Project Description
The Meaning of Life. Consciousness. ChatGPT-4o. 2025
Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT-4o. Laser Projector. Sound
Infinite Loop
2025
(Excerpt)
Dimensions variable
This work is composed of 1 laser display
The Meaning of Life is an artistic work in which a laser display projects eleven texts generated by artificial intelligence. These texts attempt to answer our most fundamental questions: the meaning of life, happiness, consciousness, mortality, infinity, God…
Like philosophy, AI offers no fixed truth. Its answers evolve with each update (GPT-4, GPT-5, GPT-6…), shaped by its time, its data, and its own technical capacities. What AI asserts today may be contradicted tomorrow. It becomes a metaphor for the human quest for meaning: unstable, infinite, in perpetual recomposition.
The Meaning of Life follows in the tradition of Conceptual Art. Here, meaning is neither given nor permanent. It emerges from the moment and the perception of each viewer. The work enters into dialogue with “One and Three Chairs” by Joseph Kosuth, which questions the very nature of knowledge, and “Today” by On Kawara, where time becomes both subject and material.
What if thinking was no longer exclusive to humans? If an artificial intelligence, without consciousness, creates its own visions of existence, what is left of our singularity? The work does not answer. It suspends the question, like an enigma left open to our perception.
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The nature of consciousness remains one of the greatest mysteries of philosophy and science. Is it merely a byproduct of brain activity, or does it point to something deeper about our existence? And if consciousness is what allows us to question, reflect, and assign meaning, could it be the very foundation of life’s purpose itself?
René Descartes, often called the father of modern philosophy, grounded the search for meaning in conscious experience. His famous declaration, “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”), suggests that self-awareness is the fundamental proof of existence. If meaning is to be found, it must originate in the conscious mind’s ability to perceive, analyze, and create.
On the other hand, David Chalmers, a contemporary philosopher, argues that consciousness presents a “hard problem”, an enigma science struggles to explain. He asks, “How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?” If consciousness is more than just neural computation, perhaps it is the gateway to something beyond material reality, a clue that meaning transcends mere survival or pleasure.
In today’s world, where artificial intelligence challenges our understanding of cognition and sentience, consciousness remains the defining feature of human experience. Whether meaning is self-created or discovered in something greater, it is consciousness that allows us to seek, to wonder, and to aspire. Without it, the question of life’s meaning would not even exist.
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La nature de la conscience demeure l’un des plus grands mystères de la philosophie et de la science. Est-elle simplement un produit de l’activité cérébrale, ou révèle-t-elle une dimension plus profonde de notre existence ? Et si la conscience est ce qui nous permet de questionner, de réfléchir et d’attribuer du sens, pourrait-elle être la clé même du but de la vie ?
René Descartes, souvent considéré comme le père de la philosophie moderne, a ancré la quête de sens dans l’expérience consciente. Sa célèbre déclaration, « Cogito, ergo sum » (« Je pense, donc je suis »), suggère que la conscience de soi est la preuve fondamentale de l’existence. Si le sens de la vie doit être trouvé, il doit naître de la capacité de l’esprit à percevoir, analyser et créer.
À l’inverse, David Chalmers, philosophe contemporain, affirme que la conscience pose un « problème difficile », une énigme que la science peine à expliquer. Il interroge : « Comment l’eau du cerveau devient-elle le vin de la conscience ? » Si la conscience est plus qu’un simple calcul neuronal, peut-être est-elle une porte vers une réalité qui dépasse la matière, un indice que le sens de la vie ne se limite pas à la survie ou au plaisir.