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Mindful with J
I'm sitting in my friend W's backyard, making a choo-choo train out of rocks with her 28-month old son while Mama rests inside. I've known W since she was a…Read more... -
Meditation: reducing noise in your brain or improving policy?
I recently read a very interesting paper by Shadlen and colleagues, who discussed the neural correlates of decision making. In this paper they discussed the issue of responsibility: if our…Read more... -
Bringing Compassion into Everyday Life
Compassion is a gift that keeps on giving. When you develop a sense of connection and genuine concern for others, you not only help them with your presence and actions,…Read more... -
Mindrolling Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche: Mindful Awareness without the Cushion
Here is Khandro Rinpoche on how we can keep the mindfulness we discover on the cushion as we go about daily activity. Hearing from my friend Gabriele that Rinpoche would…Read more... -
Insanity, Espresso and Teenage Wisdom
“Are you insane?” was one of my first thoughts on this melancholic and allegedly spring morning. My alarm was set early so that I could drag myself out of bed…Read more... -
Isn't It Amazing? No Matter What, Our Undistracted Mind is Always Available to Us!
Sometimes I feel like my life is spent in a dark, smoky, crowded, and noisy nightclub and that I’ve forgotten that there’s a door that’s always open if I choose…Read more... -
Meditation & compassion – how do they fit together?
The Buddhist teachings tell us that wisdom and compassion are like the two wings of a bird that will fly you to enlightenment and that you need both wings in…Read more... -
Compassion is Expanding the View of Self
This five minute video is the first part of a fascinating skype conversation between Elizabeth Namgyel and Erric. Elizabeth describes compassion as a radical expansion of self. Then she gives…Read more... -
Love and Insecurity
Not long ago, I fell in love with a beautiful woman. Gently, we became a bit closer. She rejected me, right at the moment, when I was SURE that we…Read more... -
Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness-based Contemplative Practices in Education
A Meditation from the Field from Linda Lantieri and Madhavi Nambiar Mr. Gray, an educator in his second year of teaching in New York City wrote out his resignation letter…Read more...
To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. If you want to attain perfect calmness in your zazen [meditation], you should not be bothered by the various images you find in your mind. Let them come, and let them go. Then they will be under control.
Suzuki Roshi
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Awareness, Consciousness, "the sense of self" and Machine Intelligence
Marvin Minsky on Awareness, Consciousness, "the sense of self" and Machine Intelligence
When I was in Boston a month or so ago, I got a chance to visit with Marvin Minsky. Professor Minsky was the co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT and one of the pioneers in the field of computer science and robotics.
Since the early 1950s, Marvin Minsky has worked on using computational ideas to characterize human psychological processes, as well as working to endow machines with intelligence. In the early 1970s, Minsky and Seymour Papert began formulating a theory called The Society of Mind which combined insights from developmental child psychology and their experience with research on Artificial Intelligence. The Society of Mind proposes that intelligence is not the product of any singular mechanism, but comes from the managed interaction of a diverse variety of resourceful agents.
So I thought it might be fun to ask him some questions about what is the “sense of self”, awareness and consciousness.