Beyond WhatsApp University: How Islamic Wisdom and Artificial Intelligence Could Save Us From Ourselves
What happens when a former cult member meets a peace scholar, and why AI might be our best shot at amplifying human goodness
The Curious Nobody
Jun 7th, 2025
Eight months ago, I started preparing for what I thought would be a straightforward conversation about peace studies and Hindu-Muslim tensions in India. What I got instead was a masterclass in how to be wrong about everything—and why that might be exactly what I needed.
The conversation with Dr. Yasmin Saikia, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and Co-Director of the Center of Muslim Experience in the US at Arizona State University, didn't just answer my questions. It revealed how profoundly inadequate my questions had been in the first place. More importantly, it connected dots I didn't even know existed between my personal journey out of spiritual manipulation, my evolving understanding of consciousness, and a vision for how artificial intelligence might help us amplify the better angels of human nature.
But let me back up. Because the story of how I even landed this conversation is worth telling.
The Audacity of Being Undereducated
Here's the thing: I'm probably the least qualified person to interview a distinguished scholar about religion and peace. Religious texts bore me to tears. The Quran, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita—they all strike me as elaborate metaphors for "don't be a dick" dressed up in stories that feel paternalistic and obvious. Be virtuous. Do good things. Help people. Got it. Can we move on?
I know I'm painting with a comically broad brush here. I'm no scholar, and I'm sure there are profound depths I'm missing. But here's what I do see: these traditions have produced incredible cultural artifacts over millennia. Temples, mosques, music, literature, even science—much of 17th and 18th century advancement came through Christian fathers and Islamic scholars. These weren't accidents. Religious frameworks provided the scaffolding for human evolution.
But maybe—and hear me out—we're like butterflies emerging from religious cocoons. The shell served its purpose, got us this far, but now we can derive most moral heuristics through rational thinking. When I need moral direction, I can summon relevant wisdom on demand with AI. I don't need to read the entire Bhagavad Gita to access its insights about dharma when I'm facing an ethical conundrum.
Which brings me to my atomic worldview: we're all just iterations of matter and energy that's been cycling for billions of years. When we die, we get reconstituted—either through worms if we're buried, or through atmospheric processes if we're burned. The carbon that makes up my thoughts right now was once part of a star, then maybe a dinosaur, then a tree, now me, and eventually something else entirely.
This isn't nihilistic—it's liberating. It means the only thing that matters is the current experience, right now, with empathy as our guide and first principles thinking as our tool.
So yeah, that's the intellectual framework I brought to a conversation with one of America's leading scholars on Islam and peace studies. The audacity is breathtaking when I think about it.
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The Northeast Connection
Part of why I wanted to talk with Dr. Saikia is that she's from Assam, in Northeast India. I've always been fascinated by Northeastern people—they operate on a different frequency entirely from the rest of India. There's a sensibility there, a way of being in the world that feels more integrated, less fractured by the divisions that plague other regions.
As it turned out, this wasn't just romantic fascination. Dr. Saikia introduced me to the concept of "xanmiholi"—a 600-year tradition from the Ahom Kingdom that deliberately enforced cultural diversity and pluralism. This wasn't just tolerance; it was active cultivation of difference as strength. Multiple languages, religions, and customs weren't problems to be solved but features to be celebrated.
Here's the kicker: it worked. For six centuries. We have proof that pluralistic societies aren't just possible—they're historically successful when designed thoughtfully.
The Guru Problem
Before this conversation, I'd been wrestling with what I call the "god-man problem" in India. Having spent 18 years trapped in a meditation cult (more on this in my previous posts), I've become allergic to spiritual authority figures who promise transcendence while delivering dependence.
These organizations are like elephant traps—holes covered with leaves that look like solid ground until you fall in. They provide spiritual sugar highs that make you feel special while systematically dismantling your capacity for independent thought. I lost nearly two decades to this intellectual quicksand, attending torturous events called "bhandaras" in Chennai and Mumbai, thinking I was receiving some cosmic grace from the "master."
The tragedy isn't just personal time lost. It's that millions of people are trapped in similar systems, surrendering their critical faculties to human beings who've figured out how to monetize the search for meaning.
