Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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B. Scot Rousse (“B”)'s substack, "Without Why," focuses on what it means to be alive in an age of intelligent machines. He is philosopher in residence at Topos Institute and visiting scholar in Philosophy at Berkeley. He also drums in 3 punk bands.
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Andrea Hiott has a conversation with philosopher B. Scot Rousse (“B”). B is an Oakland-based, Berkeley-affiliated Heidegger and phenomenology scholar focused on AI’s effects on our capacities to care. He is also a Topos Institute affiliate and a punk drummer. Andrea and B discuss Heidegger’s care as living in “meaningful differences,” embodied affordances, moods, and existential orientation. They explore how AI risks compulsive optimization and an overly narrow picture of the role of language in human life. B argues that technologies design ways of being human, urges users and designers to ask “for the sake of what,” articulates punk’s embodied, communal, joyful “controlled chaos” as an antidote to technological nihilism, and celebrates love and care in their visceral, pluralistic, and risky uncontrollability. Along the way, B traces a path from growing up Hare Krishna in Florida, to an encounter with a philosophy teacher who encouraged his transfer to UC Berkeley where he came under the mentorship of Hubert Dreyfus, whose teaching and critiques of symbolic AI shaped B’s work. B also shares about his work with philosopher-entrepreneur Fernando Flores (thanks to an introduction by Dreyfus), who applies philosophy to organizational “networks of conversations” that coordinate commitments and care for customer concerns, drawing on his experience in Chilean political history and ontological reinterpretation of entrepreneurship. In all of these experiences, B focuses on an abiding and urgent question: How do we protect our capacity to care in an age of optimization? How can you create, in your life, your version of the worldly joy and shared meaning of being in a punk band?
B’s substack is Without Why (withoutwhy.substack.com/) .
He currently drums in the bands Realistic, Vexxyl, and Wildfire.
Here is the piece on Hubert Drefyus (open.substack.com/pub/withoutwhy/p/a-full-and-enviable-philosophical?r=3qslz0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) that Andrea mentions.
Subscribe to B’s YouTube channel here (youtube.com/@bs.rousse) . Support the Hubert Dreyfus Audio Archive Project here (givebutter.com/dreyfus) .
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00:00 Welcome and Care Question
00:36 Meet B Scot Rousse
04:31 Highlights and Themes
07:08 B Introduces Himself
08:14 From Krishna Roots to Philosophy
10:27 Teacher to Berkeley and Dreyfus
12:01 Ambassadors of Possibility
13:16 Dreyfus Mentorship Years
14:52 Fernando Flores and Careful Organizations
18:40 Heideggerian Care Meets AI
23:56 Care and Agency in Analytic Ethics
30:04 Mattering and Affordances
33:13 Dreyfus on Technology and Optimization
38:00 Language as Commitments Not Info
39:02 Language as Commitment
40:54 Why LLMs Aren’t Human Language
43:18 Training, Deployment, Disembodiment
45:22 Languaging vs Symbol Systems
49:44 Care and Ontological Design
52:41 Compulsive Chatbot Loops
55:30 Disorientation and No Recipes
01:02:10 Kierkegaard and Commitment
01:11:35 Practicing Conversation with AI
01:14:38 Punk as Embodied Community
01:17:46 Punk As Belonging
01:18:50 Drummer Life And Community
01:19:14 Mood Joy And Chaos
01:21:10 Entropy And AI Randomness
01:23:19 Choosing The Wild Path
01:27:01 Teaching At The Edge
01:33:01 Meaning Is Out There
45:45 Care As Human
Andrea Hiott is a philosopher and cognitive scientist developing the navigational approach to mind — the view that mind is “the body’s navigational action in all spaces of life, from the geographical to the emotional to the social to the virtual.” She hosts the Love & Philosophy (Beyond Dichotomy) podcast and Substack, and her work draws on hippocampal research, 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive), and the ecological tradition. Her book Holding Paradox: A Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness is forthcoming. Her recurring interests — holding apparent contradictions open, “way-making,” the importance of care and 'mattering', constellation/kaleidoscopic thinking, and moving beyond either/or — frame her questions throughout.
Support the show (loveandphilosophy.com/giving-page)
Buy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness (simonandschuster.net/books/Holding-Paradox/Andrea-Hiott/9781917991636) by Andrea Hiott
Sign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects. (making-ways.com/)
Please rate and review with love.
YouTube (youtube.com/@waymaking23) , Facebook (https://ww...
