Fringe Science, Kurzweil’s Singularity, and Six Yogas of Naropa

A few weeks ago, I was watching an episode of the popular TV show Fringe about transferring of consciousness, and it reminded me of a popular topic among technophiles over the past few years: the coming Singularity. 

The term “Singularity” was first used by John Von Neumann and later by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge as an age of superintelligent computers which were smarter than humans.  Whether these future computers will be more like Asimov’s benevolent robots, or more like Skynet (which takes over the world, trying to eradicate humans in the Terminator vision of the future), is entirely impossible to predict.  In fact, the term singularity itself implies unpredictability: in physics it refers to a point like a black hole which has an event horizon, beyond which it’s impossible to predict what may happen.

More recently, the term has been popularized by well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil (also an MIT alum), who argues that with advances in computing and medical and nano-technology, we will be able to transfer our brain (and our consciousness) onto a super-human computer (or computer chip, or other computing device), allowing us to effectively live forever on silicon rather than biology!

In the episode of Fringe in question (spoiler alert!), the consciousness of William Bell (played by Leonard Nimoy, best known as Mr. Spock from Star Trek) is able to find its way back after his physical death, and embeds itself into FBI agent Olivia Dunham.  In doing so, Bell’s consciousness “takes over” Olivia’s body for a time.  In an attempt to preserve Bell’s consciousness, uber-mad scientist Walter Bishop comes up with a scheme that sounds a lot like Kurzweil’s singularity – he attempts to transfer the consciousness of the now dead Bell from its organic host (Olivia) to a silicon-based host – an electronic device set up to receive Bell's neural patterns and thus his consciousness.

If this all sounds like science fiction, Kurzweil predicts that the date of this singularity may be in the “near future”, as in 2045, and many others agree with him that “The Singularity is Near”!  Some, like Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen, object and don’t think it’s coming anytime soon, but may occur much, much later.  Both do seem to think that that the answer to “preserving consciousness” after physical death of the brain lies in ever more sophisticated technology.

In thinking about this type of projection of consciousness out of the human body to some “other place”, I would say that both Kurzweil and Paul Allen may be looking in the wrong direction – to the technological future rather than the past where human consciousness was a more serious study than it is today. 

In science, proposing theories without understanding the existing literature is pretty much a cardinal sin. A few years ago, I went to talk to professor computer science at Berkeley about doing a PhD thesis on a particular subject that I was working on in my startup.  She seemed very upset, and made clear, in that sort of academic haughty way, that I hadn’t taken time to review the existing literature and wasn't giving proper respect to what had already been published in this field!  I might be surprised to discover, she suggested, that many smart people have trod this path before me and that I might even “learn something” from studying what others have already achieved!

So, is there already existing “literature” about the projection of consciousness outside the human body?  Of course there is – anyone who has studied consciousness seriously through meditation and Yoga will note that the “literature” is full of instances of projecting consciousness outside the human body – everything from out of body experiences to near death experiences. Moreover, these have been going on for hundreds (if not thousands) of years so this isn't exactly a rare phenomenon that no one has taken the time to study (except in recent scientific circles, apparently!).

In my opinion, the most promising place to start in the existing “literature” of human cosnciousness is in the  Six Yogas of Naropa. 

Stories of Naropa, not so well known here in the West, have been carried down through the Tibetan traditions.  Naropa was a academic scholar himself, at the ancient Nalanda University in Kashmir, who believed his studies had taught him all he needed to know about consciousness. 

According to the Tibetan sources, Naropa was surprised to discover that all of his knowledge didn’t account for much – that the only way to study consciousness and gain “freedom” from the human body was through subjective experience, not study and debate, which he (and his fellow academics) excelled in. 

After going through many tribulations at the hands of his teacher, Tilopa (another very interesting and enigmatic figure), Naropa realized the illusory nature of physical reality and finally achieved liberation by seeing the true nature of consciousness and how it attaches to and detaches from the physical body.

Afterwards, he systemized the Six Yogas of Naropa and taught them to, among others, Marpa the Translator, a famous Tibetan seeker who had trudged over the Himalayas to Kashmir to lean from him.  Marpa, in turn, taught Tibet’s most famous Yogi, Milarepa, the ropes.

