Zen and Artificial Intelligence, and Other Philosophical Musings by a Student of Zen Buddhism

Paul Andrew Powell is a retired college instructor of Composition and Literature. His essays “Hobbits as Buddhists and an Eye for an ‘I’” (2011) and “On the Conceivability of Artificially Created Enlightenment” (2005) appeared in the journal Buddhist/Christian Studies, and his essay “Infinite Games in the Age of Novelty” appeared as Chapter 26 in Consciousness in Theatre, Literature, and the Arts. He presented his essay “Infinite Games in the Age of Novelty” at the Consciousness in the Arts Conference in Aberystwyth, Wales, in 2007, and his paper “Zen and Artificial Intelligence” at the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference in Tucson, Arizona, in 2002. He has been a student of Eastern thought and Zen Buddhism, in particular, for over four decades.