Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics - Prague | Centrum pro environmentální a technologickou etiku - Praha — Book Launch – Gábor L. Ambrus: From the Golem to Freedom: A Study on Technology and Religion

Gábor L. Ambrus:
From the Golem to Freedom

A Study on Technology and Religion

03 December 2024, 2pm

Kampus Hybernská, room A3

Free entry

We are co-organizing the book launch of Gábor L. Ambrus's new publication, From the Golem to Freedom: A Study on Technology and Religion. The event is being organized by the Theology & Contemporary Culture Research Group (Charles University) in collaboration with CETE-P, prg.ai, and Kampus Hybernská.

During the event, our ERA Chair Holder, Mark Coeckelbergh, will introduce the book and share his comments. The book is available here.

Book annotation:

With a particular focus on social media, Gábor L. Ambrus explores how human beings relate to contemporary information technology.Ambrus argues that religious traditions – such as Judaism and Christianity, as well as secular philosophical thought inspired by religion – can be invoked to describe both the freedom and 'unfreedom' of the user of information technology.

To illustrate how individuals relate to technology in a restricted and totalitarian online environment, Ambrus adopts the figure and legend of the golem from Jewish mysticism. At the same time, his argument features other religious concepts and themes to describe an alternative to our present predicament of 'unfreedom', while not seeking to portray any 'redemption' outside the technological environment.

At the core of his argument, Ambrus presents the experience of nothingness as a source of freedom, opening up the possibility for a free relationship for us all with information technology.

Gábor L. Ambrus is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic