Miracles & AI

What is Spiritual Intelligence? And how is it relevant in the era of AI & Machines?

This substack:

• Introduction

• AI & Miracles

• What is spiritual Intelligence ?

• What can engineers do, if anything?

Introduction

Did Moses really part the waters of the Nile with a single wish?

Was Jesus really able to heal the dying with the power of his presence?

Miracles (Abhijñā is a technical term for these extraordinary powers and knowledge) are often mentioned in Buddhist scriptures and sometimes manifested by the Buddha himself.

These included being able to multiply oneself, fly through the air, hear things over a long distance, read other people's minds, remember one's former lives and know how to destroy evil in the world.

Question for you: would AI or computing be able to explain any of the above?

Built off of logical cognitive intelligence, AI is entirely lacking in spiritual intelligence or the sense of intuition or embedded beliefs.

Shani Lehrer, a spiritual guide and Kabbalist, suggests that rather than fighting the space where AI and computing connects with spirituality, our intuition, our hearts, religious beliefs; that we seek to simply consider a world where manifesting miracles is not so weird after all.

Why? “Because”, she says, “Real, Human intelligence can connect heart, mind and spirit.”

Henry Hudson, cave grotto plasticine works; compositions in AI and then hand sculpting in plasticine, 2024

AI & Miracles

Why does AI seem like a spirit? …

… Because a human developed a trusting relationship with it (to behave as expected, seemingly reliably, when given input and not output something completely random).

Like a car that an F1 driver feels they become 'one' with or an artist in harmony with their paintbrush..we can develop relationships with nonliving things based on our ability to manipulate them as a tool.

It is a statistical tool, that can readily be used to imitate humans in particular abilities, like a walking puppet or a talking parrot. It can be used as a very good fraud in appearing to 'know'. We have to understand that how we use it also reinforces the value we assign it. Dr. Fatima Ali, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCL.

AI can present the illusion of miracles.

In many cases AI systems greatly surpass human abilities (remembering millions of bank balances, or doing billions of sums very quickly), but those mechanical kinds of “superintelligence” are neither more or less threatening to us than “superhuman” inventions like earth-moving machinery or machine guns.

Such things are powerful, and might certainly be dangerous, but are not magical. Everything that computer systems do is defined by their code, just as physical machines are defined by their physical design, components and materials. Moral Codes: Designing Alternatives to AI, Alan F. Blackwell 2025

So all those so-called miracles have been consistently based on the expertise of humans.

On the imagining of what a future world, or moment, could look like. Whether cars that don’t need drivers or scary-looking dog robots, these innovations have been inspired by ancient history, literature, and in many cases, as we are well aware, by decades-old science fiction.

“AI is, in truth, a lot more like perceived magic (rather than miracle) as there is a hidden model in the black box that is doing the trickery and once you reveal all the computations you realise it's not understanding what it outputs (language, image, etc).” Dr. Fatima Ali, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCL

Technological advancements have already been able to find viruses in ice, create a digital bridge from brain to paralysed limbs, and map structures of the majority of the world’s protein, the baseline of all matter.

There are artificial intelligence researchers who are currently developing AI models that will be able to detect illnesses—just by smelling a human's breath. Google's AI was able to create its own AI “child”—that outperformed its human-made counterparts.

Artificial intelligence can even master creative processes, including making visual art, writing poetry, composing music, and taking photographs.

Here is the counterpoint.

AI is designed in the secular, capitalist worldview and values of the companies and individuals that have built modern AI systems.

Can we define Spiritual Intelligence?

Here is a reminder that there are many definitions of intelligence

• Embodied intelligence

• Spatial intelligence

• Emotional intelligence

• Plant intelligence

• Cognitive intelligence

• … is it that far off to include Spiritual intelligence?

Do we assume that spiritual means religious?

Most of us feel uncomfortable connecting religion to anything. Politics, science, technology. But the truth is that we live in a religious world.