But here's what Dr. Saikia helped me understand: there's a difference between spiritual manipulation and genuine peace-building. The former requires surrender of intellectual authority; the latter demands its cultivation.I'll be very very hungry by the time it arrives thank you though
Peace as Muscle Memory
When I asked Dr. Saikia what peace actually means, she rejected every static definition I offered. Peace isn't a destination or a state of being—it's a continuous process. Like developing a muscle, you have to work at it constantly, with progressively harder challenges, to build strength.
This resonated profoundly because it mirrors my own journey toward becoming less of a dick to my wife.
I used to be cruel in arguments, launching hurtful attacks because that's how I was raised—cruelty got normalized in my household, so it became my default weapon. But over the past few years, influenced partly by Sam Harris's meditation app and partly by just paying attention to the consequences of my actions, I've been rewiring this pattern.
Now when we disagree, I try to understand her perspective before launching into defensive mode. I look for nuance instead of ammunition. And the result? Incredible peace. Not the absence of conflict, but the presence of empathy even during conflict.
This is what Dr. Saikia meant about peace as process. It's not about eliminating all friction—it's about developing the capacity to navigate friction skillfully.
The Sam Harris Interlude
Speaking of Sam Harris, his meditation insights have been crucial to this whole journey. He talks about breaking the illusion of the self by recognizing that thoughts appear in consciousness the same way all other sensory inputs do—vision, hearing, touch, taste. They're all waves in the ocean of awareness.
The problem comes when we identify with our thoughts, becoming reactive to our own mental chatter about things that happened three days ago or might happen next week. These are evolutionary vestiges from when life was genuinely precarious—when a snake bite could kill you, when there was no anesthesia for injuries, when the Black Plague could wipe out half of Europe.
We had rational reasons to constantly brood about past threats and future dangers. But now? We can finally escape that fight-or-flight mindset rationally. We've made incredible progress, but we're still running prehistoric software in modern hardware.
The meditation practice helps debug this code, creating space between stimulus and response where wisdom can emerge.
The Islamic Revelation
Here's where Dr. Saikia completely shifted my understanding. I expected her to be formally religious given her position as co-director of the Center for Muslim Experiences in America. What I didn't expect was how naturally her Islamic framework aligned with my rational, empathy-based approach to life.
She explained that "Islam" comes from the root word "salam"—peace. The whole point is submission to divine will as a path to inner peace. But not submission to human authority figures—direct relationship with the divine, without intermediaries.
The original "Document of Medina" from 622 AD created equal rights and shared responsibilities across religious communities. Early Islamic traditions contained extensive animal rights protections that would make modern environmentalists proud. The greeting "Assalamu alaikum" literally means "may peace be upon you."
This isn't the Islam you see in inflammatory WhatsApp forwards or Fox News segments. This is Islam as humanistic philosophy, as a framework for building inclusive communities based on mutual recognition and care.
The Othering Problem
Dr. Saikia's work on "othering" crystallized something I'd been sensing but couldn't articulate. We live in an era of manufactured division, where political leaders deliberately create "us versus them" narratives to maintain power.
But here's what's insidious: the same psychological mechanism that allows us to "other" humans based on religion or ethnicity is what allows us to "other" animals based on species. The conversations I've been having with animal rights advocates like Dulki Seethawaka and Varnika Singh have made this connection impossible to ignore.
When we expand our circle of moral consideration—whether to include marginalized humans or sentient animals—we're practicing the same fundamental skill: recognizing consciousness and suffering in beings different from ourselves.
The AI Amplification Theory
This is where everything connects to my biggest obsession: artificial intelligence as the ultimate amplification tool for human potential.
Think about it. For the first time in history, we have technology that can democratize access to intelligence, wisdom, and resources without requiring massive budgets or teams. We can finally pick the low-hanging fruit that improves discourse, counters misinformation, and connects people across artificial divisions.
Imagine AI systems that could:
Provide historical context when inflammatory religious content goes viral
Help people access wisdom from traditions like the Ahom Kingdom's xanmiholi
Create "ambient" peace-promoting content to counter WhatsApp University propaganda
Facilitate genuine cross-cultural dialogue by translating not just languages but cultural frameworks
The technology exists. The question is whether we'll use it to amplify our better angels or our worse demons.
The Abundance Hypothesis
Here's my wild theory: most human conflict stems from perceived scarcity. When resources, opportunities, and status feel limited, we default to zero-sum thinking. Your gain becomes my loss. Your success threatens my security.
