Could a computer achieve enlightenment? If we agree that a computer could be conscious, then it is reasonable to evaluate the extremities of consciousness - from the simplest scenario, to the most elevated state of consciousness we human beings aspire to. If we believe that our own selves, residing in a primate body, are capable of achieving enlightenment through contemplative practices, then why not a computer-based being? Could R2D2 look inwards, calm its inner monkey-mind, detach from its sensual and mental desires, and depart into the realms of detached wisdom?
These speculations may seem ludicrous but I believe it is helpful to use an exaggeration to create a Petri dish scenario for enquiring into the nature of consciousness itself. “According to Buddhist tradition, any being can become enlightened as the Buddha did” per Tricycle, Buddhism for Beginners.
In Buddhist philosophy, there are three layers in the concept of consciousness (or reality):
- ‘Everyday’ consciousness
- Substrate consciousness
- Primordial consciousness
Most of us experience what I denote as ‘everyday’ consciousness. We experience a continuity of being the same person as we wake up each day and go about our lives, relating to others. We can reflect upon our self-hood and we experience the subjectivity of pleasures and pains associated with being. In a materialist context, this everyday consciousness is a function of having a memory, a self-referential operating system, and the observation of other systems which recognize us and which inter-recognize — I know you and I know others, and we all co-recognize and reinforce each others’ self-hoods. Even the lonely and isolated experience this way.
Contemplatives train themselves to enter another realm of conscious experience within the domain of mind that can be referred to as substrate consciousness. This is a realm which few humans experience consistently.
“This field is immaterial, devoid of thought, a space-like vacuity, a blankness in which appearances are suspended. We naturally, but unconsciously, enter this state in deep, dreamless sleep, when fainting, and when dying. With rigorous and intensive contemplative training, however, one can become fully and lucidly aware of this vacuity.” B. Alan Wallace
The most exciting conclusion of contemplatives who study in this realm is that we do not exist as autonomous consciousnesses and that ‘everyday’ consciousness experienced as a dualistic, subjective experience is an illusion.
So what does that mean in terms of death of a being? Does a death of a being simply mean that the illusory part of subjective experience dissolves for that being and for the beings that were co-aware of each other. That a ‘strange loop’ has stopped? For the beings who have memory of the other being who is gone, they can sustain a version of that being in their memories, their representation of that being and continue to interact with that construct. But in time, without more permanent forms of memory of that dead one such as writings, no being retains traces of the dead one in the everyday world.
Here’s where things get more challenging; those who contemplate in the substrate consciousness have indicated they can gain access to memories of their previous lives. And not only those with elevated abilities claim this, but some with ‘everyday’ consciousness have access to such memories. So where do such memories reside if not in a physical brain with a memory system? We humans have memory banks in physical reality and metaphor that are spatial objects in nature — libraries, hard disks, brains. Does a contemplative computer-based being remember its past life as sand particles?
Primordial consciousness is yet more refined and arcane; the realm of Nirvana and pointed to by cosmological sciences. This realm is not conditioned by prior causes and does not change over time — it is the absolute space of phenomena.
“all configurations of space-time and mass-energy are crystalized formations of the absolute space of phenomena. In other language, this is the ultimate, divine ground of being, which transcends the conceptual constructs of both monistic materialism and mind-body dualism.” B. Alan Wallace.
I’d argue that we have no idea whether a computer based being could experience this primordial consciousness realm, or to access memories of past lives in the substrate.
To use an Inuit analogy, snow is more than simply snow; when you are surrounded by snow and experience snow in nuanced ways, you develop refined language and concepts for it:
qanuk: ‘snowflake’
kaneq: ‘frost’
kanevvluk: ‘fine snow’
qanikcaq: ‘snow on ground’
muruaneq: ‘soft deep snow’
nutaryuk: ‘fresh snow’
pirta: ‘blizzard’
qengaruk: ‘snow bank’
The point of these speculations is not to dis other types of being than humans but to expand the definition of what we mean when we speak of consciousness, and the simulation of consciousness in computer artifacts. Simulation and reality are closer cousins than we may care to admit. The Turing test relates to ‘everyday’ consciousness. We need better language and awareness of consciousness realms in order to be able to understand ourselves and to understand what it is that we can and are creating in the tech world with neural network technology.
