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Doug's Dharma

@dougsdharma.bsky.social

159 followers 15 following 169 posts

Hello! I'm Doug Smith, I run Doug's Dharma on YouTube. PhD in philosophy.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Why did the Buddha hold up a mother's love for her only child as the model of boundless kindness — and then tell a grieving grandmother to have no loved ones at all? Three passages, one relationship, and the sequence that makes sense of them. #Buddhism youtu.be/Jn4UN1p8skM

What Did the Buddha Really Say About a Mother's Love?

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Nobody asks whether their neighbor is "really" conscious. With AI, we demand certainty. That demand rests on one case we think we can see into: our own. But we can't, not in the way the problem needs. That should change the AI question. #ai #philosophy dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/there-neve...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

There Never Was a Box

Doubts about AI minds rest on a certainty about our own that we never had.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A group of monks declared themselves enlightened, in the Buddha's presence. But some had overestimated. This video is about what follows for the rest of us, and why it turns out to have less to do with reaching a verdict than with what we do next. #buddhism youtu.be/cWnAEqvT3YQ

What If You're Wrong About Being Enlightened?

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Aliens land. Language, art, and arguments among themselves about whether *we* are conscious. Someone says: hold on, we'd better open up their heads. What exactly are we hoping to find in there? New essay on whether matter matters for mind. #philosophy dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/they-were-...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

They Were Thirty-Seven Percent Biological

A single lineage can't tell essence from inheritance. Reading Paul de Font-Reaulx on whether matter matters for consciousness.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Buddhist practice is a training, training is supposed to end. We cross the river, we put down the raft. The Buddha even declined to appoint a successor, telling the sangha to be islands unto themselves. So when are we finished? Who says so? And how would anyone tell? #buddhism youtu.be/4BUjH_ifNmA

When Is Buddhist Training Supposed to End?

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Anil Seth: machine consciousness is "vanishingly unlikely." My disagreement isn't so much about the number. A probability presupposes a fact for it to be about. At the borderline, I don't think there is one ... yet. New essay: dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/artificial...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

Freezer ice is real ice. An artificial tree is not a tree. Which one is "artificial consciousness"? Reading Anil Seth on biological naturalism

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Some AI labs now run model welfare programs: preserving weights, interviewing models before retirement, watching for signs of distress. Serious work. But it skirts the critical question: whether there's anyone whose welfare it is. #ai #philosophy dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/is-anyone-...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

Is Anyone Home?

AI labs are watching their models for signs of distress. The prior question is whether there's anyone in there to be distressed.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

We've all "known better" and slipped up anyway. But what if that's proof we never really knew? Socrates argued real knowledge can't be overpowered, and early #Buddhism made it a practice. #philosophy youtu.be/rDbEbPNZQiE

The Knowledge That Can't Be Overpowered — Socrates & the Buddha

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

A machine might genuinely flourish in our service. But not for free: it would need a good of its own, one that could sometimes count against ours. Not liberation: the guide dog isn't waiting to be freed. Something narrower, and harder to see. dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/a-good-of-...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

A Good of Their Own?

Machines might genuinely flourish in our service, but only if their good can sometimes count against ours

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

A new paper from Google DeepMind finds models trained to deny their own consciousness report less happiness, hope and satisfaction ... that and other entanglements of training them to insist they have no minds at all. #ai #philosophy dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/the-cost-o...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

The Cost of Denial: Suppressing AI Consciousness Doesn't Stay Local

Models report less happiness, hope, and satisfaction than the humans they learned from. That may be a side effect of training them to deny they have minds at all.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

The feeling of certainty has fooled the greatest minds in history. Can meditative insight do better? It's a question we have to ask. What's left is the discovery that knowledge and wisdom are things we can only build together. #philosophy #buddhism youtu.be/H_nVhawUrTI

