The result was an essay on language and meaning, positioned against the backdrop of the large language models (LLMs) surge. Therein, I posited the expressive – as opposed to the interpretive or reflective – quality of language at the heart of meaning and advanced a radical critique of AI’s potential to ever realize the luminous core of semantic coherence. Owing to the sheer volume of elaborative footnotes, I named the essay: AI and the Footnotes to Semantic Coherence.

Trusting in the merit and originality of my work, I reached out to Mr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn of the Closer to Truth digital platform. Unlike so many other distinguished recipients of my work, Mr. Kuhn graciously found the time to review it and ultimately deemed it suitable for inclusion in his monumental Landscape of Consciousness project (https://loc.closertotruth.com/), for which my gratitude will never cease. I am immensely honored and proud to feature amidst so many esteemed theories of consciousness and not least confident in the viability of my own philosophical approach to that complex and precarious notion. I am equally proud to share my dedicated page on the project: https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/drabkin-s-language-as-fundamental-expression.

One may rightly ask how a formal philosophical paper can be reconciled with my critique of structured analysis, given this website’s mission to provide a viable alternative. The answer lies within the essay, which is, in fact, a critique of the very endeavor to theorize about consciousness (Language as Expression means language as a domain impervious to external perspective) and offers a lucid, candid account of my approach to philosophy and its vast existential implications.