Thanks you so much for elucidating your views so articulately! I suspect we are both mistaken in our assumptions about each other’s wider views. Now I understand better that you have reservations about AI.

I hope you can believe me that I do not think humans are magically special and have no monopoly on consciousness (octopus!) I do think consciousness is magically special however—and still a damn mysterious thing. I am in fact doubtful that working with silicon and electricity we humans can “create” consciousness at all. And if we do, I doubt very much we could control it!

Now—you caught me by surprise
throwing Polonius and the Upanishads my way! The last friend of mine who so blended Eat and West in this manner was the author of a book on TM. (I published two of his books) I wonder if that’s your philosophical world? The TM crowd tends to be rather puritanical though, and, checking your writing profile, that’s not you!

Personally, I’m more inspired by Buddhism and Existentialist writers like Nietzsche and Camus. Just to give you the flavor of where I’m coming from. I wrote a Buddhist comedy some years back about time I spend in a Thai monastery called What the Buddha Never Taught.