Richard G. Epstein

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In-Depth!

The Sentinel-Observer's Public Affairs

Television Program

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INNOCENCE

AND

KNOWLEDGE

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Hank Morgan, Moderator: This evening's guest is the celebrated futurist, Banki Yukamanda, who is joining us from his home in Los Angeles. Banki Yukamanda's book, The New Curriculum, has had an enormous impact upon the way that people think about the use of technology in education. Banki Yukamanda believes that we can use technology to educate a new generation that is both compassionate and creative. Mr. Yukamanda, welcome.

Banki Yukamanda: I am also interested in educating a new generation that is happy and free.

Morgan: You are a well-known futurist, but now we can add "novelist" to your list of accolades. Your new novel, The Teacher, is receiving favorable reviews across the country.

Yukamanda: Opal Winfield reviewed it most graciously in the Sentinel-Observer up there in Silicon Valley.

Morgan: It was a good review, but a book review doesn't capture the full beauty and power of your prose.

Yukamanda: You mean my editor's prose. People need to understand how the writing process works these days. My editor is an intelligent computer program, called Eddy, which went through my original manuscript sentence by sentence, line by line, word by word. So, I just provided the ideas, the words and the letters, like raw materials. The editing program rearranged the words and the letters so as to produce the finely polished prose that you got to see.

Morgan: You are exaggerating, aren't you?

Yukamanda: That's how I see the process. If you think this is just humility, then so be it. However, the truth is, wherever you see a "that" in the book, I had a "which", and wherever you see a "which", I had a "that". Eddy switched everything around, using some kind of arcane logic that was far beyond my understanding.

Morgan: I loved your book, regardless of how it was generated.

Yukamanda: I had fun writing it, and if you have a computer program that can straighten out all of those that's and which's, so much the better.

Morgan: Opal Winfield's review did not capture the depth of purpose behind your book. When she reviews a book she tries not to place herself between the reader and the book she is reviewing. She pretty much stuck to a description of the plot.

Yukamanda: Yes.

Morgan: So, I would like to ask you what you think your book is about. What were you trying to tell us through your character, Bosatso?

Yukamanda: My novel is about innocence and knowledge. To my way of thinking, this is the central issue of our age.

Morgan: That's not obvious.

Yukamanda: Let's develop this slowly then. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I believe that every human being must understand this distinction deep in their bones.

Morgan: What is innocence? What is knowledge? Can we start with that?

Yukamanda: Before I answer your question, I want to state that this issue is important because technology holds the promise of allowing us to get in touch with our innocence once again. Many people are no longer in touch with innocence, what is called "original mind" or "Buddha mind" in the religious tradition of Japan. My novel is set in Japan and my own heritage is Japanese.

Morgan: Ultimately, your interest is in getting people to see the liberating potential of technology.

Yukamanda: That's not my ultimate interest. That's one way in which my ultimate interest expresses itself in my life.

Morgan: Help us to understand this distinction between innocence and knowledge.

Yukamanda: Let me start with an anecdote. Several years ago I celebrated my fiftieth birthday. From the point of view of innocence I knew that my birthday had no particular meaning. Fifty was just a number. Banki Yukamanda is just a name.

Morgan: What do you mean when you say that Banki Yukamanda is just a name?

Yukamanda: There was a time when I was not aware that I was Banki Yukamanda. However, my parents, my siblings, my teachers, my peers at school, all made great efforts to convince me that I was Banki Yukamanda. At some point, something clicked in my brain. I realized, "Hey, this Banki fellow everyone is talking about is me. This body and mind is Banki Yukamanda." But, Banki Yukamanda is just a label. It is a fiction on some level.

