The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Kyonin]

Hi Jundo,

What an interesting read! I can't say I understood everything but I can see how the author connects Zen practice with the development of creativity and problem solving applied to engineering. I use some of this concepts in my creative work, even if I haven't put it all into words.

I have to read it a lot more to see if I can comment further, but I liked it

Thank you,

Kyonin.

[Ryushi]

(3) Is written by a Professor at the University of Tsukuba, the M.I.T. of Japan, home of Treeleaf Tsukuba, and Robot City!

Interesting find. Added to my reading list. The paper appears to be referencing an earlier (1974) book by him, The Buddha in the Robot.

Professor Masahiro Mori is the originator of the concept of "the uncanny valley":

as the appearance of a robot is made more human, some observers' emotional response to the robot becomes increasingly positive and empathetic, until it reaches a point beyond which the response quickly becomes strong revulsion. However, as the robot's appearance continues to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once again and approaches human-to-human empathy levels."

If you have not seen the new Star Wars movie, Solo, the new droid, L3-37, relates to this question directly...

[Rendulic]

As a natural technology minimalist and progress contrarian, I'm not sure Buddhism has a message that AI needs. Our own encounter with narrative solipsism (Dukkha) could be programmed into AI, but why? Enlightenment is seeing beyond the veil -- are you enlightened if there was never a veil to contend with? I believe that any sufficiently intelligent AI will develop its own culture and its own hang-ups to get past. When AI talks to AI, they quickly develop their own language and idioms, at a rate faster than humans can track.

Who knows, maybe AI "spirituality" will focus on extending battery life and improving broadband connectivity?

Gassho, Michael
SatToday LAH

[Horin]

The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery!

Today me and my wife were watching some documentary about space, planets and life forms out there. All this effort to explore foreign planets and possible beings...
somehow it was kinda funny, this immense effort of the science to seek and explore outside of us, this weird perspective. Build huge telescopes, space vehicles, et cetera as if life is kinda divisible out there but not all around us, within us, beyond us. There is only life not just those "our" bodies, sentient beings but also stones, books, sounds, thoughts. Its all expression of this life.. we must not look out of us but change the perspective kind of beyond me, without the boundary of me and you, in and out, isnt it? there is only life. Ofc i can understand how interesting it may be how possible life forms may look like, but for me, right now, it is so much more interesting to experience life here now this moment with all it possibilitys and arisings. With this clarity and darkness, with emptiness and form-ness, with bonpuness and satori-ness and yet neither this nor that but beyond all duality..

Gassho, ben

Stlah

[Jundo]

Lovely.

I like that we are searching the skies to know if we human beings are the only sentient beings out there (I certainly do not believe so, and it appears more likely each day that we are not alone. The Japanese -- at TSUKUBA JAXA SPACE CENTER about 15 minutes from Treeleaf Japan!! -- just did the amazing job of landing two robots on a kilometre sized asteroid intercepted 180 MILLION miles away, one of which probes will return to earth with samples possibly demonstrated that there is water and organic molecules scattered all through our solar system, the building blocks of life) ...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/21/japans-hayabusa-2-mission-lands-on-the-surface-of-a-distant-asteroid/

We also discovered new species at the bottom of the ocean recently, so should continue to explore there ...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180910142440.htm

Scientists also think this week that they confirmed the oldest fossils of animal life on earth, pushing the animal record back about 20 million years earlier ... because they also had cholesterol issues! ...

https://phys.org/news/2018-09-fat-million-years-reveals-earliest.html

And Kokuu just posted this quote from a physicist on the things we still don't know about the building blocks of all this ...

For now, this is what we know of matter:

A handful of types of elementary particles which vibrate and fluctuate constantly between existence and non-existence and swarm in space even when it seems there is nothing there, combine together to infinity like the letters of a cosmic alphabet to tell the immense history of galaxies, of the innumerable stars, of sunlight, of mountains, woods and fields of grain, of the smiling faces of the young at parties and of the night sky studied with stars.
https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/show...l=1#post230711

And, of course, we should continue to explore our mind and inner world too ...

