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Religious Traditions, Self-Theory and the Future: Should We Abandon, Embrace...
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Religious Traditions, Self-Theory and the Future: Should We Abandon, Embrace or Re-imagine?

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (22 February 2023) | Viewed by 10560

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andrew Oberg

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Cultural Studies, University of Kochi, Kochi City 780-8515, Japan
Interests: the self; phenomenology of religion and art/the image; applying philosophy to theology
Dr. Hari Narayanan V

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Rajasthan 342037, India
Interests: embodied cognition; nature of the self; mindfulness

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

The place of the self and related self-theories have been central to many religious and philosophical traditions, and the importance and reach of one’s held self-view in existential issues cannot be overstated. For those faiths that have taught an “eternal” or “recurring” self, aspects of one’s relation to a/the deity(ies) have often taken on interpersonal colorings, while for those faiths that have taught the self as illusory or as a function of psychology, “earthier” ethics have often taken precedence. Of further interest along these lines, moreover, is the seemingly clear divide between Eastern cultural religious conceptions of the self and Western ones, with the former tending towards either valuing “foregoing”, “overcoming” or “moving beyond” of the self — or alternatively “awakening to the self’s non-existence” — and with the latter instead focusing on how one might prepare the self for “communion” or “union” with the divine. Within this setting of received conceptual “packages” on what the self is and what ought to be done about it, we seek papers that address the questions of what such conceptions may contribute to modern situations and speculations on how developments in self-thought could help shape future human relatings. Do religious self-theories still have anything worthy to say about the self? If so, what might that be, or what could be re-shaped to be applied better to contemporary conditions? What may be pulled from these heritage(s) to be made more meaningful and meaning making for our present era? Might a religious understanding of the self be used in conjunction with recent results from cognitive science? Moreover, stretching our thought further afield, how may what has come heretofore fit with what can be foreseen (environmentally or technologically) for future self-views, or even shifted to beneficially shape the contours of what could be (could become) for human ideational approaches and lifestyles? The ways in which we consider the self touch on every aspect of our being, and thus, through this Special Issue, we hope to provide a link between the vast literature on the self as it has been examined with the self as it could be re-imagined.

Dr. Andrew Oberg
Dr. Hari Narayanan V
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • being
  • consciousness/mind
  • environmental questions
  • ethics
  • existentialism
  • religious traditions
  • the self
  • technology

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 260 KiB  
Article
Is the Christian View of the Self Empirically Adequate? The Tradition and the Future
by Walter Scott Stepanenko
Religions 2023, 14(3), 332; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030332 - 2 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1691
Abstract
Many central creedal statements in Christianity presuppose the existence of a substantial self, even though Christian tradition has not always explicitly used this terminology. However, in contemporary philosophy, the traditional Christian view has been charged with empirical inadequacy, an objection often motivated by [...] Read more.
Many central creedal statements in Christianity presuppose the existence of a substantial self, even though Christian tradition has not always explicitly used this terminology. However, in contemporary philosophy, the traditional Christian view has been charged with empirical inadequacy, an objection often motivated by neuroscientific considerations. In this paper, I examine the empirical adequacy of the traditional Christian view from a phenomenological perspective and from emerging contemporary cognitive scientific perspectives that downplay or de-emphasize the brain’s role in cognition. I argue that neither perspective supports fatal objections to the traditional view and I explain how the traditional Christian view of the self can be synthesized with some novel philosophical developments that suggest the continued relevance of the view. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Traditions, Self-Theory and the Future: Should We Abandon, Embrace or Re-imagine?)
14 pages, 275 KiB  
Article
Between Buddhist ‘Self-Enlightenment’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence’: South Korea Emerging as a New Balancer
by Jitendra Uttam
Religions 2023, 14(2), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020150 - 28 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5496
Abstract
As artificial intelligence (AI) outpaces the human brain, it is invoking wide-spread fear that men and machines are moving into a conflicting zone. Some even suspect that AI machines may one day consider human beings as slow and sloppy, and thus worthy of [...] Read more.
As artificial intelligence (AI) outpaces the human brain, it is invoking wide-spread fear that men and machines are moving into a conflicting zone. Some even suspect that AI machines may one day consider human beings as slow and sloppy, and thus worthy of subordination or elimination. A growing challenge to mitigate the looming crisis requires science to expand its artificially augmented intelligence by incorporating elements from the ethical–spiritual and human universe. Our endeavor to bridge the prevailing gap between science and spirituality focuses on Buddhism, which stands out in its ability to achieve a rare fusion between natural, spiritual and human worlds. This unique synthesis is specifically mediated by Buddhist ‘causality’, where one aspect explains reality based on a scientifically proven cause and effect paradigm, but the other aspect interprets it by compassionate humanism. It argues that the missing human–spiritual dimension in artificial intelligence can be remedied by the Buddhist concept of ‘causally’ linked to the idea of ‘self-enlightenment’. Being an integral part of Buddhist heritage and a leading player in cutting-edge science, Korea demonstrates abilities to emerge as a new balancer to incorporate the best of science, spiritually and humanism to build next-generation AI machines with distinct human qualities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Traditions, Self-Theory and the Future: Should We Abandon, Embrace or Re-imagine?)
16 pages, 292 KiB  
Article
Souls and Selves: Querying an AI Self with a View to Human Selves and Consciousness
by Andrew Oberg
Religions 2023, 14(1), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14010075 - 5 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2445
Abstract
The question of self-aware artificial intelligence may turn on the question of the human self. To explore some of the possibilities in play we start from an assumption that the self is often pre-analytically and by default conceptually viewed along lines that have [...] Read more.
The question of self-aware artificial intelligence may turn on the question of the human self. To explore some of the possibilities in play we start from an assumption that the self is often pre-analytically and by default conceptually viewed along lines that have likely been based on or from the kind of Abrahamic faith notion as expressed by a “true essence” (although not necessarily a static one), such as is given in the often vaguely used “soul”. Yet, we contend that the self is separately definable, and in relatively narrow terms; if so, of what could the self be composed? We begin with a brief review of the descriptions of the soul as expressed by some sample scriptural references taken from these religious lineages, and then transition to attempt a self-concept in psychological and cognitive terms that necessarily differentiates and delimits it from the ambiguous word “soul”. From these efforts too will emerge the type of elements that are needed for a self to be present, allowing us to think of the self in an artificial intelligence (AI) context. If AI might have a self, could it be substantively close to a human’s? Would an “en-selved” AI be achievable? I will argue that there are reasons to think so, but that everything hinges on how we understand consciousness, and hence ruminating on that area—and the possibility or lack thereof in extension to non-organic devices—will comprise our summative consideration of the pertinent theoretical aspects. Finally, the practical will need to be briefly addressed, and for this, some of the questions that would have to be asked regarding what it might mean ethically to relate to AI if an “artificial self” could indeed arise will be raised but not answered. To think fairly about artificial intelligence without anthropomorphizing it we need to better understand our own selves and our own minds. This paper will attempt to analyze the self within these bounds. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Traditions, Self-Theory and the Future: Should We Abandon, Embrace or Re-imagine?)
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