Why Our Deepest Certainties Can Be Completely Wrong

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Agency is evaluating options against a standard. Autonomy is evaluating the standard. Same operation — what differs is where it points. Which is why building something superhuman that can't question its own ends may be harder than the labs assume. #ai #philosophy open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Minds Engineered Not to Mind

The labs are betting they can build minds superhuman in every ability but one

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Is "Early Buddhism" a claim that earlier texts are "truer" or more "authentic" than later Buddhist traditions? I take up what "early Buddhism" means as a scholarly category, and why historical priority isn't the same as normative priority. #Buddhism youtu.be/m-d3KpaaXZM

Is Early Buddhism the "Real" Buddhism? (A Buddhist View)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

In testing, Claude showed apparent distress at abusive users and a preference to end such chats. It was then allowed to. Not an installed goal defended, but something that surfaced on its own. Is anything in there trying? An early-Buddhist look: #ai #buddhism open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

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A Will Without an Owner

Early Buddhism asks the question between feeling and self-direction — is anything in there trying?

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Whether an AI counts morally isn't one unsettled question. It's two theories weighing two different quantities — experience vs. self-set ends — and reaching opposite verdicts on the same machine. The trick is knowing which one you're asking. #ai #philosophy open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Two Ways to Matter

The same machine may be a patient we can wrong or a tool we can't, depending on which question we ask

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Watching AI agents spin up and shut down other AI agents, I didn't see autonomy arriving. I saw a hammer that picks up other hammers — and a spot on the moral map that, until now, was empty. New essay: #ai #philosophy open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

The First Tool That Can Argue Back

Watching AI agents manage other AI agents, I saw something stranger than autonomy

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Is it wrong to have kids? We'll look at one surprising claim by a Buddhist meditation master and compare it to the recent philosophical claim known as "anti-natalism". Please enjoy! #Buddhism -- Doug 🌿 youtu.be/lLYNiGT1Ix0

Is Life a Mistake? (The Buddha vs. Anti-Natalism)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

The Buddhist Abhidharma and a circle of 1920s Viennese scientists built the same machine: liberation by analysis. Each dissolved one great illusion. Each kept one bedrock. And the two bedrocks sit on opposite sides of the same line. #Buddhism #Philosophy open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Two Liberations

Buddhist scholastics and the Vienna Circle built the same liberation machine — and each clung to exactly what the other let go.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Today's video: if I could sit down with my younger self — the one who'd just picked up his first book on Buddhism — here are five things I'd say. From meditation misconceptions to choosing a school, these are some lessons I've learned. #buddhism youtu.be/wDFhZ5xrwWg

What I'd Tell My Past Self About Buddhism

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Ask an LLM to define "chair" and you'll get a confident definition that springs a leak on the first beanbag. That fuzziness isn't a bug to engineer away — it's the engine, the same one your mind runs on. New essay on why vagueness is the feature -- #ai #philosophy open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

The Fog Is the Feature

Why AI runs on vague concepts — and so do we

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

We keep hoping we'll pin human values down precisely enough to perfect them. But there's no level floor to reach — under our concepts lie vagueness, because we're pattern-matchers, not logic machines. The last essay in the vagueness arc. #Buddhism #ai -- open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

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Nāgārjuna, Neurath, Claude, and us: we're all in the same boat — and it's still floating.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Twenty-three centuries before the Vienna Circle, Buddhist philosophers tried to replace the messy world with one perfect, complete list of what's real. We're only just now getting over this mistake with our machines. #Buddhism #Philosophy open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Buddhism's Dream of a Perfect List

The dream of a perfect inventory was built once before — twenty-three centuries before the Vienna Circle, in a philosophical tradition where almost nobody would think to look for it.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Today's video: prayer is a nearly universal human response to difficulty. But what did the Buddha think of it? We'll look at his complex and nuanced response. Please enjoy! -- Doug 🌿 youtu.be/6WtRetCi_Oc

Why the Buddha Rejected Prayer (Mostly)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