One day I was flying from Chicago to Philadelphia, I was on a lecture tour, and as we flew out over Lake Michigan and finally over Lake Erie, there was a fantastic view that went on for over one hundred miles, showing Detroit, parts of Ontario, Lake Michigan, and Lake Erie. And I realized that Canada is just a concept, the United States is just a concept. These are labels that we have invented to break up the world into little pieces. Beyond the labels, there is this innocence that knows nothing of labels. Everything flows from this innocence, this original mind, including the labels. But, innocence has to do with this consciousness that is undivided, that is not polluted by labels and categories. From the perspective of innocence, fifty is just a number and Banki Yukamanda is just a name.

Morgan: Knowledge, then, has to do with the categories.

Yukamanda: With everything that has to do with thought, which is socially conditioned. We are born innocent, we have this original mind which is free and uncontaminated, but then we are destined to buy into the world of knowledge, the world of culture, the world of labels and differences. The world of knowledge is the world of suffering.

Morgan: Is this the anecdote that you promised earlier?

Yukamanda: My anecdote needed a bit of preparation. Before you can paint a landscape, you need to do some prep work. Now, I am ready to tell you the anecdote.

Morgan: Fine.

Yukamanda: One day, as my fiftieth birthday approached, one of my colleagues came into my office. I told him about my approaching birthday and then I said, "Fifty is just a number and Banki Yukamanda is just a name".

He came up to me and poked his index finger in my chest and said, "Yes, but you are fifty years old, and you are you, Banki Yukamanda". I was speaking from the perspective of innocence. He was speaking from the perspective of knowledge, of labels. His index finger was driving home the point that we need to be able to speak both from the perspective of innocence and from the perspective of knowledge. We must know ourselves and the world in both ways.

Morgan: Why?

Yukamanda: Because without the perspective of innocence human beings cannot be at peace and without the perspective of knowledge human beings cannot function effectively. The modern world, which has been influenced to such a great extent by Western thought, is grounded in knowledge. It has lost its innocence. But, this is not just a Western problem. The loss of innocence affects all cultures and all races. It is a fundamental human reality. Computer technology can help us to regain that innocence, so that people can function in both spheres.

Morgan: I know, from reading your books and your articles, that innocence is some kind of primordial reality. There's more to it than what you are saying here.

Yukamanda: The more we talk about innocence, the less innocent it becomes. The concept of innocence is in the sphere of knowledge. Thinking and talking about innocence is not innocence. Somehow, we need to develop innocence silently, as an inner certitude, so that we don't confuse thoughts about innocence with innocence itself.

Morgan: People need to see innocence directly. It does not help to sit around talking about it.

Yukamanda: Yes. If I tell you about innocence, then I might just be adding to your knowledge, which only complicates the situation. The paradox is that if you view what I have to say about innocence as a form of knowledge, then that makes you less innocent than you were before I opened my mouth. The more you conceptualize innocence, the less innocent you become.

Morgan: A return to innocence is a return to simplicity?

Yukamanda: If by simplicity you mean the rejection of all knowledge and technology, then there is no return to simplicity. We have created the sphere of knowledge. Knowledge is tremendously useful. However, knowledge must acknowledge innocence as the primordial reality. When knowledge accepts innocence as its source, then that is humility, that is surrender.

Morgan: How can knowledge acknowledge innocence as the primordial reality?

Yukamanda: By agreeing to live a joy-filled and creative life that makes no distinction between one life and another, a life that acknowledges all of life as one's own self, without exception, without any differences of race, religion, and culture. It requires mindfulness and deep insight into consciousness as conditioning.

Morgan: Does innocence mean that everyone will become the same?

Yukamanda: No. Innocence implies diversity and freedom, but the feeling of separation, of my group versus your group, all of that nonsense, will be gone.

Morgan: So what is the consciousness of innocence?

Yukamanda: People need to see it. The child represents innocence more than anyone or anything. Can't you remember what you were like before you suddenly bought into this idea that you are Hank Morgan? Can't you remember that original purity, before you accepted your racial, religious, and professional identities? Can you see that original energy, that freedom, that joy? It is still there, beneath all of the layers of conditioning.

