David Kittay
Wednesdays; 6-8pm EST | February 3, 10, 24, and March 3, 2021
Buddhism
February 3, 6-8 pm: The Heart of Technology
Read:
● Kittay, Lost at Last, Chapters 1, 5, and 6
● The Heart Sutra (from Thurman, Essential Tibetan Buddhism)
● Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, pp. 8-18
● Kelly, What Technology Wants, pp. 1-17
If, as the Heart Sutra tells us, form is voidness and voidness is form, what is technology?
Technology
February 10, 6-8 pm: Social Media Meets Timeless Omniscience
Read:
● Kittay, Lost at Last, Chapter 7
● Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Ch. 1
● Harari, “The World after Coronavirus;”
● Rovelli, The Order of Time, pp. 1-36
● Bhayabherava Sutta – The Fear and Dread Sutra
How will late stage capitalism and Covid 19 affect technology? How will technology affect us? And what does tech have to do with time and Buddhism?
Future
February 24, 6-8 pm: The Technological Singularity – Enlightenment for Everyone?
Read:
● Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, ch. 1
● Doctor, “True Love for the Artificial? Towards the Possibility of Bodhisattva Relations with Machines”
Can enlightenment be technological?
March 3, 6-8 pm: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? So What?
Read:
● Bostrum, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”
What would that mean about reality? Should it affect the way we live? What’s the Buddhist take on this?
Dr. David Komodo Kittay teaches philosophy, religion, and technology at Columbia, where his courses are called “life changing,” translates exoteric and esoteric Buddhist texts, and founded and teaches at The Harlem Clemente Course for the Humanities at the Drew Hamilton Houses on 143rd St. He is a Tibet House Board member. His latest publication is The Vajra Rosary Tantra, available from Wisdom Publications.
