(This is an edited transcript of the video)
I’m going to do something a bit self-indulgent here and just riff for a few minutes. I’ve been asking myself: what is this project I’ve been working on for the past 18 months? It started with implementing Internal Family Systems (IFS) in ChatGPT, and now I’m translating Naranjo’s book on the Enneagram subtypes. What connects all this? It’s not like I have a tidy answer. I’ve been doing the work without naming the project, which is the beauty of independent work—you just do stuff and figure out why later. But it feels like it’s time to start naming it.
I think it begins with describing the moment we’re in and the energy behind it. Dreyfus is my guide here, specifically his book What Computers Still Can’t Do the follow-up to his first critique of AI. Dreyfus isn’t around anymore to comment on the current state of affairs, but two quotes from his work frame the urgency I feel right now.
The first quote:
If we are on the threshold of creating artificial intelligence, then we are about to see the triumph of a very special conception of reason. If reason can be programmed into a computer, this will confirm an understanding of man as object, an idea Western thinkers have been moving toward for 2,000 years. But if AI turns out to be impossible, we will have to distinguish human from artificial reason, changing our view of ourselves. Thus, the moment has come either to face the truth of the tradition's deepest intuition or to abandon the mechanical account of man's nature.
The point here is that things are coming to a head. We’re either about to prove that reason – the supposed essence of human nature – is mechanical, or we’re going to have to throw that intuition away. This is 2,000 years of Western philosophy culminating in this moment. It’s a big deal.
But Dreyfus goes further. He argues that this isn’t just a spectator sport where we wait to see who wins. He highlights the deeper issue: our nature is malleable. This malleability, according to Dreyfus, is in fact more core to our nature than pure reason. Here’s the second quote:
Man’s nature is indeed so malleable that it may be on the point of changing again. If the computer paradigm becomes so strong that people begin to think of themselves as digital devices on the model of artificial intelligence, then, since machines cannot be like human beings, human beings may progressively become like machines. The risk is not the advent of superintelligent computers, but of sub-intelligent human beings.
So this isn’t a spectator sport where we observe the outcome from a safe distance. The stakes are existential. We could end up reshaping our own being to fit the machine model, essentially lobotomizing our human faculties to commune better with AI. This self-fulfilling prophecy could have us saying, “Look, machines can reason just like us,” when really we’ve just reduced ourselves to fit their capacities.
I’ve long wanted to play some role in refuting the notion that human nature is mechanistic. But the irony is, I’ve also seen just how mechanistic we already are. So much of our behavior runs on automatic patterning. This is something I’ve encountered thanks to my training in Buddhism, initially through Ken McLeod’s Wake Up to Your Life, and also through working with the Enneagram.
In IFS, we talk about parts—sub-personalities that act like little machines, each with their own job. They have a kind of programmed logic: if they don’t do their job, something terrible will happen. They work tirelessly, often in conflict with each other, like subroutines in a computer program. Despite their human-like qualities, they’re built on stories and instructions. There probably aren’t even that many of them—maybe 200 possible parts, give or take. Through their combinations, we get the full spectrum of human behavior. It’s super programmable.
The Enneagram offers another lens. It’s an architecture of the psyche that lays out nine core ego patterns—or 27 if you include subtypes. Each represents a distinct “pattern imperative,” a kind of automatic rule we live by. For example: Must fit in, can’t stand out. These imperatives drive our thinking, feeling, and doing, and they operate in a mechanistic way. Human reason can’t be pulled out and dropped into a computer program, but much of our reasoning is automatically produced by these stories.
And yet, there’s a non-mechanistic element—the awareness piece, what IFS calls the Self. This is the spacious, loving capacity within us that isn’t ruled by any part. The work in IFS is to become increasingly self-led, to identify more with this capacity than with any single part, no matter how urgent its job feels. When awareness touches a part, something shifts. It’s this non-mechanistic awareness that brings me back to the Enneagram’s spiritual dimension, the upward motion that points to a non-mechanical, mysterious, embodied reality.
We’re at a psycho-spiritual crossroads. Freud’s model of a libido-driven psyche gave way to attachment theory and object relations, focusing on the early templates set by our primary caregivers. But there’s a third stage emerging, one that the Enneagram speaks to more directly. It acknowledges that our character structures—these patterned imperatives—are built on flimsy, ungrounded stories. They persist because part of us maintains the illusion that they’re real, that they stand on solid ground. This is what Naranjo calls the ontic vacuum—a kind of emptiness or void at the core of our character structure.
The inner work is about dismantling this, facing the void, and discovering that there’s more to us than these stories. It’s scary, sure—it feels like looking into the abyss. But both IFS and the Enneagram create a framework for this exploration, helping us see that there’s an abiding presence capable of being with and holding the most intense experiences.
So what’s the project? It’s about creating an architecture of the psyche that can be mirrored by machines in a way that helps us see our own automatic processes. By holding up this mirror, we can reclaim our true, non-mechanistic nature. The goal isn’t to program humanity into machines but to use the reflection to help us break free from our conditioned behaviors and stories.
“Buddha nature is what remains when the confusion of samsara is cleared away.” -KM
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