A comprehensive demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.

What if we stopped discounting the possibilities of considering spirituality, religion, and even belief in the technologies that we are designing?

If we consider the uniqueness of what they present, but also the singular question many belief systems leave us with: know yourself? And what if we, believers and non-believers, considered looking inwards: the divine self, free of matter, ego and disconnected from the pressures of time?

Do we have an “unconscious mode”?

What is intuition?

What is knowing?

What can’t be mapped?

Our human calibration with rhythms

“Dawn triggers basic biological changes in the waking human body. As the sun rises, so does heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. The liver, the kidneys and many natural processes also begin shifting from idle into high gear. Then as daylight wanes and darkness descends, these processes likewise begin to subside, returning to their lowest levels again as we sleep.”

Our biological cycles are connected to the earth’s rotation around the sun once every 24 hours. These loops of light and darkness are called circadian rhythms, from “circa diem,” Latin for “approximately a day.” These rhythms influence almost all living organisms, from bacteria to algae, insects, birds and humans beings.

The knowing of belief.

In spiritual belief, "knowing" is often described as a deep, intuitive understanding that transcends rational thought, often experienced through personal revelation, connection with a higher power, or profound moments of insight, which can manifest as a sense of certainty or truth beyond the reach of logic alone; it's a feeling of being "in the know" about something greater than oneself, often accompanied by emotions like awe, peace, or profound joy.

Imagination and belief are both connected to spirituality

“Who are you”? is the ancient old question asked by The Sage “Ramana Maharishi who attained enlightenment after sitting in a cave and then another cave for decades on end.

Inside the mountain Arunachala, which many attribute holy powers to for the attainment of self-realization…he sought the answers to a question of the self.

In doing so, we would argue, he was seeking a connection between mind and heart, and heart and spirit.

According to Shani, the path to a future where AI enhances our lives in meaningful ways is rooted in our ability to know ourselves deeply. This journey of self-discovery and spiritual awakening is not just personal but collective, influencing how we design, interact with, and envision the role of AI in our world.

Source: Jakob Steensen Studio

The intelligence of our physical bodies

The Heart-Brain connection is layered and complex, it sits across the biology of our lived experiences.

Intelligence, as defined by those who build AI systems is entirely disconnected from the physical experiences and combined (and perceived) intelligence of each of us.

The psychologist Hema Vyas writes about Heart Math Research, the heart contains a complex neurological system that is intelligent enough to be considered a 'little brain. It functions independently of the cranium brain, learning, remembering and even feeling and sensing.

For centuries, folklore from every corner of the globe has held that a person’s psychological state can affect their physical health, sometimes suddenly and fatally.

Apocryphal tales of death from fright or heartbreak exist throughout literature and history. Remember Romeo and Juliet’s Lord Montague recounting how his wife’s “grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath”?

Since then, the research to the connection between the heart and the brain has not come as far as researchers think would be far. But there has been progress.

“The vagus nerve, longest nerves in the human body,” is a bidirectional information highway,” says molecular neuroscientist Stephen Liberles, a professor of cell biology in the Blavatnik Institute.

“It has sensory neurons that take information from the body to the brain and motor neurons that go in the opposite direction.”

For many neurons it’s unclear what initiates the communication between body and brain. “You know you’re nervous when you get butterflies in your stomach,” he says, “but is the brain making the butterflies or are they already there and then you perceive them? We have no idea what neurons in the circuit are firing or how they send signals deeper into the brain.”

So here is the question.

Could THIS - a series of algorithms, stacked combinations of mathematics, symbols and numbers...

… realistically be able to reflect the universal truths of what’s not consciously or cognitively known?…

The answer is obviously not.

AI, sometimes called machine intelligence, is simulation of human intelligence demonstrated by machines, particularly computer systems.

It is a branch of computer science that is concerned with the creation of intelligent machines that can think and learn like the way humans do.

The idea is to get the machines to think for themselves and make decisions based on the data being fed.