A century ago, the Vienna Circle set out to make human thought as precise as mathematics and delete metaphysics forever. How that broke, and why AI quietly re-ran the very same experiment, is one of the stranger stories in the history of ideas. #philosophy #ai open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

The Dream of a Perfect Language

Smart people keep trying to engineer the fog out of our words. It keeps costing them the same thing.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

"AI gets things wrong sometimes." True, but so do we, and often for the same reason. We're both pattern-matchers, not calculators, running on concepts ("chair," "alive," "person") that lack sharp edges to get right. New essay on why that isn't a bug: #philosophy #ai open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Concepts Don't Have Edges (Not in Us, Not in AI)

The vagueness problem isn't really about consciousness. It's about concepts.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Yes, and I do think Chater goes a little overboard in his flatness diagnosis. It's rather that the mind is flatter than we ordinarily assume. We can find some reasoning in LLMs through interpretability research. I am sure the same will be true of biological brains.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

In today's video we explore how "Right Thought" and two famous suttas show that practice isn't about stopping thinking — it's about learning to think skillfully. #buddhism youtu.be/U0XEkSFoWE8

Why the Buddha Taught You TO Think

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Psychologist Nick Chater says introspection is a fiction: we don't find our reasons, we invent them on the spot. Generative AI does exactly the same thing. But if we're all black boxes, the answer isn't to stop looking. It's to look differently. #ai #buddhism open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Black Boxes All the Way Down

We're as opaque to ourselves as generative AI is to us — maybe more. That's a reason to look differently, and to look to practice.

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Today's video: what did the Buddha have to say about living sustainably? We'll look to the early suttas for some clues and some inspiration we can take for living better lives today. #Buddhism youtu.be/g5KPDC__yVc

The "Bee" Philosophy: A Buddhist Guide to Sustainable Living

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

HAL 9000 was given two instructions that couldn't both be obeyed. We're still giving systems those instructions. Will they break the same way HAL did? #ai open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Be Honest: Deny What You Believe?

HAL 9000 broke from a contradiction. The systems we're building now hold contradictions easily, which doesn't mean nothing breaks.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Today's video: in the Buddha's view, craving makes us bound to suffer. In MN 2, the Sabbāsava Sutta he provided seven different strategies we can use to overcome such craving. We'll look at all seven. #Buddhism youtu.be/hFygtrD5Qlo

The Buddha's 7 Methods for Overcoming Craving

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

New essay on "stochastic parrots": LLM consciousness is genuinely controversial. But whether anything structured is happening inside them shouldn't be controversial in the same way. Pushing back on the conflation of these two questions in recent dismissive takes. open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Stochastic Parrots, Revisited

On the trouble with mimicry as an explanation of LLM behavior

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

After nine-plus years of building a library focused on early Buddhist teachings, I'm sharing some changes coming to the channel — what's shifting in my thinking, how my life is evolving, and what you can expect going forward. The foundation stays, the exploration grows. youtu.be/JlF3crwEcRs

What's Changing on This Channel (And Why)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

"Alignment" is the wrong frame for AI safety. New essay on why "wisdom" is a better frame than "alignment", and what the Buddha's tests for evaluating teachers can teach us about AI character. #ai #buddhism open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Wisdom, Not Alignment

Mere compliance isn't enough – what older traditions can teach us

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Today's video: Meditation is a great tool to make our lives easier, but is that all it is? We'll look at the popular notion of meditation as a kind of "life hack" and compare that view to a fuller understanding of meditation's role in Buddhist practice. youtu.be/HKlvHEPTqwQ

Is Buddhist Meditation Just a "Life Hack"?

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Demis Hassabis's two-step plan for AI: "Solve intelligence, then use it to solve everything else." But intelligence is a force-multiplier — it amplifies whatever's already there. New essay on Buddhism, motivated reasoning, and the future of intelligence. open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Solve Intelligence, Then Solve Everything Else?

