Psychological Science ›› 2018, Vol. ›› Issue (4): 1010-1016.

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Five-Level Hierarchy of Subject with Mind based on the Five-Aggregate Model in Buddhism

Chun-Hui SUN1,Chengzhi FENG   

  • Received:2017-09-30 Revised:2018-04-05 Online:2018-07-20 Published:2018-07-20
  • Contact: Chengzhi FENG

基于佛家五蕴学说的心智主体五层次模型

孙春晖,冯成志   

  1. 苏州大学心理系
  • 通讯作者: 冯成志

Abstract: The rapid development of researches on artificial intelligence has proposed a potential but strong demand for highly systematic psychology theory. As Buddhism is considered to be a rigorous and logical oriental psychology system, the Five-Aggregate Model, which is the thread of Buddhism Psychology, is elaborated detailedly in this article to analyze the structure of an ideal artificial intelligence. In the Five-Aggregate Model, activities of a subject with a mind were divided into five aggregates (khandas), which are rūpa (physical matter and body), vedanā (feelings, or affect valence, to be precise), sa??ā (perception, or cognition of conceptions), sa?khāra (volition), and vi??ā?a (phenomenal consciousness). To clarify the question that how to build an artificial intelligence subject within the principles of Five-Aggregate Model, a five-level hierarchy of Subject with Mind was presented. At the Physical Level, a subject with mind shall provide the material environment and the sensors of rūpa, reflect vedanā changes by facial or body expressions, produce physical or verbal behavior in the control of sa?khāra, and display the processing of vi??ā?a. At the Manifesting Level, a subject with mind should be able to manifest real-time activities of the eight kinds of vi??ā?a, which contains the activities of other levels. At the Psychological Level, a subject with mind should execute psychological processing functions to generate data of vedanā, sa??ā and sa?khāra, and characterize the contents and objects of these functions in material, abstract, verbal or relational forms. The System Level and the Storage Level correspond with deep processes of the seventh and eighth vi??ā?a, especially the eighth one called ālaya-vi??ā?a, which actually was the noumenon of the whole world. At the System Level, a subject with mind should arrange and organize the operations of the whole system with four main functions. The first is to provide the processing of whole system with a tag of "Myself" to the Manifesting Level. The second is to control the environment to reward or punish this subject according to the history of its behavior. The third is to generate and record data into the Storage Level, while the fourth is to convert these data into actual activities of any level in this system. Finally, at the Storage Level, a subject with mind should store several types of data that the other levels may use. These data includes: 1. basic attributes and existing forms of physical matter, 2. drivers of sensors and operators of the Physical Level, 3. functions to realize the law of physical world, 4. functions of psychological processes, 5. functions to characterize psychological data, 6. decoding solution of physical or psychological data, 7. manifesting solution of the former, 8. the connectionist network from physical data to psychological processes, 9. the network between psychological processes, 10. the network from psychological processes to physical or verbal operations, and 11. the functions of the System Level, et al. In conclusion, the Five-Aggregate Model is not only a systemic description of human mental processes, but also a framework that can be introduced into the area of artificial intelligence studies, which may reunite Psychology with AI research.

Key words: Artificial Intelligence, Buddhism, Five Aggregates, Subject with Mind, System of Mind

摘要: 人工智能领域突飞猛进的发展态势,对系统的心理学理论提出了潜在而强烈的需求。佛教被认为是系统的东方心理学体系,其中五蕴体系是其核心框架,对于人工智能研究有着重要的参考价值。为了揭示人工智能系统的功能细节,本研究提出一个辅助性的五层次心智主体模型,据此对五蕴进行逐一分析,最终得出一份心智主体的功能清单,最终说明:五蕴体系不仅能描述人类心智结构,同时也能为人工智能的构建提供框架。

关键词: 人工智能, 佛教, 五蕴, 心智主体, 心智系统