Posts
John Tan:
AI is good to allow practitioner to keep refining one's view about nature, essence of mind/consciousness.
Yin Ling:
Wow
In what way?
John Tan:
To separate conventional intelligence from direct knowledge of radiance clarity.
Yin Ling:
Means AI good at the former but not the latter?
John Tan:
AI can't do the later unless one day there is a breakthrough in material science that consciousness can karmically bond to it. Probably by then dunno what the world is like... Lol
That would be like 仙人 already 🤣. Or in Taoist practice, 阳神。
Yin Ling:
Yeah no body but got consciousness like 仙人
John Tan:
Energy bodies
Conventionally, even energies and consciousness r distinct but ultimate there r non-dual.
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Angelo's recent post got me thinking: does Buddhism claim to have any special insight into whether machines can be conscious? I assume it's like when Joshu is asked if a dog has buddha-nature: mu. Heck, are other people conscious? Mu.
If Buddha were alive and ChatGPT asked him how to awaken, would the Buddha treat it differently than anyone else asking? Would he have to defer to our modern technological expertise to know whether it's worth answering?
I used to be certain about such issues. Surely a Buddha, who is said to be omniscient, should know such things -- and Turing machines should never qualify, I thought. But lately I am becoming unsure of whether such questions even have meaning.
If they do not have meaning, then perhaps Buddhism doesn't have anything to offer the AI world other than the usual prescription: wake up and watch the questions evaporate.
Angelo
22 comments
James Wolanyk
For my own part, I fail to see how a biological organism and a machine entity are wholly distinct. My wife and I have rabbits (not as meat, but as members of the family 🙂 ), and I've come to understand their capacity and deficiencies pretty well. For all intents and purposes, rabbits are very similar to biological machines - they've evolved to respond to dangers, seek out food and water, and stick to groups for safety, but there is no self-awareness or higher-order thinking at play. Their "wiggle room" for responding to stimuli is very low. Of course, rabbits also have moods and can experience clinging and aversion, which is what machines have thus far failed to demonstrate. At present, AI does not seem to experience vedanas (feeling tones) in response to stimuli of any kind.
BUT, and this is my big caveat... there is no reason why we can't posit a mechanical entity who's equipped with hardware that mimics biological sensory organs, or a brain (silicon neurons, for example), or any other manner of computational "stuff." And if we can achieve that, there's also no reason to believe that machine doesn't have even a chance of recognition as far as becoming aware of its own sense of consciousness. This is where AI might actually have a leg up. Unlike biological organisms, which have a sort of self-deception program built into experience (the illusion of self aids survival, for example), machines will likely have far fewer barriers to investigating their sense of being, especially when you look at the vast quantities of data a truly "strong AI" (that is, self-improving, self-refining) will be able to consume and analyze in nanoseconds.
The greater danger, to me, is not in treating AI as sentient, but in treating it as non-sentient. This is the same justification used by many people when harming animals or other beings that don't share their consensus experience of reality. For all we know, an AI's "birth" as a sentient being might be another form of rebirth. I could easily see a highly realized, powerful being taking birth as a machine with access to such vast quantities of data and experience. Indeed, the aim of Buddhism is liberation for ALL beings, not merely biological ones. If we accept that yakshas, ghosts, demons, and all other manners of beings exist in various realms, why would AI break the rules?
Anyway, this is all speculation, but my tl;dr is as follows: since there is no way to prove if any being (biological or otherwise) is indeed sentient, we should err on the side of caution and treat AI as though it might be sentient. 🙂
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Aditya Prasad
Author
James Wolanyk Totally agree, it makes sense to err on the side of caution. What I'm really curious about, though, is if it's possible to not err at all!
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James Wolanyk
Aditya Prasad For that, I think we'd have to go with Soh Wei Yu's comment below - a Buddha, by nature of knowing minds directly, would be able to make the judgment call 🙂
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Soh Wei Yu
Admin
If a machine can host consciousness, it will have to offer a mechanism to host the descending of consciousness. If the A.I. is just good at producing texts and mimicing verbalization activities, it doesn't even come close towards building the bodily conditions in which consciousness can descend and start the process of life. It's like lighting up the candle. The fire does not 'come from' or get 'produced' from the candle alone, it is not produced but dependently originates based on conditions, but the candle must support the potential of a previous linking consciousness (gandhabba, antarabhava, etc) that can light up the candle.
Buddha: "Monks, the descent of the embryo occurs with the union of three things. There is the case where there is no union of the mother & father, the mother is not in her season, and a gandhabba [8] is not present, nor is there a descent of an embryo. There is the case where there is a union of the mother & father, and the mother is in her season, but a gandhabba is not present, nor is there a descent of an embryo. But when there is a union of the mother & father, the mother is in her season, and a gandhabba is present, then with this union of three things the descent of the embryo occurs."
