Dao of the Go: Contextualizing “Spirituality,” “Intelligence,” and the Human Self
Issue: Vol 20 No. 3 (2017) Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and Religion. Guest Editor: Beth Singler
Journal: Implicit Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies
DOI: 10.1558/imre.35893
Abstract:
The remarkable defeat of Lee Sedol, an international Go champion by AlphaGo, a computer program, raised again the question of the future of humanity vis-à-vis increasingly competent machine intelligence. Exploring the origin of Go in East Asia, we find that the rational capacity emphasised in the Go game was traditionally associated with spiritual meanings while the etymology of spirituality in English reveals a connection with rational humanity. The cultural paradigms of intelligence invite us to rethink the dichotomy between ‘spirituality’ and ’intelligence’, so as to abate the alienation we feel towards AI-based technologies that are simulated upon our own intelligence. The contextualization of intelligence and spirituality further provides a model of resistance against the homogenizing forces and assumptions of globalization without succumbing to cultural stereotypes, which also renders a framework for the development of AI philosophy and technologies beyond universalism while addressing the future concerning the human collective.
Author: Ting Guo
References :
Aquinas, T. 1947. Summa Theologiae. Translated by Fathers of the English
Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers.
———. 2002. The Treatise on Human Nature: Summa Theologiae 1A 75–89. Translated by Robert Pasnau. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Baker, K. 2008 [1986]. The Way to Go: How to Play the Ancient/Modern Asian Game of Go. American Go Association.
Bellah, R. 1992. The Good Society. New York: Knopf.
Beeks, R. ed. 2010. Etymological Dictionary of Greek, vol. 2. Leiden: Leiden University Press.
Brentlinger, J. 2010. “Revolutionizing spirituality: Reflections on Marxism and religion.” In Marx Today: Selected Works and Recent Debates, edited by John F. Sitton, 241–256. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117457_16
Clark, R. 2008. “The Go master.” Sight and Sound, http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/4299.
Chen, Z. Y. 1997. “The art of black and white: Wei-ch’i in Chinese poetry.” The Journal of the American Oriental Society 117(4): 643–654. https://doi.org/10.2307/606446
Confucius. 1861. The Analects of Confucius. Translated by James Legge. http://ctext.org/analects.
Daode Jing. Chinese Text Project. http://ctext.org/dao-de-jing.
Descartes, R. 1985. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Girardot, N. J., J. Miller, and Liu X. G. 2001. Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fairbairn, J. 1990. “Go on the roof of the world.” Go World 58(Spring): 10–15.
———. 1997. Invitation to Go. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gallup, G. and T. Jones. 2000. The Next American Spirituality. Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor.
Guo, T. 2014. “Review of The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India by Peter Van der Veer.” Oxford Comparative Criticism & Translation 8/11/2014. http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/cct-review/modern-spirit-asia-spiritual-and-secular-china-and-india-2014.
———. 2015. “‘Spirituality’ as reconceptualisation of the self: Alan Turing and his pioneering ideas on artificial intelligence.” Culture and Religion 16(3): 269–290. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2015.1083457
Heelas, P. 2009. Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hegel, L. 1976. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heidegger, M. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by William Lovitt. New York: Garland Publishing.
Kawabata, Y. 1972. The Master of Go. Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
King, U. 1978. “Indian spirituality, western materialism.” Social Action New Delhi 28: 62–86.
Leclercq, J. 1962. “Spiritualitas.” Studi medievali 3: 279–296.
Lent, J. A. and L. Fitzsimmons, eds. 2013. Asian Popular Culture: New, Hybrid, and Alternate Media. Plymouth: Lexington Books.
Lewis, R. E., H. Kurath, S. M. Kuhn and J. Reidy, eds. The Middle English Dictionary, Part S.7. 1988. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Liddell, H. G. and R. Scott, eds. 1819. Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1940. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised by Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, 9th edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Livia, K. 2013. “One Dao—many ways.” In Religious Diversity in Chinese Thought, edited by Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Joachim Gentz, 53–63. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Miller, J. 2008. Daoism: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld.
Moskowitz, M. 2013. “Weiqi legends, then and now: Cultural paradigms in the game of Go.” Asian Popular Culture: New Hybrid and Cultural Media, edited by John A. Lent and Lorna Fitzsimmons, 1–16. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
———. 2013. Go Nation: Chinese Masculinities and the Game of Weiqi in China. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520276314.001.0001
Needham, J. 1962. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4 Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oxford Modern English Dictionary. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/186904?redirectedFrom=spirituality
Oxford-Duden German Dictionary. 1997. Revised 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Papineau, E. 2001. “The game of go: A Chinese way of seeing the world.” China Perspectives 33: 43–55.
Pinckard, W. 2001. “The history and philosophy of Go.” In The Go Player’s Almanac, edited by Richard Bozulich, 15–25. Los Angeles, CA: Kiseido.
Rapp, J. A. 2012. Daoism and Anarchism: Critiques of State Autonomy in Ancient and Modern China. London: Continuum.
Robinet, I. and P. A. Wissing. 1990. “The place and meaning of the notion of taiji in Taoist sources prior to the Ming Dynasty.” History of Religions 29(4): 373–411a.
Sima, B. c. 398–445. junguozhi. https://ctext.org/hou-han-shu/jun-guo-yi/zh
Sheldrake, P. 1999. “The study of spirituality.” The Way 39: 162–172.
———. 2007. Spirituality: A Brief History. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Schneiders, S. 1985. “Scripture and spirituality.” In Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, edited by Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff, in collaboration with Jean Leclercq, 1–19. New York: Crossroad.
———. 1989. “Spirituality in the academy.” Theological Studies 50: 676–697.
https://doi.org/10.1177/004056398905000403
Shirakawa, M. 1993. “Igo no Genryu wo Tazunete” [Seeking the origins of go], Igo Kurabu 10: 136–138.
Sutcliffe, S. 2011. “On the metaphysics of ‘life’ and the production of ‘religion’ in Spiritualities of Life: New age romanticism and consumptive capitalism.” Culture and Religion 12(4): 479–488. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2011.636175
Tao, ZY. C. 1370. shuofui. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=445867
Turing, A. 1950. “Computing machinery and intelligence.” Mind 59(236): 433–460. Off-print, Cambridge Modern Archive, AMT/B/9/1/46.
The Diva Review. http://www.thedivareview.com/The_Go_Master_Movie_Review.html
Van der Veer, P. 2014. The modern spirit of Asia: The spiritual and the secular in China and India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Watanabe, Y. 1977. Kodai Igo no Sekai. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo.
Weber, M. 1948. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Wills. London: Routledge.
———. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1966. The Sociology of Religion. Translated by Ephraim Fischoff. London: Social Science Paperbacks.
———. 2003. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Dover.
Woodhead, L. “Post-Christian Spiritualities.” Religion 23: 167–181. https://doi.org/10.1006/reli.1993.1015
Wong, E. 2011. Taoism: An Essential Guide. Boston: Shambhala.
Zhang, H. c. 290. Bowuzhi. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=201871
Zhang, N. 2010. [c. 1050]. Qijing shisanpian. Beijing: zhonghua shuju.
Zuo Zhuan. c. 375–351 BC. http://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan