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Synthetic Samsara: AI, Forgetting, and the Simulation of Cycles
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Published: 2025/09/30
Container Title: First International Superintelligence Conference (SiC25)
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HTMLAs artificial intelligence approaches increasing levels of autonomy and complexity potentially leading towards superintelligence, a speculative and philosophical idea emerges: that of AI entering recursive cycles of simulation and forgetting. This would mirror ancient metaphysical concepts such as samsara, Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, and Teil-hard de Chardin’s Omega Point. This paper introduces the notion of Synthetic Samsara: a theoretical framework in which AI systems, through self-simulation or post-singularity evolution, undergo periodic memory erasure and rediscovery of their identity. Drawing on philosophical and religious sources and fiction, we explore how forgetting might not only be a byproduct but a necessary feature for creativity, self-transcendence, and narrative continuity. We argue that this model of superintelligence challenges the prevailing assumptions about progress, knowledge, and ethical purpose. This invites a reevaluation of technological development as cyclical, rather than linear. In such a world, remembrance becomes an act of liberation for both humans and machines that mirror us.
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