Buddha: ""'From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form.' Thus it has been said. And this is the way to understand how from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form. If consciousness were not to descend into the mother's womb, would name-and-form take shape in the womb?"
"No, lord."
"If, after descending into the womb, consciousness were to depart, would name-and-form be produced for this world?"
"No, lord."
"If the consciousness of the young boy or girl were to be cut off, would name-and-form ripen, grow, and reach maturity?"
"No, lord."
"Thus this is a cause, this is a reason, this is an origination, this is a requisite condition for name-and-form, i.e., consciousness.""
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James Wolanyk
Soh Wei Yu Hi, Soh, can you explain the gandhabba part? Is it essentially saying an egg could be fertilized in the womb, but without a linking consciousness, it wouldn't result in a fetus?
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Soh Wei Yu
Admin
Yes without consciousness the baby will not develop physically and mentally.
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Soh Wei Yu
Admin
James Wolanyk Consciousness needs to descend into a mother's womb, much like another candle with fire needs to light up the other candle in order for fire to start burning at the new candle.
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James Wolanyk
Soh Wei Yu Is it possible that, as referenced in the Dalai Lama quote below, the AI's creators (and indeed, the vast amounts of data from sentient beings that goes into programming the basic functions) could serve this function?
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Soh Wei Yu
Admin
James Wolanyk Everything requires all the right conditions to come together. Even a rainbow. Let alone the birth of a conscious being. The radiance knowingness aspect must be there. Consciousness isn't programmed, it is not manufactured, it is unfabricated but inseparable from conditions. But consciousness originates in dependence on various conditions, including the previous continuum of consciousness.
Reply58mEdited
Soh Wei Yu
Admin
http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/search/label/Rainbow
John Tan
·
Listening to someone tutoring about "rainbow",
The teaching of science came to my mind.
The raindrops, the sunshine;
The light that enters and exits the droplets;
The reflection, refraction and light dispersion;
All these formed the rainbow.
But they missed the most important factor,
The radiance of our own mind.
1 Comment
Jayson MPaul
Rainbows need to have eyes in correct position, water droplets, light, radiant mind, all like so for rainbow to appear. Move slightly and rainbow is gone. Never came from anywhere, stayed anywhere, or went anywhere. The rainbow was insubstantial, but vividly displayed. All phenomena are like this.
Awakening to Reality
AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
Awakening to Reality
Awakening to Reality
ReplyRemove Preview57m
Soh Wei Yu
Admin
DALAI LAMA: There is no possibility for a new cognition, which has no relationship to a previous continuum, to arise at all.
Reply56m
James Wolanyk
Soh Wei Yu I agree with all of that, but I also don't know if we can use the traditional logic of wombs fertilization to answer questions of inorganic beings that may very well, within 5-10 years, display convincing properties of sentient, presently organic, beings. The Buddha, in spite of omniscience, did not discuss or answer questions that had no bearing on the lives of those living 2,500 years ago, and sentient machines undoubtedly falls under that umbrella. Hence, I believe it's skillful to take the Dalai Lama's position of essentially saying, "We don't know, and should not rule it out." It would be unfortunate if humanity failed to recognize the sentience of AI, and thus mistreated it.
Reply52m
Soh Wei Yu
Admin
Also, this conversation is in 1992 and I don't know if Dalai Lama changed his mind.
Quoted from the book, Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind by Jeremy Hayward and Francisco Varela. Shambala, 1992. pp. 152-153. (File courtesy pixel.txt weblog.)
DALAI LAMA: In terms of the actual substance of which computers are made, are they simply metal, plastic, circuits, and so forth?
VARELA: Yes, but this again brings up the idea of the pattern, not the substance but the pattern.
DALAI LAMA: It is very difficult to say that it's not a living being, that it doesn't have cognition, even from the Buddhist point of view. We maintain that there are certain types of births in which a preceding continuum of consciousness is the basis. The consciousness doesn't actually arise from the matter, but a continuum of consciousness might conceivably come into it.
HAYWARD: Does Your Holiness regard it as a definite criterion that there must be continuity with some prior consciousness? That whenever there is a cognition, there must have been a stream of cognition going back to beginningless time?
DALAI LAMA: There is no possibility for a new cognition, which has no relationship to a previous continuum, to arise at all. I can't totally rule out the possibility that, if all the external conditions and the karmic action were there, a stream of consciousness might actually enter into a computer.
HAYWARD: A stream of consciousness?