So what do the Six Yogas of Naropa have to do with this episode of Fringe and the Singularity? 

A lot, actually.   The Six Yogas, which have been taught primarily in secret over the years, are all about what happens to our consciousness when we go to sleep and when we die.  Lest modern scientist dismiss these as simply “religious anecdotes”, the Tibetans have developed elaborate descriptions and models of how this process works, which in my opinion rivals in sophistication the models of the natural and electrical world that I learned at MIT (though they are much less reliant on mathematics and more on “conscious experience”).

Two of the Yogas, that of Consciousness Transference and Forceful Projection, are directly related to transferring the consciousness of a person who is dying \out of the body to “somewhere else” so that it can "live on" in the physical world.  Interestingly, many modern listings of the Yogas of Naropa edit out “forceful projection” because it was considered “too dangerous” for all but the most adept Yogis.

According to the literature, adepts at this Yoga were able, at exactly the time of their death, to “transfer” their consciousness out of their body and “forcefully project” it into another living "host" nearby.   Usually this was practiced with various creatures (birds, chickens, foxes, etc.) in the beginning.  As they became more adept, in scenes that are reminiscent of modern horror films, Yogis would practice forcefully projecting their consciousness onto fresh corpses.   They would re-animate the dead bodies, while their “original bodies” would be sitting in a state of suspended animation until they “returned”.

According to the Six Yogas of Naropa, written by Tsongkhapa and translated by Glenn Mullin, the Indian and Tibetan texts were filled with such anecdotes, and the tradition continued in Tibet for some time with gurus repeatedly demonstrating it for their pupils, though usually only under the strictest terms of secrecy.

In one of the most famous stories of this kind, Marpa’s own son, who had learned this art from his father, had an accident on his horse and his neck was broken. He supposedly used the Yogas of consciousness transference and forceful projection to leave his body and “transfer” his consciousness into a pigeon that was flying nearby.  He then had the pigeon fly to the outskirts of the next town (where there were many dead bodies, since only the rich cremated their bodies at that time), and found a young man who had recently died and transferred his consciousness into this recently dead body.  In this new, youthful body, he then took on the name Tipupa (the Pigeon saint) and began to teach the Six Yogas.  In an interesting twist of events, years later Milarepa sent one of his students to go study this particular Yoga with Tipupa, who was, understandably, the expert!

Which brings us back to the episode of Fringe in question and the prospect of “digital immortality” by transferring consciousness after a singularity.

Could it ever be done? 

In considering this we might learn a little wisdom by looking into the past (the Six Yogas of Naropa).  

If we consider our “consciousness” as able to be separate from our brain, then in order to transfer the “software” of consciousness from one piece of hardware (our brain) to another, it seems to me that we would need to find a “compatible” hardware.  We might even need one with a similar operating system.  And this is exactly what the Yoga of force projection is all about - finding an organic host that can carry on our consciousness, even after the physical body is dead.

On this, both the lineage descendants of Naropa and the writers of this particular episode of Fringeagree: forget the computer and learn to project consciousness to another, organic host first.  In the episode of Fringe in question, consciousness was successfully transferred to an organic host (Olivia), but completely failed and was lost when attempting to transfer it to a technological device.  

So, it seems to me that before we barge ahead trying to transfer our brain's neural patterns to a physical device, we might want to invite in the experts at consciousness (Tibetan and Indian Yogis) and see if we can learn something from them about how consciousness works both while we're alive and when we die.  Once we can reproduce the Yoga of forceful projection in a laboratory setting, we could then move on to how we might project our minds onto a superintelligent computing device.

To those awaiting the singularity, I might suggest, as that professor of computer science at Berkeley reminded me a few years ago:  it pays to study what others have done before us...we might even learn something!

