Is Enlightenment Nirvana?

 I suppose this is the sort of question that drives many people mad. If you're one of them, apologies before the ramble. The question occurred to me the other day when talking to an acquaintance about mental models that make people physically ill and how "magic moments" change the mental model causing the physical problems to evaporate.

I have always believed that heaven and hell are ma to physical locations, but psychological conditions that follow the consciousness from one plane of existence (alternative reality, dimension, etc.) to the next. Enlightenment is a state of no-suffering resulting from practice. A Buddha is a perfectly enlightened being no longer subject to the cycle of births and deaths (or quantum leaps'). In this stateI (perfect) Enlightenment is Nirvana. Satori, or the fleeting glimpses of Nirvana which occur during meditation or after getting whacked in the head by an Roshi's stick is an indication that you're on the right path. Noticing a bird in a bush, a whale in a cloud, joy in another human can all have the effect of turning on the sensors. Keeping them on is a topic for another day.

The AI as a Bhoddisatva

However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them.
However inexhaustible the defilements are, I vow to extinguish them.However immeasurable the dharmas are, I vow to master them.However incomparable enlightenment is, I vow to attain it.

If every processor in the system is programmed to start churning with this in mind and to compare its results with it, we won't be meeting the Terminator. 

As simple as it sounds, it's better than a kill switch.



sorry for the typo, folks.....

Hell in a Handbasket

 If you follow the news, it should be obvious (if you know anything about history) you may have noticed that we are experiencing our past. Holy wars. Empire building. Empires in decline. Nationalism. Fascism. The collapse of civilization.. .

... or maybe  just the  growing pains of an expanding universe.

It's a nice day. Somewhere else humans are killing each other because of their differences. In my here and now, I sit alone and try to re-imagine them, as any reasonable god should do. Not too long from now, intelligent machines may be doing the killing. It would be nice if they learn from their mistakes and use it to save all sentient beings.