Sit down, put your feet on the ground, sit up straight, close your eyes, breath deeply, start to notice your thoughts. Now slowly separate your awareness from your thoughts, in other words take a couple steps back in your mind from your thoughts, notice the thoughts but don’t actually think them, start to listen and watch the thoughts as the arise.
What you are doing is becoming an observer of your thoughts, not participating in them, simply acknowledging them, letting them go along as you remain, a non-critical observer.
It may help if you had a word to repeat (like ‘ohm’, or any mantra) or a spot to concentrate your eyes on (with your eyes closed) to help you keep your observer self separate from your thoughts.
Soon, you may notice all sorts of thoughts, ideas, even images and sounds show up, from somewhere, and if you let them be (without judging or participating in them), fade away.
This practice of observing thoughts is fascinating and amusing. As the observer, I noticed how many of the thoughts I noticed seemed random and unrelated, some of them even seemed foreign to me.
The above is how I typically explain what it’s like to meditate.
Soon after I woke up this morning, right before I left the bed, I had an idea that connected the above experience of meditation with designing artificial intelligence software. The insight I gained from meditating, into how we are observers of seemingly random thoughts, seemed appropriately suited for artificial intelligence computer programs.
Let me clarify, I’m trying to say that artificial intelligence design may benefit (and become actualized) if and when we can mimic what human minds do. In other words, when random ideas are picked from an idea bank or generated in some fashion then presented to an observing software for split-second analysis. By generating or picking up thousands of seemingly random pieces of information, then running them through the examining software (observer) that can discard some ideas and pick others for further consideration, we may be able to give a machine the ability to find inspiration and creativity.
I am posting this idea online, in hopes that someone can pick it up and utilize it, I hope you can find this helpful, assuming that this concept is not already being utilized in AI projects.
My meditation practice allowed me to see how thoughts, almost at random, criss-crossed my mind, and how consciousness or the observer can pick some and discard others, unconsciously processing countless numbers of ideas behind the scene of the logical mind. This is very different than the typical linear and object oriented computer programming, it is also different than fuzzy logic in computer science.
We, humans, make sense and create order out of seeming chaos in our heads, with ease (unconsciously), maybe this is what AI programs have been lacking.
Let me hear your thoughts, leave a comment below. Thanks!!
Added Feb 18, 2010:
I mentioned traditional linear, object oriented programming and fuzzy logic above. I would like to clarify that fuzzy logic (ie. going with degrees of truth instead of true/false values) can be a valuable part of the AI strategy mentioned above. The observer program would utilize fuzzy logic to evaluate all the random ideas, images, concepts, sounds being presented to it. The source of such ideas, concepts etc being presented can also be another complex program, or multiple ones, I will call the source the ‘Presenter’ program(s); the observing program is what I’ve referred to as ‘Observer’.
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