Does Machine Have Buddha Nature?

There are some posts that seem so obvious as to be unnecessary, but perhaps that is not the case. This morning I read a thoroughly aggravating article in USA Today entitled, “Why You Don’t Really Have Free Will” written by Jerry A. Coyne, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago. He is pitching a sort of a biological and environmental determinism that I am not buying.

Coyne is writing in the tradition of proponents of Strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) who believe that man (or any biological machine) is a behavior programmed "meat machine" (stated by Marvin Minsky) in The Society of the Mind. He believes that biological intelligence is fundamentally no different than machine intelligence. Minsky, for example, considers emotions nothing but short term attention focusers. Freud discussed censors and suppressors as psychological functions that stop us from committing socially unacceptable actions. In arguments in favor of the Strong AI position the neurotransmitters (chemicals that pass information between neurons) are considered a sort of programming. This reduces our emotions to mere chemical reactions, something no more "intelligent" than the electronic manipulations performed on a computer chip by a computer program.

Machines are no more than the sum of their parts. Humans, indeed animals, are capable of transcending their molecular and environmental limitations. I believe I can change my financial condition through better decisions based on more information, the good sense given to us by God, experience, and Grace. That is a basic assumption of this blog. You can improve your situation or make it worse through your own free will decision making capacity. Somewhere C.S. Lewis said words to the effect that, “Real life is meaning. Real life is awareness.” That is my bias.

To give a clear example of my point (that machines can never be considered intelligent since they cannot exceed the sum of their parts while humans do exceed the sum of their components and experiences) I have chosen a quote from Joseph Campbell's book Transformations of Myth Through Time. "When the Buddha achieved illumination that night he was so stunned that he sat for seven days in one place without moving. This is being utterly removed from the field of time. Then he got up and walked seven paces back and stood for seven days looking at the place where he had been sitting. This is relating the temporal to the immovable realization. Then for seven days he walked back and forth between the two places relating and integrating. He then sat down under another tree and his first thought was, This can not be taught."

Humans are capable of thought processes that simply have no machine analogue. In even more simple terms; we had a hairy, spoiled, little dog. Even this creature was more than a stimulus response machine. He clearly had a mind, will and emotions of his own. In spite of my efforts to "program" him he persisted in perusing his own agenda. A machine does not have fits of jealousy or fear nor does it do things that it was not designed or programmed to do or suffer from desire, fulfillment or regret. I do and at least to some degree so did my wife's animated fur ball.

Now get out there take responsibility for your actions and do something to improve your life.

John 8

[31] Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
[32] And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
[33] They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
[34] Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
[35] And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
[36] If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.