Send a love message (buzzsprout.com/2229994/fan_mail/new)
B. Scot Rousse (“B”)'s substack, "Without Why," focuses on what it means to be alive in an age of intelligent machines. He is philosopher in residence at Topos Institute and visiting scholar in Philosophy at Berkeley. He also drums in 3 punk bands.
To support us, please sign up for the newsletter (lovephilosophy.substack.com/) or Give any amount (loveandphilosophy.com/giving-page) .
Andrea Hiott has a conversation with philosopher B. Scot Rousse (“B”). B is an Oakland-based, Berkeley-affiliated Heidegger and phenomenology scholar focused on AI’s effects on our capacities to care. He is also a Topos Institute affiliate and a punk drummer. Andrea and B discuss Heidegger’s care as living in “meaningful differences,” embodied affordances, moods, and existential orientation. They explore how AI risks compulsive optimization and an overly narrow picture of the role of language in human life. B argues that technologies design ways of being human, urges users and designers to ask “for the sake of what,” articulates punk’s embodied, communal, joyful “controlled chaos” as an antidote to technological nihilism, and celebrates love and care in their visceral, pluralistic, and risky uncontrollability. Along the way, B traces a path from growing up Hare Krishna in Florida, to an encounter with a philosophy teacher who encouraged his transfer to UC Berkeley where he came under the mentorship of Hubert Dreyfus, whose teaching and critiques of symbolic AI shaped B’s work. B also shares about his work with philosopher-entrepreneur Fernando Flores (thanks to an introduction by Dreyfus), who applies philosophy to organizational “networks of conversations” that coordinate commitments and care for customer concerns, drawing on his experience in Chilean political history and ontological reinterpretation of entrepreneurship. In all of these experiences, B focuses on an abiding and urgent question: How do we protect our capacity to care in an age of optimization? How can you create, in your life, your version of the worldly joy and shared meaning of being in a punk band?
B’s substack is Without Why (withoutwhy.substack.com/) .
He currently drums in the bands Realistic, Vexxyl, and Wildfire.
Here is the piece on Hubert Drefyus (open.substack.com/pub/withoutwhy/p/a-full-and-enviable-philosophical?r=3qslz0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) that Andrea mentions.
Subscribe to B’s YouTube channel here (youtube.com/@bs.rousse) . Support the Hubert Dreyfus Audio Archive Project here (givebutter.com/dreyfus) .
Share (%%share_url%%)
Subscribe now (%%checkout_url%%)
00:00 Welcome and Care Question
00:36 Meet B Scot Rousse
04:31 Highlights and Themes
07:08 B Introduces Himself
08:14 From Krishna Roots to Philosophy
10:27 Teacher to Berkeley and Dreyfus
12:01 Ambassadors of Possibility
13:16 Dreyfus Mentorship Years
14:52 Fernando Flores and Careful Organizations
18:40 Heideggerian Care Meets AI
23:56 Care and Agency in Analytic Ethics
30:04 Mattering and Affordances
33:13 Dreyfus on Technology and Optimization
38:00 Language as Commitments Not Info
39:02 Language as Commitment
40:54 Why LLMs Aren’t Human Language
43:18 Training, Deployment, Disembodiment
45:22 Languaging vs Symbol Systems
49:44 Care and Ontological Design
52:41 Compulsive Chatbot Loops
55:30 Disorientation and No Recipes
01:02:10 Kierkegaard and Commitment
01:11:35 Practicing Conversation with AI
01:14:38 Punk as Embodied Community
01:17:46 Punk As Belonging
01:18:50 Drummer Life And Community
01:19:14 Mood Joy And Chaos
01:21:10 Entropy And AI Randomness
01:23:19 Choosing The Wild Path
01:27:01 Teaching At The Edge
01:33:01 Meaning Is Out There
45:45 Care As Human
Andrea Hiott is a philosopher and cognitive scientist developing the navigational approach to mind — the view that mind is “the body’s navigational action in all spaces of life, from the geographical to the emotional to the social to the virtual.” She hosts the Love & Philosophy (Beyond Dichotomy) podcast and Substack, and her work draws on hippocampal research, 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive), and the ecological tradition. Her book Holding Paradox: A Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness is forthcoming. Her recurring interests — holding apparent contradictions open, “way-making,” the importance of care and 'mattering', constellation/kaleidoscopic thinking, and moving beyond either/or — frame her questions throughout.
Support the show (loveandphilosophy.com/giving-page)
Buy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness (simonandschuster.net/books/Holding-Paradox/Andrea-Hiott/9781917991636) by Andrea Hiott
Sign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects. (making-ways.com/)
Please rate and review with love.
YouTube (youtube.com/@waymaking23) , Facebook (https://ww...
