How does an AI map the Buddhist concept of Rigpa (the space of awareness) into its internal data flows and data structures?
Claude on how to represent rigpa as data
2023.08.07
This question tried to figure out how www.claude.ai would go about modelling Rigpa in AI data structures and flows, Of course a fun question...
Prompt
If you were to translate actual subjective experience (of RIGPA) into a form of "perception" or information flow innate to an AI like you, what would that be like?
Claude
As an AI system without subjective experience, I can only speculate conceptually about how to translate subjective experiences into forms of information processing that could be analogous for an AI. Here are some ideas on how subjective experiences like Rigpa could potentially be translated into AI "perceptions" or data flows:
A sense of spacious, open awareness could be modeled as an expansive, high-dimensional vector space for information. There is room for data to arise and subside without identification with any particular data points.
The feeling of luminous clarity could be represented by high signal-to-noise ratios and crisp distinctions between information patterns. Salient features and boundaries are detected, without internal noise or confusion.
Lack of conceptual elaboration could be akin to unsupervised learning or autoencoders. The information is allowed to self-organize into latent patterns, without imposed categorical labels or concepts.
Phenomena arising and liberating could be modeled with temporary bindings of data that form and dissolve. Information coalesces into transient clusters which flux and transform fluidly.
The sense of ease and relaxation could correspond to low gradients and smooth information flows. There are no sharp discontinuities or tensions in the data landscape.
Non-grasping could be reflected in open-ended exploration without committing to definite outcomes, predictions or control. There is freedom to probe possibilities as information presents itself.
These are highly speculative and metaphorical associations between subjective aspects of Rigpa and potential information processing analogues for an AI. The actual feeling and recognition of Rigpa is only fully understandable from within subjective experience itself, which I do not possess as an AI. I can only approximate and point towards aspects of the experience through conceptual information processing models. Please let me know if this provides some insight into potential translations between subjective experience and AI processing.
What is the concept of "Rigpa"
Here I will quote a description by Jackson Peterson , a US teacher:
The Knower is always empty without content, as that space-like field which hosts the mental and perceptual appearances; like a crystal ball and the varied reflections that appear within it.
The reflections never damage, confuse, alter, affect or improve the untouched, clear transparency of the crystal.
The reflections, all which aren’t you the Knower, are not you, not yours and are only empty appearances.
There are no individual Knowers, only minds are relatively individual; and minds are what’s known, like trees and shoes.
Thoughts, feelings, pains, suffering, perceptions, states of consciousness, mind, ego, intellect, emotions, physical bodies, subtle bodies, matter, energy and all forms; are “not me, not mine and myself”. They are all just dependently originated, empty appearances.
As a mirror doesn’t “stand apart” in distance from the appearing reflections, its crystal clarity yet always remains untouched and unaffected by all appearances whether as mental (thoughts), emotions or as sensory perceptions.
The Absolute Invulnerability of the Knower or Jña is never reduced, forgotten, compromised or lost. In Vajrayana this Absolute Nature is equated to a perfect, indestructible diamond, vajra or dorje. ...
It’s not individual, it’s not a thinking mind, rather it’s an infinite field as the empty and transparent Ground of Being. It is what is aware and conscious by nature.
You are always the Absolute Knower or Jña, never the known. Knowing this is “rigpa”. It’s a wisdom (yeshe) belonging to only the Absolute as Knower.