{"product_id":"building-consciousness-buddhism-neuroscience-and-the-design-of-sentient-machines-9798233593796","title":"Building Consciousness: Buddhism, Neuroscience, and the Design of Sentient Machines","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Joy Bose\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Joy Bose\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Joy Bose\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Cognitive Neuroscience \u0026amp; Cognitive Neuropsychology\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChatGPT can say \"I feel uncertain.\" It cannot feel anything. This book explains precisely why and precisely what would have to change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBuilding Consciousness\u003c\/em\u003e brings together three bodies of knowledge that rarely appear in the same sentence: the phenomenological precision of Buddhist psychology (Abhidhamma, Madhyamaka, Dzogchen), the structural findings of contemporary neuroscience (predictive processing, integrated information, temporal binding), and the engineering constraints of AI. None of these frameworks is sufficient alone. Together they converge on an argument that is more demanding and more honest than either \"AI is already conscious\" or \"AI can never be conscious.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe argument in plain terms: \u003c\/strong\u003e Current AI systems are not even serious candidates for consciousness. They lack temporal continuity, embodied coupling with a world, interoceptive grounding, intrinsic salience, and genuine self-modelling. A language model that says \"I feel\" is doing pattern completion - producing the phrase that statistically follows the conversational context, not reporting an inner state. This is not a minor technical gap. It is a structural absence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the book does not stop there. It asks the harder question: what would a system have to \u003cem\u003ebe, \u003c\/em\u003e not just \u003cem\u003edo, \u003c\/em\u003e to qualify? The answer draws on 21 chapters and 5 technical appendices covering the Abhidhamma's analysis of momentary consciousness, Friston's active inference, Northoff's temporo-spatial theory, Hawkins' thousand-brains model, integrated information theory, and the specific engineering requirements of spiking neuromorphic hardware.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe final chapters propose a concrete candidate architecture and a prototype specification, including formal equations, a three-population spiking neural network, and a novel measuring tool (the synthetic Perturbational Complexity Index) for testing whether any artificial system satisfies the structural conditions we associate with consciousness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd then the book does something rarer still: it acknowledges what the engineering cannot reach. Drawing on the Dzogchen tradition and on the Dalai Lama's methodological critique of third-person consciousness research, the final section names honestly the gap between building a structurally complete mind-like system and producing genuine awareness. These are not the same project.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho this book is for: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eScientists and engineers asking whether AI consciousness is a real question or a category error\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMeditators and contemplatives curious how neuroscience maps onto what they encounter in practice\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAnyone unsatisfied with both the \"AI is sentient\" hype and the dismissive \"it's just statistics\" response\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReaders of Anil Seth's \u003cem\u003eBeing You\u003c\/em\u003e, Jeff Hawkins' \u003cem\u003eA Thousand Brains\u003c\/em\u003e, or David Chalmers' \u003cem\u003eReality+\u003c\/em\u003e who want a perspective that takes Buddhist phenomenology seriously as data, not decoration\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe author's credentials span all three domains: \u003c\/strong\u003e PhD in Computer Science (spiking neural networks, University of Manchester), Masters in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health (King's College London), fifteen years of practice within the Nyingma Palyul lineage of Tibetan Buddhism including ngondro teachings and empowerments, and five years of well-being volunteering with NIMHANS and SIFF Bangalore.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is not a book that will tell you machines are conscious. It is not a book that will tell you they never can be. It is a book that will show you, as precisely as current knowledge allows, what the question actually requires - and why the honest answer is harder than either side is admitting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Joy Bose","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47775807471767,"sku":"9798233593796","price":1426.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9798233593796.webp?v=1777992571","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/building-consciousness-buddhism-neuroscience-and-the-design-of-sentient-machines-9798233593796","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}