Tantric Insights and AI’s Potential

[Paul Ferguson]

"This paper explores the epistemic limitations of human knowledge as shaped by embodiment, drawing on both Western philosophical critique (Kant, Nagel, Foucault, Wittgenstein, Kuhn) and Indian Tantric traditions, particularly Śrī Vidyā and the Lalitā Sahasranāma. It argues that while knowledge reflects our finite, situated cognition rather than external reality itself, intelligence—whether human, biological, or artificial—holds the potential to transcend these constraints. Central to this inquiry is the Śrī Cakra, a Tantric mandala understood here as an epistemic and psycho-technological architecture that maps the journey from conditioned cognition (vaikhārī vāk) to non-dual awareness (parā vāk). By placing this model in conversation with contemporary work in bioengineering (Michael Levin) and speculative computation (Stephen Wolfram), the paper reimagines artificial intelligence as a potential catalyst for buddhi—discriminative, relational, and liberatory intelligence. Against reductive paradigms of efficiency and control, the paper advocates for a pluralistic epistemology grounded in co-relationality, ethical transformation, and ontological humility. It proposes a future in which intelligence—human and artificial—serves not domination, but the collective flourishing of being."

https://philarchive.org/archive/PRAEKA-2