Morgan: I have caught a glimpse -

Yukamanda: A glimpse is not enough! You must live there, unwaveringly! You must desire that more than anything, or else you will become the prisoner of circumstances, of your own conditioning. That circumstances will lead you around by the nose. You won't be able to achieve your creative and compassionate purposes. Living within innocence, you can use knowledge effectively, which means, you can be Hank Morgan after all. The Hank Morgan that lives in innocence is the real Hank Morgan, not the weakling that is led around by circumstances.

Morgan: So, the world of knowledge is the world of conditioning.

Yukamanda: The situation is that of an insect caught in an intricate spider's web. There is the conditioning that comes from the parents, the conditioning that comes from the characteristics that one inherits at birth, through the genes, there is the conditioning of society, of the educational system, of peers. It is helpful to understand the history of human consciousness, how it evolved. It was not always the way it is now. Perhaps then, realizing that our way of thinking is peculiar, that it just developed relatively recently, that human consciousness has gone through many transformations - this kind of investigation can help someone to understand their original mind, their innocence, their laughter, their joy. But, you need to put your heart and your soul into it. This isn't something that only involves knowledge.

You see, there is no death from the perspective of innocence. That entity that people call Banki Yukamanda will die, but innocence cannot die. Innocence transcends birth and death, which operate within the realm of knowledge.

Morgan: I attended a lecture that you once gave here at the university -

Yukamanda: At Silicon Valley University, or was it at Stanford?

Morgan: At Silicon Valley University. You said that the story of Adam and Eve has everything to do with this issue of innocence and knowledge.

Yukamanda: Paradise is the world of innocence. Paradise is right here. It is not some other place. It is the primordial innocence which is who you are, who I am. Adam and Eve lived in the realm of innocence. They were naked and they did not know it. They did not have this awareness of good and evil, of right and wrong. When they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they entered the world of knowledge, the world of birth and death, the world of self-consciousness and suffering.

Yet, it was only in their ignorance that they saw themselves as expelled from innocence. You see, from the perspective of innocence, knowledge and ignorance are intimately related. The very same mental processes that give rise to knowledge, also give birth to ignorance. The story of the human race from the time of Adam and Eve, who represent the first true human beings, with the kind of brain that we have, the story of the human race is the story of the attempt to regain that original innocence.

The world of knowledge has brought us to the brink of disaster. This is because we use knowledge without understanding all of the implications of the knowledge that we are using. This is one way in which knowledge and ignorance are intertwined.

We are destroying the natural beauty and diversity of the earth. We are not using technology to maximum advantage, and that has its dangers. The dehumanization of human relationships has its dangers. Knowledge cannot solve our problems, only innocence can. When people become innocent once again, when they become loving and playful once again, then they will be able to use knowledge for the benefit of all of humanity. If we are to avert catastrophe, people must make this effort to realize the nature of innocence. They must make this effort to become laughing children once again.

Morgan: That was a good synopsis of the talk that you gave at Silicon Valley University. How can technology help us to regain this innocence?

Yukamanda: There needs to be a revolution in human consciousness, and this must be rooted in innocence. This revolution cannot occur among a small elite, it must be global. Innocence is the birthright of every human being. Innocence is not the province of some religious or spiritual elite. You don't need a Ph.D. in order to become innocent. Human beings of all cultures and religions and nationalities need to understand their own consciousness in order to see the original consciousness that is not rooted in knowledge. This requires education and refinement and passionate effort. Computer technology can help to educate the masses as never before. We can use computers to help people to view reality in new ways. We can use computers to help to free people from thousands of years of cultural conditioning and oppression.

Enlightenment, the knowledge of God, is not the province of a few specialists. It is the fundamental human birthright. Every human being must make efforts to live from the perspective of innocence. We can use computers to help human beings to become more aware of their own mental processes, because innocence flows from this deeper awareness.