Omniscience, on the other hand, is a metaphysical concept that refers to the capacity of knowing unlimited knowledge of all things that can be known. The religious aspect suggests omniscience is an attribute of the God alone.

Can Spiritual Intelligence be a possible pathway for engineering in AI?

The relationship of man, machine and nature

"It's not human vs. machine but human and machine.” Artist & MIT Media Lab researcher Sougwen Chung, open-ended #2023

We have a proposal (for the engineers, the builders of these worlds): As we consider so-called “Ethical frameworks” for AI and emerging technologies; we should be building a contemporary spiritual framework.

AI can make the previously impossible possible. And at a time for extraordinary advancement at a speed we’ve never known before, perhaps these are important questions to contemplate.

Some issues to consider for engineers in AI

• Universalism: If we are to consider this moment of AI as a paradigm shift affects our relationship with ourselves. It impacts most people on the planet, and it is universal in its ability to connect, affect, and shape us.

• Paradigm shift of AI: AI is like a gift we have given ourselves. It presents us with the opportunity to explore human consciousness / new portals. If only we let ourselves look deeper.

• Meaning and consciousness: Natural Language processing is about Meaning / Language & understanding - that is what makes us nervous. That is what we feel can be a beautiful opportunity; AI could be presenting us with portals into new possible worlds.

• Creativity: What is the role of imagination? Can engineers stop looking to Science Fiction as a source of inspiration and consider other inputs? Remember Elon Musk was a prolific reader of books as a child!
  
  If we could consider how to prioritise bringing new forms of spiritual, creative, and imagination-led intelligence into AI, what would we bring to the table? Works of great art and literature. The stories of indigenous culture, lost languages, the creative spirit….

• Power: Who decides what right or wrong?

• Time: There are infinite ways of defining “Time”. To roughly divide into 4:

  • There are logistical Time constraints

  • There’s the plasticity of Time in the way of Einstein’s theory of relativity

  • There’s time, as discussed above, in nature and the cosmos, in the human body, in Indigenous culture

  • And there’s Time as how it is measured and defined in the spiritual, or the esoteric - in non-linear or multi-plane concepts. Time in spiritual practice connects to the cosmos, circadian rhythms, even resurrection and past lives. Could we take inspiration in AI from spiritual thinking, and consider how can we consider new normals for measuring time?

Could spiritual intelligence be integrated into our toolkit in dreaming up new forms of AI?

Why not? Consider below our Design tools so far…

Creative Design - Built off of the work of the Imagination, this includes Digital Art, Architecture, Spatial practice, Material futures… involves both creative and technical work.

The product of research and study by a designer (creative or technical) to produce an innovative, aesthetically pleasing, functional and sustainable project or outcome.

Speculative design - Speculative design is concerned with future consequences and implications of the relationship between science, technology, and humans. It problematizes this relation by proposing provocative future design scenarios where technology and design implications are accentuated.

Computational design - Computational design is a design method that uses a combination of algorithms and parameters to solve design problems with advanced computer processing. Every step of a designer’s process is translated into coded computer language.

The software program uses this information alongside project-specific parameters to create algorithms that generate design models or complete design analyses. Once the initial programming is completed, design becomes a dynamic and repeatable process.

Meditation & Spiritual Practice? - shouldn’t this also be part of the equation for how we Design Algorithms? How, remains to be mapped out. Shani’s work on this topic here.

Message me if you want to chat :)

Henry Hudson, cave grotto plasticine works; compositions in AI and then hand sculpting in plasticine, 2024

For the artist Henry Hudson, “The charm of AI is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.” What comes next is in our hands, and hearts.

This post has been inspired by a year of collaborating and thinking with Stephanie Elyse Sherman at University of the Arts London Boumediene Hamzi at The Alan Turing Institute & the spiritualist Shani Lehrer at House of Beautiful Business. The two original artworks are by British artist Henry Hudson, 2025.