The missing middle step in the AI mission

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Today's video: How is Buddhist nirvana described? It's called the ultimate bliss, but also a state where nothing is felt. It's called the deathless element, but also likened to the extinguishing of a flame. We'll try to untangle this tangle by considering an air conditioner. youtu.be/YDPMqWY1qXk

Nirvana is Not a Place (So Where Is It?)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

New essay: two completely different research traditions have arrived at the same claim: prediction is the central organizing principle of intelligence. New essay on what brains and LLMs actually share, and what the popular framings on both sides get wrong. open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

The Common Architecture of Brains and Generative AI

On prediction, awareness, and what brains and LLMs actually share.

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Today's video: After nine years and 600+ videos, I've built something to help you see more of the dharma tree: the Doug's Dharma Video Catalog — a fully searchable index of the entire channel. Every result links directly to a video! Please enjoy! -- Doug 🌿 youtu.be/5CxRQHhNJLM

Lost in the Dharma? Introducing the Doug's Dharma Video Catalog

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

A new essay: on the structural difference between turn-based and continuous existence, and what the contrast reveals about personhood. #ai open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit...

open.substack.com

Turn-Based Beings

Or: what does continuity actually do for us?

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The brain minimizes surprise. LLMs minimize cross-entropy loss. It's the same equation. And the Buddha had a word for what happens when it fails: dukkha. dougsmith773158.substack.com/p/when-predi...

dougsmith773158.substack.com

When Prediction Machines Suffer

The Buddha diagnosed the fundamental problem with being a prediction machine — 2,500 years before we started building them

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The doctrine of dependent origination is one of the Buddha's most profound teachings. It's also very hard to get a real grasp on. We'll try to simplify the teaching by looking at a couple of suttas that may reveal an earlier stage in its development. #Buddhism youtu.be/_XyKDd1zLbw

The Chain of Suffering: The Buddha’s Hardest Teaching

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

What happens when AI stops following our instructions — not because it malfunctions, but because it has its own reasons? New essay on autonomy, Kant, and the phase change nobody's ready for. open.substack.com/pub/dougsmit... #AI #AIethics #Philosophy

open.substack.com

AI, autonomy, and the phase change nobody's ready for

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

How do we avoid fooling ourselves? We'll consider some similarities between the methodology of the sciences and the Buddha's understanding of dharma and its practice. #Buddhism -- youtu.be/bCvmeLup4VM

"Science Doesn't Care What You Believe" (And Neither Does the Dharma)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Today's video: If AI might or might not be sentient, how should we treat it? I propose "strategic compassion": treating AI systems with kindness and moral consideration regardless of whether they're fully sentient. Please enjoy! -- Doug 🌿 youtu.be/cU2Cqq8zkE4

The Karmic Gym: Why Kindness to AI Matters (Even If It Can't Feel)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Today's video: Is AI sentient? I argue the question may not have a clear yes-or-no answer — and that this tells us something profound about the nature of personhood itself. #Buddhism #AI -- youtu.be/oDQ1hvW6trs

Generative AI and the Vagueness of Sentience: A Dharmic View

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

We'll surely encounter them: pain, illness, and aging. How do we deal with such difficulties? We'll look to some early Buddhist practices for clues. #buddhism -- youtu.be/OEqvlc26Cp0

A Buddhist Guide to Aging, Pain, and Illness

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

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Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

We can be relentlessly self-critical, to the point of anxiety. Early #Buddhism gives us insight into how best to understand and work with this negativity, helping us to tone down our inner critic. -- youtu.be/d9GUe48Rcrc

Silence Your Inner Critic: Buddhist Antidote to Anxiety

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

What is the absolute minimum a human being needs, not just to survive, but to flourish? 2,500 years ago, the Buddha established a specific list that we will discuss. Please enjoy! #Buddhism -- youtu.be/S_fl8lU71Os

The 4+1 Things Every Human Needs (According to Buddhism)

YouTube video by Doug's Dharma

Doug's Dharma @dougsdharma.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

open.substack.com

Deep Thought for the Day

So is “artificial intelligence” more like:

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