Morgan: How can computer technology help people to regain that original innocence?

Yukamanda: When a person understands his own consciousness or mind, the realm of knowledge, then the realm of innocence will emerge from that. It requires a thorough investigation. The educational resources of the Global Landscape can help people to understand human history and the evolution of consciousness. Those resources can help people to understand other cultures and perspectives. Those resources can help people to understand human origins, human history, and human nature. By assuring the widespread distribution of this kind of knowledge, people can come to a deeper level of self-understanding. If that is pursued with enough vigor, innocence will emerge.

Morgan: You do not see artificial intelligence as a threat to human sovereignty.

Yukamanda: We live in a time where there are many conflicting voices. Some people would have us believe that the computer is the invention of the devil himself. The computer is stealing human passion and creativity, and all of that.

A central tenet of what I have been saying during the last several years, since I left Japan and returned to the United States as a futurist, is that the development of artificial intelligence represents an opportunity for people to return to innocence.

In order to see this, people need to investigate the role of knowledge in our culture and the manner in which the elite in past generations controlled knowledge and used it to control the behavior of the masses.

So, now I have two trains of thought started, and I do not know where to go with this.

Morgan: Well, one train of thought is that artificial intelligence represents an opportunity to return to innocence.

Yukamanda: Yes, but the other train of thought, which is equally important, is the way that knowledge has been used in the past. When you understand these two issues, you will see artificial intelligence in a completely new light.

Morgan: I can help you to develop these two trains of thought. That's what I am here for.

Yukamanda: Thanks. There is so much to say, and so little time.

Morgan: Don't you worry about time. Let's just do it. Why do you say that artificial intelligence represents an opportunity for the human race to return to innocence?

Yukamanda: Artificial intelligence represents the fact that we are being freed of the burden of knowledge, the very burden which is associated with our fall from grace. In order to appreciate this, we need to understand the role of knowledge in human culture, and the power relationships that have been involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge historically. We have developed this knowledge, but it has become a great burden for us, so we can have the computer do the knowledge extraction in the future. This will allow human beings to pursue creative and playful activities that flow directly from innocence.

Morgan: But, wait a minute! I am a doctor - let's pretend - and now this computer system comes along and it knows more about medicine that I do. So, now I am returned to innocence and I am out of a job.

Yukamanda: You have developed medicine to this ultimate, intellectual extent. Now, it is so complicated, that only a computer can really understand it. Yes, you are out of one job, but perhaps the door is opening to another job.

Morgan: And what is that?

Yukamanda: Healing. Now that the computer has taken over the burden of knowledge, now you can do what you really always wanted to do, which is to heal, which is really a sacred thing, something that is rooted in innocence.

You see, the man in the street, the person who is not a so-called expert, is not threatened by all of this. The so-called experts are the ones who are getting all upset, because their power depends upon keeping intelligence in the biological. If intelligence migrates over to the computer, the power of the experts will decrease. We will have a much more democratic and egalitarian system.

There has been a big commotion about this Berkeley Ethics Advisor System. Professor Lowe-Tignoff, at Silicon Valley University, is one of that system's most vocal critics. He says that the Ethics Advisor is stealing from human beings. I deny that. The Ethics Advisor is freeing human beings from an onerous burden that has nothing to do with spiritual development, as he claims. I respect Lowe-Tignoff, but I think his way of thinking represents the old order.

Morgan: Can you help us with that? You see, the way that I look at it, the Berkeley Ethics Advisor is stealing from us.

Yukamanda: Innocence is innocence. It acts from within its own sphere of playfulness and love. Now, by the time you get to an ethical dilemma that is so complicated that you need the Berkeley Ethics Advisor, that will be the result of living in an environment that has been distorted by knowledge. Do you understand?

Morgan: No. Keep at it.

