Dear Treeleafers of the Future! 
I am working on a new book manuscript called "Zen of the Future!" in which I argue that upcoming advances in neuro-science, pharmacology, DNA alterations, robotics and AI, virtual reality etc. will allow us to achieve many of the insights and virtues that Buddhism has spoken about for millenia but struggled to deliver to most sentient beings. .
The following is a small taste. It discusses rewiring the brain and re-engineering other physiological reactions so that, for example, altruistic behavior becomes as pleasurable as sex, caring for children in general elicits the same instinctual "parental mind" that is now limited to caring for one's own children, acts of violence in anger result in sensations of physical revulsion in the potential harm doer, and like changes. It is my argument that, if drugs or other methods are made available that make charity as or more pleasurable than sex, for example, people will come to demand the drug or method just as they now crave any pleasure. In doing so, selfish pleasure will actually serve to overcome selfish pleasure. The book discusses various other scenarios by which these changes might actually come to pass.
These changes are coming. It is just a question as to what we do with them. I also argue in the book that, inspired by Zen values, we must choose to simplify and turn the technology and machines "off" in many cases and be Luddites sometimes.
I am not an expert on the technology itself, but it seems that all this is coming (whether we like it or not). And if it is coming, will we use it for good or how will we use it? Whether it is or is not inevitable, I leave it to the technologists to decide. If these things do become available, they can be misused, e.g, by dictators to enslave their citizens or as weapons or to sell us more tennis shoes. If the technology does come to fruition (and it seems that a lot of it is no longer just science fiction) then we had better use it well. Using these tools to bring to fruition many of the values and insights of Buddhism would be a pretty good use compared to the others.
The future and new technologies rarely pan out exactly as we plan. Nonetheless, it is good to have goals and directions for what we hope will happen. Even Buddhism rarely pans out as planned, yet we have goals and directions for where we hope it might head.
Please let me know what you think from this short sample (there is a lot more, and the book covers many many other topics about Zen and Buddhism of the future!) What do you think? Possible? A hope for a better world? Too scary? A Brave New (Zen) World? .
Gassho, J
stlah
=======. .
Jobs will change in the future, and many jobs will be taken over by automation ('goodbye' to truck drivers and cash register check out boys, but also maybe pharmacists and math teachers and possibly computer designers themselves. Perhaps robots would do a better job of teaching Zen! After all, most of what a Zen teacher does is incomprehensible gobbledygook anyway, with an occasional admonition to “go sit Zazen.” ) However, for those jobs that do remain, the highest ethics will be required as lives will be at stake. As we have discussed, it will be a nicer world if manufacturers actually become physically ill inside (the same feeling that they might feel if finding out that their own child had been diagnosed with cancer) each time they make a choice regarding marketing a product which might have great value to society but also possibly cause some number of children in the world to develop cancer (e.g., a manufacturer of very beneficial drugs with some risks and side effects, or nuclear or other cheap energy sources that could potentially harm the public too). Would it be possible to alter our brain and hormonal reactions so that we come to have "parental mind" for all children much as for our own children? The manufacturer would have the same feeling about the general public that any parent has when, for example, they strap their child into a car (hopefully in a safety seat) or take them on an airplane, balancing the benefits and the potential risks.
Cooks in restaurants (assuming they are not all automated in the future), doctors and nurses, politicians, parents, school teachers, robot designers, judges and even Buddhist and other clergy would all contribute to a better world if they all became physically ill at the prospect of hurting people beyond what they truly felt in their heart was right and necessary in that case, just as any parent (or normal parents at least) today feels physically ill at the prospect of hurting their own child beyond what is necessary for their good. I will, for example, let a doctor poke and probe my child if necessary for their overall well-being, with my brain making the hard choice about what is necessary in that situation. Would it not be wonderful if that same brain center of "parental mind" became activated with equivalent emotions when our political leaders need to make a hard choice for society, or a businessman needs to market a new product, or a food manufacturer needs to raise healthy foods, all with the same feeling inside that the people of society are "my children" as much as their own biological sons and daughters? (We want the programmers of computers to design programs that do little harm too and, to the extent that AI takes over making manufacturing and quality control supervision for us, it could be programmed to make its decisions based on "the greater good" and public health with great weight than mere profit line).