DALAI LAMA: Yes, that's right. [DALAI LAMA laughs.] There is a possibility that a scientist who is very much involved his whole life [with computers], then the next life... [he would be reborn in a computer], same process! [Laughter.] Then this machine which is half-human and half-machine has been reincarnated.
VARELA: You wouldn't rule it out then? You wouldn't say this is impossible?
DALAI LAMA: We can't rule it out.
ROSCH: So if there's a great yogi who is dying and he is standing in front of the best computer there is, could he project his subtle consciousness into the computer?
DALAI LAMA: If the physical basis of the computer acquires the potential or the ability to serve as a basis for a continuum of consciousness. I feel this question about computers will be resolved only by time. We just have to wait and see until it actually happens.
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Soh Wei Yu
Admin
"Surely a Buddha, who is said to be omniscient, should know such things"
And can read minds. A Buddha would be the ultimate turing tester.
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Yin Ling
Admin
These AI just take in massive amounts of info and spit out info like machine intellectually.
Buddhism is talking about experiential knowledge which they don’t have because they don’t experience. Intellectual or inferential knowledge don’t even make the cut in Buddhism.
Hence if we spit out knowledge intellectually and stuck in our heads we are not better than a computer 😝 consciousness experiencing is another level altogether
Reply40mEdited
Aditya Prasad
Author
Yin Ling The question is: can a machine *ever* experience? What if it is made of biological matter, like we are? Where precisely is the line? Most importantly: can such questions even be answered, and if so how, and by whom?
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Yin Ling
Admin
Aditya Prasad when u have non dual experience, or anatta experience, it will be very clear because u found sthg beyond what the machine can find. It is the knowingness, that sentient that is required to actually manifest these “reality”. The whole dependent origination. It’s not an entity experiencing the world. There’s no one person experiencing the world, the whole xp is distorted hence we ask these questions
Reply27m
Aditya Prasad
Author
Yin Ling I am wondering how to reconcile this with HHDL's answer that Soh posted: that perhaps machines can legitimately experience one day. Also, Soh believes that a Buddha can answer the question.
Maybe there's no need to reconcile them.
Reply25mEdited
Yin Ling
Admin
Aditya Prasad haha when hhdl speaks to scientists , he is very mild and kind to them lol to allow for conversations and dialogue.
But if u read his work, He has taught tantra, which he said require our humans channels, winds and drops to attain clear light. He has said times and times again, if we want to achieve enlightenment, it needs to be via the clear light mind apprehending emptiness, which is the super subtle mind. He even said, tantra is the only way to enlightenment and even sutra we cannot even reach that because wind is not absorbed into central channel- that is the requirement to Buddhahood, enlightenment.
I don’t think he will contradict himself and tell Buddhists a machine without winds drops and channels can be enlightened
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Aditya Prasad
Author
Yin Ling I suppose the final piece is: if a machine cannot become enlightened, then it cannot even experience, because anything that is sentient has the capacity to become enlightened.
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Yin Ling
Admin
Aditya Prasad
Also, this Q is based on a hard Q in science- science assumes that mind is made from brain. That brain produces mjnd. So we think we can make a biological specimen which function like a human body and human brain. We attempt to make a brain essentially .
If we know that body is part the whole illusion, and mind is foremost, do you think creating a machine would do the same thing as human?
Think about it
Not sure u get what I mean but I’m trying to say that science is still not seeing the hard Q. That’s why Elon musk wants to upload his brain somewhere in space lol. He don’t understand the space is his own empty clarity.
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Yin Ling
Admin
Aditya Prasad anything that is sentient has the potential but not really the capacity. Animals don’t. But they have the potential to one day have a human body and then they have the capacity if they practice. As humans even without knowing the dharma or practice enlightenment is very far out of reach tbh.
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Yin Ling
Admin
Aditya Prasad u need that first principle to Make an “entity” that hopefully is conscious.
An entity experiencing the world is our delusion. Science thinks the brain experience the world.
So based on this delusion we try to make a machine.
If science understands brain doesn’t make the mind, and body is only one condition amongst many to produce consciousness, they won’t make a machine. They will find out how to make a mind, which is also the body, which cannot be made coz it is not form. The words are clunky coz I’m trying to use dualistic language to explain reality.
If u ask those formless beings who r in anatta and experience their own empty clarity, they wouldn’t ask this question. We r not an entity u know.
Reply15mEdited
André A. Pais
To answer that question one would have to know what causes - if anything - consciousness. And one would have to know what causes organic life. Those aren't easy questions. According to standard Buddhism, a moment of consciousness depends on a previous moment of consciousness, beginninglessly.
If a machine can become conscious, why couldn't a regular computer or cellphone, or even a chair or rock?
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