When: Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026 9AM-10AM PDT 

Where: Online

Format: Slide presentation with plenty of time for questions and discussion

Recording and slides will be available to participants

Cost: $15 (A reduced fee is available for students under 25 and others for whom the standard fee is difficult, including participants in countries where currency differences make it burdensome. To request the reduced fee, please send me a detailed note indicating your interest in the seminar. )

Paypal, Venmo (Please use the friends and family option to avoid a fee)

Registration Link

What will be covered ?

• What is consciousness, and how is it different from intelligence?

• Can increasing intelligence and complexity make AI conscious?

• Why Advaita Vedānta holds that consciousness cannot arise from matter

• The Vedāntic model of the body, mind, ego, and consciousness

• Which mental processes are mechanical—and when they become consciously known

• What meditation reveals about the mind

• What humans possess that AI may never have

• Questions and discussion

Context

When AI starts replacing human intelligence with artificial intelligence, one would start to wonder how the mind works and how this consciousness or sentience that we have can give us an advantage over these machines. While thousands of years ago, people had no idea about AI, they did ponder deeply about the nature of the mind and consciousness. They did this through deep meditation, and when the mind slowed down sufficiently in meditation and thoughts were few, the nature of the witnessing consciousness was revealed. These revelations were contained in ancient texts called the Upaniṣads (often with no known individual authorship), which formed the backbone for the study of Vedānta. Vedānta is a direct enquiry into the nature of the “Self” using a calm mind. It is not limited to third-person observation of external phenomena, nor is it mere philosophical speculation. Great scientists, in particular quantum physicists like Erwin Schrödinger, drew inspiration from the Upaniṣadic and Advaita Vedānta vision of an underlying oneness, especially in thinking about consciousness, mind, and matter. The American philosopher and cultural historian William Irwin Thompson is reported to have said that the Upaniṣads were so significant in the history of human thought that human history should be marked as “before Upaniṣads” and “after Upaniṣads.”

I am very pleased to offer this seminar on “Consciousness and Intelligence” to answer the question, “Can AI become conscious through increasing complexity and intelligence?” We will base it on the principles of Advaita Vedānta.

We will look at the nature of the mind in detail and the nature of the witnessing consciousness in all of us. We will study how thoughts form, what entity knows them and takes ownership of actions, and who you really are. Finally, we will see the greatest advantage you have that AI cannot have and how you can use this idea to better position yourself in a world that is being rapidly changed by AI.