Those of you who know me well know that I’m something of a science fiction buff. While I do enjoy space operas like the Star Wars series I am especially fond of science fiction that explores deep, universal, human themes.
I recently stumbled across a series on Netflix called “Humans”. Humans is a joint production of AMC and the BBC, with the latter being the reason for the high quality of the series, I imagine.
Humans is set in a parallel contemporary reality where AI has advanced to the point that humanoid “robots” called “synths” have replaced humans in the performance of everyday tasks and menial/dangerous jobs. But the creator of the AI technology takes his invention one step further and instills consciousness in a small group. And this is where the series diverges from similar themes such as “I, Robot” and uses this premise to explore the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and sentience.
One of the synths is arguably the most moral of all of the characters depicted, human and synth. Another believes that any action is justified if done for the good of her kind. A third decides to confront human society head on, using the courts to demand recognition of non human consciousness. A human AI researcher dissects sentient synths to try to understand how they became self aware. In a scene reminiscent of a Josef Mengele war crime in progress, a synth asks the researcher “is this fear” just before being cut open on an operating table.
The series raises a plethora of difficult questions.
What is intelligence? Is it the ability to manipulate abstract mathematical terms quickly and accurately or is it the ability to combine new and/or old information in new and creative ways to create new knowledge?
Is it fair or appropriate to measure all forms of intelligence based on human norms and standards?
When does an entity change from a mechanical “sex toy” to a victim of sexual assault and trafficking?
What does it mean to be sentient?
What is consciousness anyway?
And the ultimate question, can a non human sentience become a spiritual being?
With machine intelligence advancing at an exponential rate, questions like these become increasingly relevant. This is where science fiction shines. It forces us to consider the unimaginable while we still have time to think through the implications of emerging technologies.
AI is just one of many moral and ethical dilemmas we will need to confront in the near future. With the announcement of successful primate cloning this week, the cloning of human beings is another.
Are we up to the task?
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Sunday, January 14, 2018
LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST. CHAPTER 1 - MEDITATION ON INTERBEING
In chapter one T.N.H. continues his introductory remarks by describing his long journey to gaining an appreciation of the Christian faith. As a young monk in Vietnam he witnessed the horrors of that war first hand. But he came to understand the American soldiers fighting in his country were as much victims of the war as were his fellow Vietnamese. Any of you who know a veteran of that war can attest to this truth.
During the war he traveled to the United States to bear witness to the travesty of that war. He met many professed Christians during his stay. But it wasn’t until he met what he termed “true Christians”, men like Martin Luther King and Daniel Berrigan, that he came to understand the power behind Christ’s message of peace. And isn’t that true of us as well? Isn’t the most genuine and powerful form of evangelism found in a life lived in accordance with Christ’s teachings rather than through words? His personal revelation led him to a deep appreciation of the Christian faith, to the point where he keeps a statue of Christ next to his statue of the Buddha, and reveres both.
But what is truly interesting in the first chapter is his introduction of the term and notion of “interbeing” into the vernacular. Interbeing is the understanding that all of creation is interconnected, that nothing exists completely independent. As an example, he uses a simple flower. When most people observe a flower they see just that, a flower. We may note its gross physical characteristics, size, color, scent, etc., but that’s about as far as we go. T.N.H. looks much deeper. When he observes a flower intensely, he sees all of what it’s made of - molecules, atoms, etc. – as well as that which made the flower’s physical being possible, rain, sunshine, and soil. When viewed from this perspective it becomes clear that the boundaries we place between physical entities are artificial. Nothing in creation is truly distinct. Our physical being blends with our surrounding environment and the rest of creation.
Western Christians see the world in binary terms, God/man, us/them, mind/body, man/woman, human/non-human, etc. We can trace this pattern of thinking to our Greek forebears who codified this artificial dichotomy. But the more we learn of ecology, and human nature, the less viable the Greek proposition becomes. Even in our basest form, our physical being, we are not a discrete organism. Rather, we are a symbiotic amalgamation of organisms – bacteria, viruses, fungi, and micro insects - that together, we call “human”. We are composed of water that has been reused countless times over billions of years. We are sunshine in the form of plants and animals we ingest. We are part of the amorphous creation, where everything exists in relation. Taken to the extreme, many believe in Gaia, the idea that the Earth itself is one massive symbiotic organism.
This is the essence of interbeing.
How does Christ’s message relate to interbeing? Have we twisted Christ’s vision of the Kingdom to reflect our Greek philosophical heritage? Is Gaia a secular analogue of the Kingdom?
During the war he traveled to the United States to bear witness to the travesty of that war. He met many professed Christians during his stay. But it wasn’t until he met what he termed “true Christians”, men like Martin Luther King and Daniel Berrigan, that he came to understand the power behind Christ’s message of peace. And isn’t that true of us as well? Isn’t the most genuine and powerful form of evangelism found in a life lived in accordance with Christ’s teachings rather than through words? His personal revelation led him to a deep appreciation of the Christian faith, to the point where he keeps a statue of Christ next to his statue of the Buddha, and reveres both.
But what is truly interesting in the first chapter is his introduction of the term and notion of “interbeing” into the vernacular. Interbeing is the understanding that all of creation is interconnected, that nothing exists completely independent. As an example, he uses a simple flower. When most people observe a flower they see just that, a flower. We may note its gross physical characteristics, size, color, scent, etc., but that’s about as far as we go. T.N.H. looks much deeper. When he observes a flower intensely, he sees all of what it’s made of - molecules, atoms, etc. – as well as that which made the flower’s physical being possible, rain, sunshine, and soil. When viewed from this perspective it becomes clear that the boundaries we place between physical entities are artificial. Nothing in creation is truly distinct. Our physical being blends with our surrounding environment and the rest of creation.
