Wolf L (Eds), Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger,
Weimar (1947–2012).
1 Charles Sherrington noted in his Goethe on Science and Nature, “Two facts we may, at
outset, recall about Goethe. Poet though he was, he was yet life-long an ardent student of
the sciences of Nature. And this other, that with him—not merely as usage of the German
language—Nature was usually Nature with a capital N” (Sherrington, 1961, p. 5).
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