AI, Consciousness, and the Evolutionary Frontier: A Buddhist Reflection on Science and Human Futures

Reductive physicalism has succeeded in producing technological advances and material control, but it has failed to solve the hard problem of consciousness, exposing humanity to existential and ethical risks as the attention economy and artificial intelligence restructure human presence. Using Buddhist concepts of causality and agency, this paper proposes a nondualist, nonreductionist theory of consciousness and evolutionary dynamics. It aims to open an ethically productive middle path for critically rethinking the Fourth Industrial Revolution and positively reconfiguring human–technology–world relations.

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Abstract

The technological advances and material control that have resulted from reductive and deterministic practices of science are quite real. The digitally mediated expansion of experiential freedoms-of-choice and the transformative problem-solving potential of artificial intelligence are undeniable. But for all its successes, reductive physicalism has failed to solve the so-called hard problem of consciousness. As a result, its successes are exposing humanity to an intensifying confluence of existential and ethical risks as the digitally mediated attention economy and intelligent technology facilitate a fundamental restructuring of the dynamics of human presence. Making use of Buddhist conceptual resources and drawing out their implications regarding causality and agency, this paper offers a nondualist and nonreductionist approach to theorizing consciousness and evolutionary dynamics in ways that are suited to opening an ethically productive “middle path” to critically rethinking the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution and more positively configuring the evolution human–technology–world relations.