Archaeology of Breath: Traditional Somatic Knowledge in the Age of AI | 息の考古学: AI時代における伝統的身体知

Modern humans have developed a division between body and thought. As we enter the AI era and humanity loses its advantage in logical thinking, is the abandonment of the body not a dangerous sign for the existence of the species? In order to depict the division between body and thought, this treatise traces back to the era when the concepts of medical respiration and theological soul overlapped philosophically, thereby delineating a blank space in modern philosophy. First, the division between breath and soul is not a historical necessity, but was formed posteriory by a specific era and a specific academic division of labor. Second, by reframing this division not as a "boundary line" but as a concept the treatise will call Awai, deliberately left untranslated, the problem of demarcation (where the body ends and thought begins) can be resolved. Third, the study of this Awai is a strategy for securing the ontological uniqueness of humanity in the AI era. Fourth, the deepening of this division is positioned as a single, long-term historical arc beginning with Renaissance Humanism (the project of making the world computable, extending from perspective to AI), and the turning point at which this arc currently stands is examined. Fifth, the way of living in which one abandons this Awai, leaving only respiration and letting go of the soul, is also a freedom open to humans, and the description of this freedom is the very reason why the study of Awai should be restarted. Although this treatise borrows the format of academic argumentation, its purpose is not to pass peer review. It was written based on the ideas of the author, who is a painter, using AI as an auxiliary tool. Although the philosophical conception and the core of the argument belong to the author, interdisciplinary errors or insufficiencies are disclaimed, and translation by experts is requested. This is a preliminary essay intended to visualize a philosophical blank space that has been left unattended for a long time and to serve as the starting point for an ideological movement.