Yukamanda: The ethical problems that the Berkeley Ethics Advisor solves are artifacts of our artificial culture, the overly complex world that was created by the world of knowledge, of thought. Now, I have repeatedly stated that knowledge is important. It has a role to play. However, if a person finds himself in an ethical dilemma of overwhelming complexity, I think it is good that this person can consult with a computer system. That situation of overwhelming complexity is an artificial one. If that person cannot see a solution to his problem from the perspective of innocence, then why shouldn't he be able to consult with a computer program? The whole point is that artificial intelligence can help us to cope with a world that is artificial, a world that was created by knowledge, not by innocence.

Morgan: I got it.

Yukamanda: Do you know who I am named after?

Morgan: No.

Yukamanda: I am named after the great Zen master Bankei, who lived in the seventeenth century. In a wonderful story about the Zen master Bankei, some monks from a peculiar Buddhist sect came to visit him. They said, "We belong to the Precepts sect that observes all 250 Buddhist precepts. Doesn't that make us superior?" And Bankei replied, by no means does that make you superior. It makes you inferior. Because you have so many sins, so much evil in your hearts, you must live by these 250 precepts. If you lived from your original innocence, what Bankei called the Buddha mind, then you would not have any need for these precepts. Because you have the tendency to steal, you need to be told not to steal. Because you have hatred in your hearts, you need to be told not to murder. Because you have lust in your hearts, you need to be told not to commit adultery.

This is a very deep story. It tells us much about the evolution of culture and of knowledge around the world, in all cultures.

Human evil is rooted in knowledge, in the thought process. Once knowledge was born, evil inevitably followed. The various religious proscriptions were born in order to keep evil under control.

Morgan: Which brings us to that second train of thought. Let's not lose track of that. You said that people must understand how knowledge has been used to control people and how computer technology can be used to liberate people from those controls.

Yukamanda: Why do we have these controls? It's the same thing as with that Buddhist Precepts sect. If we did not have controls, people would kill each other off. There would be chaos. So, one factor in the evolution of human consciousness, including the role of knowledge in society, has been the desire by those in control not only to keep control, but also to keep order, to maintain the food supply, to sustain the kind of progress that knowledge had introduced. The rulers who wielded power were riding the whirlwind.

Knowledge is a double-edged sword if there ever was one. On the one hand, knowledge allowed for greater and greater prosperity. On the other, it introduced the need for social controls to maintain that prosperity. But, every advance in knowledge brings about new conditions that threaten the system of social controls.

As knowledge developed, people moved further and further away from innocence. Thus, they became capable of committing horrible evils. Thus, new forms of knowledge and of social control were needed to prevent those evils from arising. People needed to be threatened with all kinds of social sanctions. People needed to be threatened with eternal damnation and hell.

Now, there is the possibility, using computer technology, to help people to rediscover that original innocence. Once that innocence is re-established, the social controls will not be as necessary. We won't need laws like "do not steal" because people will lose the very desire to steal.

In order to achieve this, we must use computer technology to the greatest advantage, to bring understanding and education to the masses of people, to help people to appreciate the intrinsic beauty and worth of every human being, of every nationality, and of every culture.

Morgan: In your writings and in The Teacher, your new novel, you describe computer technologies that can help people to rediscover innocence.

Yukamanda: Yes. For example, in The Teacher I describe a prosthetic device that helped my character, Bosatso, to rediscover his original mind. That device projected images in front of his eyes whenever he allowed his mind to be distorted into the form of an angry demon or a hungry ghost, as we say in the Buddhist terminology. The point is everyone, whether Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Moslem, is doing this with their mind whenever they get angry or resentful or lustful or greedy. These energies are distortions of the original innocence. But, that is just one example.

Morgan: So, one way in which the computer can help us to regain our innocence is to make us aware of the workings of our own mind.

Yukamanda: Even the computer as metaphor can help a person to see how their mind works. Beyond that, is the innocence.

