Spiritual Computing

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Spiritual Computing

• Craig Warren Smith cwsmith_at_hitl.washington.edu
• Chulalongkorn University
• November 2 2007

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My Talk

• What is Spiritual Computing?
• What is spiritual?
• Spirituality and religion
• Why SC is emerging now?
• Why does SC matter?
• Examples
• Methods
• Where
• Connections to philosophy

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Why Now?

• Spiritual Computing is possible now due to
• Changes in technology
• UX as competitive factor
• Emergence of HCI
• Changes in spirituality
• Buddhisms new role
• Secularization of spirituality in advanced
  markets
• Post-modern kick-back in Asia

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What is Spiritual?

• Spirituality, in this case, refers to
• a learning process through which, over time, one
  gains the ability to enhance the meaningfulness
  of ones own experience.
• This process has four phases
• Stop/start
• Renunciation/letting go
• Purification/clarification
• Transformative action

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What does spirituality have to do with religion?

• Spirituality constitutes the experiential core of
  religions as well as secular philosophic
  traditions.
• Religions claim to transmit the spiritual
  innovations of their founders.
• Over time, religious authorities are frequently
  disrupted by reformers offering new ways to
  transmit these innovations.

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What is Spiritual Computing?

• the ideas, methods, and practice needed to bring
  spirituality into the design of next-generation
  technologies.

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Examples?

• Educational
• Health care
• Computer Search
• Home design

Serious Games (Wild Divine)

• Biofeedback for stress reduction (Intel)

Meaningful search (Google)
Sacred space in homes (Microsoft)
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Methods?

• Humanistic critique of AI
• Weisers response center/periphery
• Varelas innovations
• Seeing phenomenology with Buddhist eyes
• Innovation in scientific method
• First, second and third person science
• From neuroscience to tech labs

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The Geopolitics of SC

• The World Tour
• USA Cambridge, SF, Seattle
• India Gandhi in the tech sector
• Thailand Towards an ecoystem of happiness
  technologies

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What SC could mean to philosophy

• Bringing the tech sector kicking and screaming
  to first principles?
• New practical application for philosophy?
• Catalyst for Western/Asian philosophic
  convergence?

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How you can help

• Join the global web community (spiritualcomputing
  .com)
• Keep abreast of developments in Thailand
• Center for Ethics of Science and Technology
• Give us your best thinking