Alcoholics today are prescribed certain drugs that make them physically ill at the mere taste or thought of liqueur, might it be possible to do the same for thoughts of selfishness and greed?
...
“Right action” will be as necessary to the practice of Buddhism as now. However, the difficulty involved in actually living in such ways may change with our ability to invent pills and effect mental changes that make our having such intent easier to keep, more pleasant and desired than now or in the past. When we want to study Buddhism and do good actions as much as we now want sex and hamburgers, it will become easy to study Buddhism and do good actions. Perhaps all that we need to do is "cross the wires" of our internal emotional and physical response mechanisms and connect “Buddhism” in the brain with the same pleasure centers that activate when I just say the words “sex” and “hamburgers.” We are willing generally to go to fantastic extremes of effort and endurance for sex and hamburgers, and we can rewire ourselves regarding all the good qualities we are discussing here, and the efforts to live by them. Oh, if we only went to the same extremes for a charitable act as we go to now to have the pleasure of a new fancy car in the driveway, the world will be a better place. All we need to do is figure out how to trip the same pleasure centers triggered by "new car in my driveway" with the pleasure of "charitable act." Not to long from now at all, nuero-scientists are going to figure out how to trip those same pleasure centers for whatever we wish, and the technology is no longer out of reach. A zap of electro-magnetic stimulation to the right neurons, hormones for sex associated with altruism through a change in DNA, and our "porno" on the internet will be images of hungry children being fed, seashores being scrubbed and hospitals being built. Imagine men and women actually getting that same tingle of pleasure down their spine by seeing sentient beings being saved.
I am working on a new book manuscript called "Zen of the Future!" in which I argue that upcoming advances in neuro-science, pharmacology, DNA alterations, robotics and AI, virtual reality etc. will allow us to achieve many of the insights and virtues that Buddhism has spoken about for millenia but struggled to deliver to most sentient beings. .
The following is a small taste. It discusses rewiring the brain and re-engineering other physiological reactions so that, for example, altruistic behavior becomes as pleasurable as sex, caring for children in general elicits the same instinctual "parental mind" that is now limited to caring for one's own children, acts of violence in anger result in sensations of physical revulsion in the potential harm doer, and like changes. It is my argument that, if drugs or other methods are made available that make charity as or more pleasurable than sex, for example, people will come to demand the drug or method just as they now crave any pleasure. In doing so, selfish pleasure will actually serve to overcome selfish pleasure. The book discusses various other scenarios by which these changes might actually come to pass.
These changes are coming. It is just a question as to what we do with them. I also argue in the book that, inspired by Zen values, we must choose to simplify and turn the technology and machines "off" in many cases and be Luddites sometimes.
I am not an expert on the technology itself, but it seems that all this is coming (whether we like it or not). And if it is coming, will we use it for good or how will we use it? Whether it is or is not inevitable, I leave it to the technologists to decide. If these things do become available, they can be misused, e.g, by dictators to enslave their citizens or as weapons or to sell us more tennis shoes. If the technology does come to fruition (and it seems that a lot of it is no longer just science fiction) then we had better use it well. Using these tools to bring to fruition many of the values and insights of Buddhism would be a pretty good use compared to the others.
The future and new technologies rarely pan out exactly as we plan. Nonetheless, it is good to have goals and directions for what we hope will happen. Even Buddhism rarely pans out as planned, yet we have goals and directions for where we hope it might head.
Please let me know what you think from this short sample (there is a lot more, and the book covers many many other topics about Zen and Buddhism of the future!) What do you think? Possible? A hope for a better world? Too scary? A Brave New (Zen) World? .