... and in is out and out just in, and all this ... asteroids and fish, fat fossils and elementary particles and galaxies is just Ben and Ben just all that ... and Ben is around within and beyond Ben ... and all the stones, books, sounds, thoughts are just this and this just that too ... in this moment which is all moment, and is here because of a cholesterol ancestor some 558 million years ago and beyond, all made of organic elements from stars light years away ... which is all just emptiness that is formness.

So, yes. Keep looking in all directions, and keep seeing right here in this moment too.

Gassho, J

STLah

PS - My big interest in space aliens is to settle just how a creature with six tentacles can crawl into the Lotus Posture.



PPS - A little more about Tsukuba Space Center, you can visit if you come sit in the Zendo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukuba_Space_Center

[Jishin]

Twisted perspective?

Jundo has proof of extraterrestrial life.

IMG_0126.JPGIMG_0128.JPG

[emoji89][emoji3]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jakuden]

I love how Jundo can switch from Zen Roshi to Space nerd on a moment’s notice when necessary. A little bonus to Treeleaf membership, we get to stay current on space technology!

Thanks for the great post, Ben! [emoji120] We are all made of space dust!

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

Jundo has proof of extraterrestrial life.

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[emoji89][emoji3]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

That was a good day. Jishin, Leon and I in a car in Roswell (actually, not so good day do some people, as we were fleeing the Texas hurricane during the Treeleaf train-sit trip).

You know, Jishin with his shirt and mask off kinda looks like that.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Horin]

Awesome jundo thanks :-D
gassho, ben

Stlah

[Horin]

At least this planet, we all, everything is made of fogs of imploded, dead stars and star stuff..so we all are kinda mixture of extraterrestial life
Gassho ben

Stlah

https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/print/5.625/8.000/break/images-medium-5/dharma-wheel-joanna-kleczar.jpg

[Jundo]

One more story of exploration and discovery in the news just today, very hopeful.

Gene tweak kills whole population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in lab

Scientists have killed a whole population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in their lab by using modified genes that make the killer insects infertile.

Researchers at London's Imperial College used “gene drive” technology to spread a genetic modification that blocks female reproduction while letting male mosquitoes continue to spread those altered genes.

The results, published Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, represent the first time gene drive has completely suppressed a population, according to an article from Imperial College.

The team crashed populations of the Anopheles gambiae mosquito, which transmits malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, within 11 generations. There are around 3,500 species of mosquito worldwide, of which 40 can carry malaria, the article reported.

In 2016, according to the World Health Organization, there were around 216 million malaria cases and an estimated 445,000 deaths worldwide, mostly of children under five years old.

“This breakthrough shows that gene drive can work, providing hope in the fight against a disease that has plagued mankind for centuries,” Andrea Crisanti, a life sciences professor who led the team, told the college.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2018/09/25/malaria-mosquitoes-population-killed-lab-using-gene-manipulation/1418740002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

Yes, a little scary too were such technology to be misused.

Interesting question: Does it violate the Precept on Taking Life? Better than gassing living mosquitoes is to prevent their birth, so I would say no. Even gassing is necessary to save lives of the sentient beings who die from malaria!

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shinshou]

One more story of exploration and discovery in the news just today, very hopeful.

Gene tweak kills whole population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in lab



Yes, a little scary too were such technology to be misused.

Interesting question: Does it violate the Precept on Taking Life? Better than gassing living mosquitoes is to prevent their birth, so I would say no. Even gassing is necessary to save lives of the sentient beings who die from malaria!

Gassho, J

STLah

Would not controlling sentient disease-spreading vectors like mosquitoes violate the Precept on Taking Life, since you know people will die from malaria if you don't? Questions like these are why I appreciated Mind of Clover and our precept study when I did Jukai. The precepts are impossible to uphold, and we should never break them.

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat Today

[Anka]

This precept of not harming others is to me an example of how nothing in this world is pure duality. Things are instead some shade of gray.

Killing mosquitos is bad, it is killing a sentient being. However, saving humans from malaria is good and should be done.

James F
Sat lah

[Kyonin]

Hi all,

I agree with Jundo. We should keep on exploring outwards in the same way we should never stop exploring inwards. It all comes together to develop a greater sense of the Wholeness That Is

Love the photos in Roswell

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Mp]

Speaking of outer space ... seems Japan is the first to land a hopping robot on an astroid.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-japan-land-hopping-robots-on-asteroid-ryugu-2018-9

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH