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Science and Meditation

RE: post human meditation

RE: post human meditation
Answer
9/29/14 8:14 AM as a reply to Tom Tom.
Tom Tom:
If you allow me I'd like to relate to the subject with a little spin. 
Artificial Intelligence experts are saying it's only a matter of time when AI will reach and surpass human intelligence. I'm not thoroughly familiar with buddhist dogma or any others religion for that matter but if I recall correctly "ensoulment" takes place at some point in development of human embryo. Theoretically in future we will also be able to engineer a biocyborg replica of human being. Could ensoulment happen to AI and can AI get enlightened in classical sense?


My fundamental point in this thread was that the "soul" is an illusion or at most just a word used to conveniently describe a process.  What people are referring to as "ensoulment" is simply the first sensational experience that arises after conception.  

Now with A.I. we need to consider whether or not that A.I. possesses "experiential experience."  Unfortunately, this would probably be impossible to determine.  For example, I recently saw this movie called "Her" where a guy dates a very advanced A.I. voice that converses and acts like a real human.  Just because this A.I. seems sentient doesn't mean it actually would be.  It could have absolutely no internal sentient experience whatsoever and still seem like it does.  If it acts completely like it does, how would we be able to determine if it does or doesn't?  We wouldn't.  There would be no way to know if it has sensational experience or not.
Those are all very good points and questions.

So if we (our conscience) wouldn't be able to deny if sentient being is or isn't experiencing stuff, doesn't that make that "being" conscious? (turing test)
Why couldn't cyborgs procreate? Limits of nanotechnology are only in engineering. Building blocks are atoms.

Can we determine if non human being is conscious?
Amoeba is a sentient being right? It experiences it's surrounding. It surely is somewhat conscious?
Why couldn't a cyborg be conscious then?
Data from star trek had an emotion chip installed iirc. emoticon

RE: post human meditation
Answer
9/29/14 10:11 AM as a reply to Tom Tom.
Pretty much go along with all that

"For example, the Sun is way too hot to support life or consciousness so it would not make sense to say that the material operations of the Sun is the same thing as sentient experience.  However, could the Sun be our intepretation of the workings of another consciousness? Maybe, but that seems pretty out there..."

I'm inclined to think that the Sun is exactly part of life. I don't really buy into the sentient-life-forms-trapped-in-a-dead-universe vision of things. We're intimately bound in with our environment - not least because our consciousness seems to paint our bodies and environment onto the same canvas at the same time as part of one complex system at which we are the tail end, as well as the direct perceptions of such things via meditation etc.
Whether the sun is a lifeform I haven't given that much thought though I've seen philosophical schemes which place it as such.

RE: post human meditation
Answer
9/29/14 10:20 AM as a reply to Tom Tom.
"Another example would be "Data" from Star Trek The Next Generation.  He is an android, but is he sentient?"

Well, what about approaching it like this -
We don't seen Data the droid, what we see is a product of our neurons. As our neurons are a part of our life form everything, our perceptions, produced by them is an aspect of ourselves and as such Data is merely an aspect of our own sentience. If there is anything beyond that, it is not accessible.
So, basically, there is no artificial intelligence, only further iterations and extensions of our own - and we are alive.

I spent some time reading through Donald Hoffman's papers - he would hold that we cannot even grasp the true nature of our neurons - they are merely sensory representations of something else. I don't know where that leaves the issue.