No paths, just endless ocean
Commencement Address to the Bowles Hall Class of 2026
Dearest graduates of Bowles Hall, family and loved ones, distinguished faculty, and friends of Bowles Hall,
2,400 years ago, academia was born out of the realization that learning only really happens through companionship. The Greek philosopher Plato founded his school called the Academy in a garden in Athens such that wisdom could be challenged, tested, and refined through conversations (or as he would call them dialogues) between scholars. It takes a village, or in Plato’s case, a beautiful garden in Athens full of eager students, to learn and grow in wisdom. It is humbling to think that Bowles Hall, 2,400 years later, is one such institution, a space where students and faculty live together, exchange wisdom, learn from each other, challenge each other’s views, and, above all, lift each other up.
No other place embodies the idea that learning happens through companionship better than residential colleges. Even among them, Bowles Hall is very special. Founded almost 100 years ago, it is the only residential college at UC Berkeley and the first in the country. Throughout the years we strove to make it a place where every student can grow academically, personally, and professionally and learn from a multifaceted community of peers, alumni, faculty, and families, from the wisest members of our board of directors to the very youngest among us. That would be my five-year-old, who insists that he is the youngest principal of Bowles Hall.
Four and a half years ago I became a member of this family. The times when we came together for conversations were among my favorite moments here. I am incredibly grateful for everything I have learned from you over the years. At tea time every Tuesday evening, I have learned about quantum entanglement, about the Roman poet Statius, I now know the meaning of the word “lowkey”. I have also learned how resilient this class of Bowles 2026 is and how strongly the community lifts each other up during times of challenge.
You have faced many disruptive events during your four years of college, as you likely will in the future too. Perhaps the most salient disruptor to the 2,400 year old tradition of academia is artificial intelligence. You are the first generation who experienced the rise of a non-human, silicon intelligence during your college years. When you took your first classes in 2022, AI could not yet solve your problem sets, homework, and finals. Today it often can with almost perfect scores. This leads to the inevitable question: what is the future of this ancient academic endeavor, and what’s the future of human thought in general.
At the time when artificial intelligence surpasses us on many cognitive tasks, learning through companionship and dialogues between humans is more important than ever. While I have heard many of you say that AI can solve your problem set or teach you a subject well, no one has ever told me that AI inspired them to learn. Originality and human uniqueness challenged and refined through interpersonal relationships will be the most precious skill in the world to come. There’s no other way to learn those than in a dialogue with your peers, preferably at tea time, during Music Monday, Theatre Thursday, at a Hallass meeting, or at a Yosemite retreat.
We are at a crossroads when humanity will have to form a new kind of identity. We form our identities in relation to others. We’re Bowles and not fraternities or dorms. We’re Bears, we’re Cal and not that school across the Bay. For the longest, we were humans and not animals. AI is changing that last one. Perhaps it can even bring us closer to the natural world, by making painfully clear that we’re biological, not artificial intelligence.
In this moment, when humanity is realizing that its intelligence might not be the most exclusive and unique, it is worth forming our alliances with other biological beings. Perhaps it’s time to start learning not only from other humans, but from other species as well.
It is time to listen deeply to another intelligence that learns exactly as we do—through companionship and conversation. As many of you know, the biological intelligences I love most are whales whom I began listening to here in Bowles Hall. They live in a dramatically different world from ours, but they are remarkably similar in many ways. They form families and clans defined by how they speak—by their dialects. They come together when they surface from the ocean’s vastness and they engage in long conversations. Grandmothers are an especially important part of the family. They are very chatty and help transmit the rich cultural knowledge of each family. The many proud grandmothers in our audience today surely know what I am referring to.
Not long ago, we witnessed the birth of a sperm whale.
A newborn whale cannot survive on its own. It is born underwater and it must reach the air to take its first breath—and it cannot get there alone. As this baby whale was born in the water, ten other whales, from two different families, gathered around it. Together they lifted the newborn up until it broke the surface and breathed. And then something extraordinary happened. Out of nowhere, hundreds of dolphins joined in what appeared to be a celebration of new life in the ocean. I couldn’t think of a better picture of Bowles hall. We learn through many conversations, come together as a family, and when things become difficult we lift one another up.
Learning, after all, begins with careful listening. Listening requires the ability to step outside your own perspective and try to imagine how another person experiences their own unique world. This requires a high degree of humility. It is the real purpose of an education and it is something that no silicon intelligence can teach us. This gives me hope that the future of academia has at least 2,400 more years to go. If we are humble enough to listen not only to each other but to other intelligent beings, we might discover new things about the world that we can’t even imagine yet.
There are many things meaningful to us humans that whales never see. There are no trees and no ground in their world. But the opposite is also true. There are things in their lives that we cannot even imagine. As you go out in the world, search for those unimaginable things. Try to discover what is meaningful to your friends, your family, and the people around you that you can’t yet imagine and learn from that. Ask what a tree is for a whale. Ask what a tree is for your loved one. Ask what a tree is for your friend.
And here is the most striking thing I have learned from whales. They have no paths. No paved roads to walk on, no fences that keep them on the right track. Just a vast ocean, countless possible ways to get from one place to another. This is your life now, dear graduates. From this beautiful place onward, you have endless ways to swim through life—not roads someone else laid down for you, but paths you will choose yourselves. I know that you will choose the boldest, most exciting ones. And I hope that all along the way you find companions: people to listen to, to argue with, to learn from—people who will lift you up, and people you will lift up in return.
Congratulations Bowles Hall Class of 2026.