Virtual reality is and can be a powerful tool for helping people to reshape their consciousness, to leave self-centered perspectives behind, to enter the realm of innocence in which there is no "other", there is just one.

People need to realize that there are alternative ways of viewing the world, that the consciousness of frustration and suffering, is just the result of conditioning, which is knowledge, and not just formal knowledge, it is everything that the individual believes.

Morgan: In your lecture at the university, you used the phrase "the end of arrogance". Can you elaborate upon that?

Yukamanda: What I was saying is that artificial intelligence represents the end of intellectual arrogance. Indeed, all arrogance is rooted in the realm of knowledge, the realm of thought. There is no arrogance in the realm of innocence.

Now, we need to understand how the priests and priestesses of knowledge came about, how the universities came about, how the so-called experts came about. All of these institutions and roles were instruments of social control and manipulation. These institutions were established to control and regulate the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge. This gave rise to the mystique of the person of knowledge: the scientist, the engineer, the expert. So, on the one hand you had the priests and priestesses of knowledge and on the other hand you had the common folk, who needed to be controlled.

There is a kind of arrogance that comes from this kind of knowledge, knowledge that is viewed as a personal possession, like a house. I am a big expert. My whole identity depends upon the fact that I possess some arcane knowledge that you do not possess. Using that knowledge, I can manipulate you, or at least, manipulate the system so that I am safe and secure. I am not too concerned about what my knowledge does to the larger community, so long as I am secure. I can work on this nerve gas, so long as the paychecks keep coming.

Now, we find ourselves in the middle of the twenty-first century, and the computer is the unchallenged expert in many fields of knowledge. So, what happens to human arrogance? This potential for artificial intelligence was there from the beginning. At the time of the Big Bang, the possibility for artificial intelligence was there. Artificial intelligence means the end of intellectual arrogance. Artificial intelligence is a great leveler and also a liberator, for indeed, on the deepest level, the arrogant person wants nothing more but to be free of his arrogance, to become innocent like a child once more. But, the arrogant person doesn't know how to achieve this. The arrogant person has lost himself in the role that he is playing.

Morgan: Your book, The New Curriculum, suggests many ways in which computer systems can help people to become more aware and more gracious and more compassionate and more gentle - .

Yukamanda: The goal of education should be to allow the human being to retain their innocence while expressing their natural talents and creativity.

Morgan: But, you seem to have a faith, I would call it, that this is all going to come to pass, that mankind can turn away from its past, which is filled with violence and evil.

Yukamanda: Yes. I believe that there is something called Grace, which is the movement of innocence. Innocence is not something static. It is a living power or force. The movement of innocence is Grace and I feel that innocence is entering the world at the present time. Thus, I believe that more and more people will become aware of their original innocence. The presence of innocence will become palpable. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of God, as the Bible says. We won't need officials, priests, rabbis, monks, and all of the rest of it, to serve as intermediaries between us and some distant, remote God. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of God. That is Grace: the movement of innocence.

Morgan: So the presence of innocence is greater in the world now than in the past?

Yukamanda: Yes. The human race is at a turning point. That Grace, that innocence, is entering the world. That is why I believe that technology will ultimately be used in the service of that innocence, which is joy, which is playfulness, which is laughter, which is sweetness, which is love. Innocence is our original home, our original abode. It is paradise. It is Eden. By accepting the burden of knowledge we lost our innocence. As a result, we have been in exile from paradise, wandering about in confusion, conflict, uncertainty, and doubt. Now, we can hand that burden of knowledge over to the computer, and we can reclaim our rightful home, with God, in paradise.

Morgan: Thank you for sharing your insights with us.

Yukamanda: You are welcome.

Morgan: I learned a lot about innocence.

Yukamanda: About what?

Morgan: About innocence.

Yukamanda: Who said anything about innocence?

Morgan: You - .

Yukamanda: Moron!

Morgan: This whole discussion centered around the issue of innocence.

Yukamanda: Stop polluting the air waves!