Belief, love, consciousness, soul, and other nonsense
Manton is my favorite human online. He is the only one I read daily the way somebody chews gum. He does not seem edgy, radical, or a fanatic. Probably a "good" and respectable citizen, friend, and valuable member of the society. His views seem normal. He probably reads a lot and has knowledge about things. Educated, and his manners are in line. All his writing reflects that. All cliques are inherited and spread without a question.
Manton is a man behind the "blogging" platform micro.blog. He is also one of the creators of the web feed format JSON Feed. Most importantly, he is a man whose writing I like to read. His writing is pure nonsense, like the Apple polishing cloth. Enjoyable reading. Once you are a fan, only a big cosmic event can change that. His style is good, articles are short and to the point. He does not cover every angle and does not apologize in every second sentence. He writes and leave. Easy to read and easy to understand what he is trying to say. Topic coverage is tiny, mostly about his business, AI, Apple and sometimes his "love" for Trump leaks out. Occasionally a random mundane picture captured from his iPhone appears. Pretty standard here.
Manton's masterpiece: Reaching AGI
https://www.manton.org/2026/09/04/reaching-agi.html
In the article above he talks about soul and consciousness, like he has an idea what it is and that it even exists. But he probably heard or read about it, so he has the "ground rules" that will not change ever, as he said. Then love, obviously. Love is the favorite word for many. Love, rainbow, sunshine, terrace, coffee, cat, and laptop. In his case also an AI subscription.
https://www.manton.org/2026/09/04/ive-got-access-to-astra.html
I've got access to Astra now and have no idea what to build, as if I suddenly have writer's block. Anyone have a feature request or bug that we've overlooked?
Software is done, all works, but he has the subscription that just got updated. So why not fuck up something? Then he got the response: "ask Astra for ideas". The irony is that the most valuable feature request would probably be something like: "Stop adding features". That does not scale well in business, however. He is still fighting in his head about one feature "X". The feature is adding "cross-posting to X". He likes the idea, he wants it, AI told him it can do it. But that is dangerous. There is a small, but noisy group of online warriors who are hunting "nazis" on the internet. You touch the X platform and you are done, finished. You quote somebody from the X, and you are the enemy. It would summon hundreds of rainbow-colored fediverse profiles to march heroically against the menace of witchcraft. That's not always good for a business.
Believers are dangerous. If the script changes, they start burning "witches" at the stakes and hunt people with different beliefs. Manton is a big believer. At least in his article about consciousness, soul, and love.
His belief is that AI can't experience love and humans experience love. But what is love here? Now many would spit out ten-page long essay about it. They heard, read, and memorized things about it. All second-hand knowledge. "AI won't be conscious." What exactly is consciousness? Not what are some theories, not what the word means in ordinary conversation. And then, the question. How do you know you have it? Because you experience things? And what is experience? What makes something an experience rather than a description of an experience? If your memory is wiped out completely, what would be your "experience"? What would it be without a language you learned as a kid, without knowledge you memorized from others, and without cultural and social inheritance?
He may have read enough philosophy, psychology, AI commentary, and popular writing to acquire the vocabulary of profundity. Then the vocabulary itself starts masquerading as understanding. Love, consciousness, meaning, human connection, joy, creativity, authenticity, and humanity. A whole little humanist vocabulary clique. Inherited, memorized, and repeated as well-understood inner territory. Then each word is included in the answer about the other one.
Many things people talk about are nothing more than just culturally inherited and romanticized descriptions of biological, physiological, and psychological activity.
there will be something deeper and more important to work on.
That assumes there is a deeper human purpose waiting underneath the obsolete work. Belief or hope that one will actually find it. Nobody yet found it. You can be the first one, dear Manton. Then please write about it.