Western Christians see the world in binary terms, God/man, us/them, mind/body, man/woman, human/non-human, etc. We can trace this pattern of thinking to our Greek forebears who codified this artificial dichotomy. But the more we learn of ecology, and human nature, the less viable the Greek proposition becomes. Even in our basest form, our physical being, we are not a discrete organism. Rather, we are a symbiotic amalgamation of organisms – bacteria, viruses, fungi, and micro insects - that together, we call “human”. We are composed of water that has been reused countless times over billions of years. We are sunshine in the form of plants and animals we ingest. We are part of the amorphous creation, where everything exists in relation. Taken to the extreme, many believe in Gaia, the idea that the Earth itself is one massive symbiotic organism.
This is the essence of interbeing.
How does Christ’s message relate to interbeing? Have we twisted Christ’s vision of the Kingdom to reflect our Greek philosophical heritage? Is Gaia a secular analogue of the Kingdom?
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
INTRO LESSON - LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST by Thich Naht Hahn
I’m the kind of person who rarely reads the introductory material of a book. Rather than “waste time” on the preface or introduction I’d rather jump to the meat of the material. When I opened my edition of Living Buddha, Living Christ, however, I saw the introduction was written by Elaine Pagels. Ms. Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University and has written extensively on the gnostic gospels. As such, I thought her introduction may hold valuable insights into the body of the book.
I was right.
Jesus said; “If those who lead you say to you, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will get there first. If they say, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will get there first. Rather, the Kingdom inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you will dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.”
In another passage Jesus says “Since it has been said that you are my twin and my true companion, it is not fitting for you to be ignorant of yourself. So while you accompany me, although you do not yet understand it, you have already come to know, and you will be called “the one who knows himself.” For whomever has not known himself (sic) knows nothing, but he who knows himself has already understood the depth of all things.”
If you are unfamiliar with these bible passages you are not alone, because they are taken from the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. This gospel is believed to have been written ca 50 CE and, if that date is accurate, predates the earliest canonical gospel by some 20 years.
The so-called gnostic gospels (aka the Dead Sea Scrolls) were found in a cave at Nag Hammadi in 1947 (see picture). Gnostic works include the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip, the Dialog of the Savior, the Secret book of John, and the Apocalypse of Paul. None of these texts are part of the canonical works enshrined in our current bible. Reasons for their omission vary, but one common theme in these texts is the notion that the path to God can be found through introspection; by understanding that which is already within us, rather than through Jesus alone (and, by extension, the Church). As such, the gnostic gospels discount the assertion that Jesus is God and the only path to salvation.
It’s not hard to understand why the early church considered Gnosticism a heresy.
The gnostic texts also direct the disciple towards loving compassion of others. The Gospel of Truth admonishes us to “speak of the truth with those who seek for it, and of knowledge for those who have committed a sin in their error. Make firm the foot of those who have stumbled; give rest to those who are weary, and raise up those who wish to rise, and awaken those who sleep.”
Ms. Pagels seizes upon these texts to demonstrate the deep resonances between early elements of Christian thought and Buddhism and wonders if Thich Nhat Hanh was aware of the gnostic texts prior to authoring Living Buddha, Living Christ.
Christian philosophy is far more diverse than that espoused by the established Church. As we begin this study let’s open our minds to the entirety of Christian thought, unconstrained by ancient orthodoxy.
I was right.
Jesus said; “If those who lead you say to you, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will get there first. If they say, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will get there first. Rather, the Kingdom inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you will dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.”
In another passage Jesus says “Since it has been said that you are my twin and my true companion, it is not fitting for you to be ignorant of yourself. So while you accompany me, although you do not yet understand it, you have already come to know, and you will be called “the one who knows himself.” For whomever has not known himself (sic) knows nothing, but he who knows himself has already understood the depth of all things.”
If you are unfamiliar with these bible passages you are not alone, because they are taken from the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. This gospel is believed to have been written ca 50 CE and, if that date is accurate, predates the earliest canonical gospel by some 20 years.
The so-called gnostic gospels (aka the Dead Sea Scrolls) were found in a cave at Nag Hammadi in 1947 (see picture). Gnostic works include the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip, the Dialog of the Savior, the Secret book of John, and the Apocalypse of Paul. None of these texts are part of the canonical works enshrined in our current bible. Reasons for their omission vary, but one common theme in these texts is the notion that the path to God can be found through introspection; by understanding that which is already within us, rather than through Jesus alone (and, by extension, the Church). As such, the gnostic gospels discount the assertion that Jesus is God and the only path to salvation.
It’s not hard to understand why the early church considered Gnosticism a heresy.
The gnostic texts also direct the disciple towards loving compassion of others. The Gospel of Truth admonishes us to “speak of the truth with those who seek for it, and of knowledge for those who have committed a sin in their error. Make firm the foot of those who have stumbled; give rest to those who are weary, and raise up those who wish to rise, and awaken those who sleep.”
Ms. Pagels seizes upon these texts to demonstrate the deep resonances between early elements of Christian thought and Buddhism and wonders if Thich Nhat Hanh was aware of the gnostic texts prior to authoring Living Buddha, Living Christ.
Christian philosophy is far more diverse than that espoused by the established Church. As we begin this study let’s open our minds to the entirety of Christian thought, unconstrained by ancient orthodoxy.
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