Travels In Pakistan, Part 1-3: The New War, The Old Culture, and Load-shedding

As part of my winter break, I've been travelling to Pakistan over the past two weeks. I kept a series of short observations about what i'm seeing, but haven’t gotten around to putting them up until now so here are the first few:

Pakistan, Entry #1: Winds of War?
There has been a lot of hoopla here lately and talk of a Coming War With India. This comes in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The Indian government has accused the Pakistani government of, well we’re not quite sure here, except that the terrorists were trained by a group here in Pakistan, and the one remaining terrorist may or may not be a Pakistani citizen. Read More...

The Indian government has held that the Pakistani’s aren’t doing enough to crack down on terrorism, and have included the option of surgical strikes within Pakistan as part of their response. This has the Pakistani public up in arms and the armed forces on high alert. There was an incursion for a few minutes into Pakistani airspace by the Indian Air Force earlier this week which raised the stakes.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) scrambled jets over a few major cities, including Lahore, a few days after the Indian incursion, in a show of strength. People were out on their rooftops in Lahore to find out what was going on and if the Indians were attacking. The news channels here are filled with discussions of what might happen between the two nuclear-armed countries.

Coincidentally, I wasn’t in Lahore during the fighter jet flights, but was visiting a PAF base up in the mountains between Lahore and Islamabad. We vistied a relative who's married to a commando in the PDF, who told us that these kinds of airspae incursions happen all the time, but this one was in ain unusual geography and longer than usual. Later in the week, something happened that we don't iknow about, but Pakistan's armed forces were put on high alert, and he wasn't allowed to the leave the base. Some units of the Pakistan army have already been directed to Kashmir.

Most people think that the situation is more serious than it’s been for a while; India recalled all of its 100-plus ambassadors from around the world this week. Supposedly they had done that before the 1971 war as well.

Pakistan has already said that if India attacks, even a surgical strike on uninhabited bases, it would move all of its forces from the Northwest border with Afghanistan to the eastern border with India and respond. The U. S. doesn’t want that because of the ongoing issues on the Afghan border. On the other hand, U.S. drones are constantly making strikes inside Pakistan – killing a few people here, a few people there, so the U.S. army isn’t very popular in Pakistan at the moment either.

Then there's the danger of this escalating into an all out war, whch no one wants. The traditional rivalry between Pakistan and India is alive on this side of the border, and perhaps on the other side as well.

For a moment, we were worried that our flight out of Lahore would get cancelled or delayed. After the initial hoopla though, everything seems to have settled down. As the Chinese say, "May you live in interesting times."

Pak, Entry #2: Lahore Culture and Visit to the Mountains

I had always assumed (like many in the west, I think) that Pakistan is a pretty homogenous place, culturally. After all, it’s over 90% Muslim, and was created in the partition from India in the 1940’s to be a place for many of India’s muslims to have their own homeland.

What i’ve found that Pakistan is a pretty diverse cultural place with a long history. In Lahore, after I arrived, we had dinner (on my birthday) at Coocoos, a well known restaurant in the old city of Lahore. It is an old brothel converted to a high class restaurant in a very historic building, with buddhist, hindu, and islamic artwork and architecture on display.

The history of Lahore reflects many periods, including as one of the key cities of the Moghul empire from the 1400's to the 1700's. Rulers of this empire, which went from Kabul to Delhi, included Shah Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal in India and the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, which shares a lot of architectural characteristics with it. The Mosque is an impressive site, and has a large open courtyard that feels almost like you’ve entered another world, forgetting the busy city of Lahore while you are inside.

Next to the mosque is one of the sacred tombs of the Sikhs. Next to that is an ancient Shi'ite place of worship. Nearby is the Lahore museum, which has many interesting historical artifacts on display. In Lahore itself, many of the well laid out sections of the city and well-know roads (Mall Road, Canal St) were laid out by the British, who left their mark all over Pakistan and India.

As you move beyond Lahore, more elements of Pakistan’s past come out. I went up into the Salt Range mountains between Islamabad and Lahore and stayed there for a few days. There I visited Ketas, which contains the remains of well-known hindu and buddhist temples. There were at one point, seven temples in one holy site.

The Hindu temple is built around a small lake, which legend has it was formed when the Hindu God Shiva shed tears after the loss of his wife. It is considered one of the holiest sites for Hindus in Punjab. The Buddhist temple, better preserved, contains very narrow stairs which wind around intricate chambers all the way up to the top of the temple, which offers a striking view of the area.