But what if AI-driven abundance could eliminate this artificial scarcity? What if everyone could access high-quality education, meaningful work, and basic security? What if intelligence itself—previously hoarded by institutions and elites—became as freely available as sunlight?
Dr. Saikia's historical examples prove that humans can create inclusive, thriving communities when the conditions are right. The Ahom Kingdom managed this for six centuries without modern technology. Imagine what we could accomplish with tools that amplify rather than diminish our collaborative capacity.
The Personal Is Political (and Atomic)
Here's what struck me most about the conversation: everything is connected. My journey from spiritual manipulation to rational inquiry mirrors humanity's transition from authority-based to evidence-based thinking. My evolving relationship with my wife reflects the same skills needed for societal peace-building. The consciousness insights from meditation connect to the ethical frameworks of major religions, which connect to the technological possibilities of AI.
We're all made of the same recycled stellar material, temporarily organized into conscious configurations that can recognize suffering and respond with compassion. The atoms that compose my empathy for marginalized humans are the same atoms that could compose empathy for factory-farmed animals or future artificial intelligences.
This isn't mysticism—it's basic physics applied to ethics.
What Peace Actually Looks Like
After eight months of preparation and one transformative conversation, here's what I think peace means in practice:
Personal Level: Developing the capacity to respond rather than react, to seek understanding before seeking to be understood, to treat disagreement as information rather than attack.
Community Level: Creating institutions and cultures that actively celebrate diversity rather than merely tolerating it, like the Ahom Kingdom's xanmiholi tradition.
Technological Level: Using AI to amplify wisdom traditions from all cultures, counter divisive misinformation, and create conditions of abundance that reduce zero-sum competition.
Species Level: Expanding our circle of moral consideration to include all sentient beings, recognizing that the same capacity for suffering that makes us worthy of compassion exists in other forms of consciousness.
The Work Ahead
Dr. Saikia is developing something she calls "Peace Humanities"—a systematic cataloging of how different cultures throughout history have conceived and practiced peace. This isn't about imposing Western values or promoting any single tradition. It's about demonstrating that peace-building is a universal human capacity expressed through beautifully diverse cultural forms.
The goal: proving that harmony isn't utopian but practical, not naive but necessary, not imported but indigenous to human nature when conditions support it rather than undermine it.
My contribution to this vision? Using platforms like The Idea Sandbox to amplify voices like Dr. Saikia's, to counter the inflammatory narratives that dominate social media, and to explore how technology can support rather than sabotage our collective capacity for wisdom.
The Meta-Point
If you've made it this far, you might be wondering why a conversation about Islamic peace studies matters to your daily life. Here's why: we're living through a historical moment where the tools we create in the next few years will determine whether technology amplifies human wisdom or human folly.
The same AI systems that could help us access the accumulated peace-building wisdom of all cultures could also accelerate division, misinformation, and conflict. The choice isn't automatic—it requires intentional effort from people who understand both the technological possibilities and the human stakes.
Dr. Saikia represents the scholarly rigor and historical perspective we need. The animal rights advocates I've been interviewing represent the expanding circle of moral consideration we need. The meditation insights represent the inner work we need. The AI amplification theory represents the tools we need.
The question is whether we'll have the wisdom to weave these threads together into something that serves life rather than destroying it.
Conclusion: The Universe Contemplating Itself
Remember my atomic worldview from the beginning? We're all temporary arrangements of matter and energy that achieved consciousness long enough to recognize other consciousness. The universe literally woke up and started contemplating itself through billions of conscious beings.
What a wild responsibility. What an unprecedented opportunity.
Dr. Yasmin Saikia helped me understand that peace isn't something we achieve—it's something we practice. Not a destination but a way of traveling. Not a product but a process.
And maybe, just maybe, we've evolved enough as a species—and created powerful enough tools—to make that practice sustainable at global scale.
The conversation continues. The work continues. The atoms that compose our capacity for wisdom keep cycling through new forms, hopefully learning something in each iteration.
Peace isn't just possible. When we understand it correctly, it becomes inevitable.
Watch the full conversation with Dr. Yasmin Saikia on The Idea Sandbox YouTube channel (link will be live when this post publishes). For more explorations at the intersection of consciousness, technology, and human potential, visit tisb.world.
What assumptions about peace, religion, or human nature have been challenged in your own life? Sometimes the most profound conversations happen when we're brave enough to admit how little we actually know.
Love and Peace (and Continuous Learning),
The Curious Nobody
tisb.world