Selves as Perspectives: From Biological Life to Superintelligence and a Bodhisattva Project

What, fundamentally, are intelligent Selves? Drawing on Buddhist epistemology, we reconceptualize intelligent agents as active perspectives distinguished solely by their perceived objects. Extending ideas from the field of Diverse Intelligences, we flesh out a theory of Selves as essentially perspectives on objects held in mind. Our model is compatible with a very broad range of material composition and provenance for agents (encompassing evolved, engineered, and hybrid beings), and comprises perspectives upon both features of the physical world and the contents of a putative space of patterns containing both low- and high-agency forms (a.k.a., minds). This framework opens pathways for AGI development that, at crucial junctures, do not depend on the self-construction and self-transcendence cycles that otherwise characterize biological evolution. Context dependent, shareable, and ultimately unbounded in space and time, the emerging agents are in principle capable of responding to stress challenges with universal care, thus transforming our understanding of intelligence itself.