Gassho, J
stlah
=======. .
Jobs will change in the future, and many jobs will be taken over by automation ('goodbye' to truck drivers and cash register check out boys, but also maybe pharmacists and math teachers and possibly computer designers themselves. Perhaps robots would do a better job of teaching Zen! After all, most of what a Zen teacher does is incomprehensible gobbledygook anyway, with an occasional admonition to “go sit Zazen.” ) However, for those jobs that do remain, the highest ethics will be required as lives will be at stake. As we have discussed, it will be a nicer world if manufacturers actually become physically ill inside (the same feeling that they might feel if finding out that their own child had been diagnosed with cancer) each time they make a choice regarding marketing a product which might have great value to society but also possibly cause some number of children in the world to develop cancer (e.g., a manufacturer of very beneficial drugs with some risks and side effects, or nuclear or other cheap energy sources that could potentially harm the public too). Would it be possible to alter our brain and hormonal reactions so that we come to have "parental mind" for all children much as for our own children? The manufacturer would have the same feeling about the general public that any parent has when, for example, they strap their child into a car (hopefully in a safety seat) or take them on an airplane, balancing the benefits and the potential risks.
Cooks in restaurants (assuming they are not all automated in the future), doctors and nurses, politicians, parents, school teachers, robot designers, judges and even Buddhist and other clergy would all contribute to a better world if they all became physically ill at the prospect of hurting people beyond what they truly felt in their heart was right and necessary in that case, just as any parent (or normal parents at least) today feels physically ill at the prospect of hurting their own child beyond what is necessary for their good. I will, for example, let a doctor poke and probe my child if necessary for their overall well-being, with my brain making the hard choice about what is necessary in that situation. Would it not be wonderful if that same brain center of "parental mind" became activated with equivalent emotions when our political leaders need to make a hard choice for society, or a businessman needs to market a new product, or a food manufacturer needs to raise healthy foods, all with the same feeling inside that the people of society are "my children" as much as their own biological sons and daughters? (We want the programmers of computers to design programs that do little harm too and, to the extent that AI takes over making manufacturing and quality control supervision for us, it could be programmed to make its decisions based on "the greater good" and public health with great weight than mere profit line).
Alcoholics today are prescribed certain drugs that make them physically ill at the mere taste or thought of liqueur, might it be possible to do the same for thoughts of selfishness and greed?
...
“Right action” will be as necessary to the practice of Buddhism as now. However, the difficulty involved in actually living in such ways may change with our ability to invent pills and effect mental changes that make our having such intent easier to keep, more pleasant and desired than now or in the past. When we want to study Buddhism and do good actions as much as we now want sex and hamburgers, it will become easy to study Buddhism and do good actions. Perhaps all that we need to do is "cross the wires" of our internal emotional and physical response mechanisms and connect “Buddhism” in the brain with the same pleasure centers that activate when I just say the words “sex” and “hamburgers.” We are willing generally to go to fantastic extremes of effort and endurance for sex and hamburgers, and we can rewire ourselves regarding all the good qualities we are discussing here, and the efforts to live by them. Oh, if we only went to the same extremes for a charitable act as we go to now to have the pleasure of a new fancy car in the driveway, the world will be a better place. All we need to do is figure out how to trip the same pleasure centers triggered by "new car in my driveway" with the pleasure of "charitable act." Not to long from now at all, nuero-scientists are going to figure out how to trip those same pleasure centers for whatever we wish, and the technology is no longer out of reach. A zap of electro-magnetic stimulation to the right neurons, hormones for sex associated with altruism through a change in DNA, and our "porno" on the internet will be images of hungry children being fed, seashores being scrubbed and hospitals being built. Imagine men and women actually getting that same tingle of pleasure down their spine by seeing sentient beings being saved.
But I am serious about the possibilities of the future. In fact, they are not my original ideas at all, and I am only applying Buddhism to what many technologists feel is almost inevitable at this point: 
)
Comment