Across the street are Buddhist caves, which were used by Yogis to sit in meditation and contemplation. I had read about caves being used by Yogi's and seekers of enlightenment in ancient times, but have to confess this is the first time I actually saw a cave used for this purpose. I'll definitely write more about what I felt and sensed in these caves and temples in another forum.

This site demonstrates the rich intertwined history of different religions and sects in this area. A Muslim scholar, El Burreni, went to Ketas, learned sanskrit, and is best-known for measuring the radius of the earth from there many hundreds of years ago. The temples themselves were built more than two thousand years ago.
Near there, we visited the tomb of a Sufi, who is considered a local saint, and which peacocks are known to visit. Next to his tomb was a cave where another local saint came and did prayer for forty days and forty nights. The importance placed on tombs of Sufi’s in particular, religious mystics who often wrote and quoted poetry (who espoused a very different view of Islam from the western stereotypes being promulgated via the Taliban, etc. today), was one of the more unexpected bits of Pakistani culture. Having lived in the Middle East in the midst of Islamic countries before, this was almost entirely new but entirely ubiquitous within Pakistan.

On that same trip through the mountains, we also saw some gypsy girls, who looked different than the other residents of the area. They were much fairer skinned and had very pale colored eyes. I was told they came from the northern reaches of Pakistan, and were most likely part of tribal groups that were descendants of the soldiers of Alexander the Great who passed that way on his way to India.

Somewhere up there is the home of the Ismaelis, a sect of Islam led by the Aga Khan. Somewhere near there is an area in the north called "Kafirstan" which consists of an entirely different religion and culture from the rest of Pakistan. Near the border with Afghanistan, in addition to speaking Pashtu, there are the remains of the Gandara civilization, which built many Buddhist temples and statues (included in the Big Buddhas in the mountains that the Taliban so callously blasted down a few years ago).

Being in Pakistan, I'm sensing a rich cultural history with many variations and texture across this land. Pakistan is kind of a cross-roads – linking the civilizations of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent with a bit of British history thrown in too. I think one could spend a lifetime studying the very different cultures and traditions that make up this enigmatic land. And I haven't even visited Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan, or Islamabad, the capital city, on this trip. That’ll have to be on my next trip.

Pak Entry #3: Energy: Load Shedding, CNG, and Industry.

The city of Lahore is very big –with something like 10 million inhabitants, making it one of the most populated cities in the world. There has been a significant increase in the number of cars in Lahore over the past 3-5 years, I’ve been told. In particular, the ability o finance cars has led to a “car boom” here (before you had to purchase it all in cash).

This might explain why the air in Lahore, like other big cities, is kind of polluted. Except, if you actually ride in the cars here, you’ll learn that most cars run on CNG and not petroleum/gasoline. Turns out that this ends up being both cheaper and more environmentally friendly, with very little emissions.
So, if not the cars, where is the pollution coming from? Every now and then, even in an big city like Lahore, you'll see Donkey or Horse-driven carts carrying loads. Certainly not from them!

Turns out the buses, trucks, motorcycles, and rickshaws are the main culprits. You can literally see the smoke rising out of the back of these polluters as they drive around the country. Together they probably equal or exceed the number of cars on the road at any given time.

Energy has been on my mind a lot here. Most of Lahore and the rest of Pakistan is experiencing "Load Shedding" - which are scheduled brown-outs where no electricity goes to a neighborhood. It's pretty annoying, to say the least, but does show how the economy has been growing and how demand has been rising.

Most well-to-do houses, and all businesses, have generators which pick up the slack. I visited our software development offices in Lahore, run by my brother, which has multiple generators.

It's funny that when my brother visited me in California earlier this year, the lights went out, in the heart of Silicon Valley (Moutain View) and stayed out for a few hours. It doesn’t happen often- in fact this was just one of two times I’ve seen it happen in the last year. But he got a kick out of it: " Looks like California is just like Lahore, looks like you have Load Shedding here too!”