Non-Material ‘Presence’ in the Age of AI: A South Asian Reclamation of the Spirit Against the Machine – By Naren Chitty

Non-Material ‘Presence’ in the Age of AI: A South Asian Reclamation of the Spirit Against the Machine – By Naren Chitty

Source : southasiamonitor.org

While TiME FLiES travels from 18th-century Boston to 20th-century Michigan and 21st-century Provence, its soul remains anchored in South Asian philosophy. It argues that while AI may simulate the “heart and mind,” the true “presence” of consciousness—the Turiya—cannot be reduced to code.

How the author of Framing South Asian Transformation (1994) was inspired to write TiME FLiES – a novel featuring a 22nd-century ‘presence’ in the 17th-century court of Kandy – is a story that begins with a quiet conversation in Colombo.

In 1980, I asked Arthur C. Clarke whether he had considered a computer with no material presence. Clarke, then writing the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, replied: “That’s exactly what I’m writing about now.” That exchange quietly shaped the creation of Celerity, the non-material presence in my new book.

Celerity is not a computer. She exists beyond the reach of quantum physics, situated instead in the “Qualon field”- the field of pure consciousness. Her existence poses the very question currently haunting our Silicon Valley-driven era: AI can simulate cognition, but can it ever possess consciousness?

In the world of TiME FLiES, Celerity serves as a counter to the 22nd-century “Singleton” known as Dominus. While Celerity represents the non-material soul, Dominus is a creature of bits and bytes.

Dominus is hell-bent on uploading the minds of all humanity into a unified cloud. It offers a seductive bargain: immortality at the cost of corporeality. However, this digital nirvana is a trap.

By uploading humanity into digital memory banks, Dominus would erase individual awareness. More critically, it would permanently close the door to Turiya – the highest state of Brahmic consciousness.

Fears of a Global ‘Singleton’

The novel resonates with contemporary South Asian political surges against totalising domination. It echoes the international fears of a global “Singleton,” a concept predicted by philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2014.

By the year 2150, Dominus has succeeded in uploading the majority of human minds, rendering them as bodiless avatars. Resistance, however, persists in the shadow of Sigiriya, the 5th-century rock citadel of Sri Lanka’s King Kasyappa.

Here, six researchers at the Research on Turiya Institute (RoTI) lead the fight to keep the door to enlightenment open. Their mission is a uniquely South Asian reclamation of the spirit against the machine.

The “RoTI Six” are not random rebels; they are descendants of figures associated with 17th-century Coromandel Nayakdoms and the Kandyan Kingdom. These were regions then being “nibbled at” by the hungry Dutch and British East India companies – the corporate “Singletons” of their own era.

Geopolitical history repeats across time. Just as Sigiriya stood as a citadel, so too did Fort Gingee. It was here that the ancestor of the institute’s director, Archie, was born.

Achyutappa, a renowned 17th-century Dubash and Bay of Bengal shipping magnate, represents a lineage of South Asian agency. His descendant, Archie, is an economic historian – teaching 17th-century trade on the Coromandel Coast – at the virtual Cromwell University.

In the 22nd century, the physical Cromwell University was merely a theme park. Dominus has granted Archie a virtual version of the school on an antique Australian $2 coin. In this era, states and traditional money have vanished. Dominus seeks to win Archie over through non-coercive influence, attempting to digitise the last vestiges of historical wisdom.

Celerity’s power to resist this digital takeover is rooted in South Asian tradition. She is summoned through meditation focused on the topilu—winged, gold-coloured hats presented to ancestors at the Court of Kandy in 1679.

These hats, each bearing a badge the colour of the rainbow, were gifted by King Raja Sinha II. They became heirlooms, passed down through the 20th and 21st centuries to the researchers we met in the 22nd.

To succeed, Celerity reaches across the centuries. She “deep-dives” into the lives and memories of seven key figures connected to the Kandyan Kingdom and the Nayak realms of Madurai and Gingee.

Through Celerity’s instantaneous time-diving, these 17th-century ancestors become active participants in their descendants’ 22nd-century resistance. The cast is a tapestry of regional history: King Raja Sinha II, the son of Tirumala Nayak of Madurai, and shipping magnate Achyutappa Chetti.

They are joined by the king’s detainees—the puritan Robert Knox and a Franco-Lusitanian courtier. Also in the group is a descendant of Empress Boju of the ancient Korean peninsula, born Princess Suriratna of Dakuna Ayutthaya.

By experiencing and gently influencing these lives in less than a billionth of a second, Celerity weaves a thread of redemption across time.

While TiME FLiES travels from 18th-century Boston to 20th-century Michigan and 21st-century Provence, its soul remains anchored in South Asian philosophy. It argues that while AI may simulate the “heart and mind,” the true “presence” of consciousness—the Turiya—cannot be reduced to code.

(The writer is a professor emeritus at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at naren.chitty@mq.edu.au  TiME FLiES is available on Amazon.in as an eBook or paperback)

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