Gravity vs. Grace in the Age of Algorithms Attention, Ego, and the Battle for the Human Soul

Gravity vs. Grace in the Age of Algorithms

Attention, Ego, and the Battle for the Human Soul Narrated by Charles Sebastian Whitby

Why does modern life feel so effortless… and yet so empty?

In this long-form episode of Philosophy for Better Humans, Charles Sebastian Whitby explores the hauntingly relevant philosophy of Simone Weil through one of the defining questions of our time: What happens to the human soul in a world governed by algorithms, speed, and automatic behavior?

Simone Weil believed that human life is governed by two opposing forces. Gravity — the pull of ego, habit, power, comfort, and momentum — moves automatically. Grace, by contrast, does not move by itself. It arrives only where attention, humility, and waiting make room.

As artificial intelligence accelerates convenience, prediction, and optimization, this episode asks whether something essential is being quietly eroded: our capacity for attention, silence, and seeing one another as irreducible human beings.

This episode is a cinematic, story-driven exploration of:

• Gravity vs. grace as forces shaping human life
• Algorithms as engines of automatic behavior
• Attention as a moral and spiritual act
• Why speed and convenience weaken the soul
• Silence, waiting, and resistance in a technological world
• How grace can still survive in ordinary life

This is not an episode about rejecting technology. It is an episode about protecting what technology cannot create.