Your Balance in Times of Extreme Change - The Opinion of the Dalai Lama
October 22 2008 / by GuestBlogger
Category: Culture Year: General Rating: 4 Hot
Cross-posted from DavidOrban.com
The changes that we observe around us are accelerating, and in a positive feedback loop the successive cycles feed on the previous ones’ effects. The source of these changes is technology, as application of the increased knowledge we have of the world around us. As individuals, and as societies we have demonstrated to be very capable of adapting to the changes of our environment, but this necessarily has limits.
We can observe around us phenomena at all levels that in my opinion can be connected with the difficulties of adaptation: migrations and the challenges of fitting in, the diffusion of depression, varying interpretations of the values of the applications of technologies, etc.
I follow the concepts of the Technological Singularity together with others I follow and try to analyze their consequences, and I often stop to consider these issues. Yesterday I had the privilege of asking a question to sombebody who follows change as his profession, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.
I asked him: “How can people find the right balance if their adaptability is stretched to its limits by technological progress evolving the rules of change?”
The Dalai Lama answered: “Technological progress has to serve humanity in its quest for happiness. It must not be the other way around, with humans enslaved to technology and money. The difference between humans and technology is that humans have feelings, and what I always say to my friends, is that our education systems have to teach the inner values of spirituality to the person.”
And at the end, like the crack of a whip he said: “I think that one day, the part of the brain which brings feelings should be removed, then we should be like robots, and ourselves become part machines. That would be good, actually. That would be super!” and he laughed…
Was he then joking? Or is the Dalai Lama a singularitarian transhumanist and he laughed so that those who were not ready could pretend and not take him seriously?
Comment Thread (1 Response)
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I am not sure that removing our emotional part of the brain is really a good idea or not. Of course, the part of the brain which gives us these “feelings” is ancient and part of our “lizard” brain and not the rational logical part of the brain which has allowed us to analyze and study the universe. HOWEVER, there are other things that make our lives meaningful which deal with emotions.
How would you appreciate Shakespeare or sit in awe at the beauty of such things as the night sky? Or feel the overwhelming emotions of love when you’re with a significant other? Sure, breaking the bondage of biology is fine and I am confident we will but what gives life meaning then if we don’t feel anything? Wouldn’t that make us sub-human?
Without emotions there would be no empathy or compassion for our fellow man. It would all become spreadsheets and a mathematical equation—i.e The Matrix. We would actually have regressed without emotions, they are as much human as what defines our dominance.
And at the end, like the crack of a whip he said: “I think that one day, the part of the brain which brings feelings should be removed, then we should be like robots, and ourselves become part machines. That would be good, actually. That would be super!” and he laughed…
If you look at the video, he was joking, in my opinion.
Posted by: Covus October 22, 2008
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