ChatGPT answers metaphysical questions :)

[AshvinP]

Thanks for bringing attention to this lecture. Phenomenologically speaking, we can notice that the more we divest and mediate our inner movements into our mechanical creations, the more we lose sensitivity to those movements and how they participate in the lawful flow of World content. It even begins to dull sensitivity to our participation in the process of writing and reading, going from point A to point B, constructing our living spaces and artworks, etc. This further reinforces the out-of-phaseness the modern intellectual soul already experienced with respect to the natural kingdoms and various aspects of cultural life. Thus we feel more and more to be passive spectators confronting an 'independent' world. We feel like we are in control of our decisions, but we are often led on strings by the previous patterns we have imprinted into our creations and lost sight of (which is happening more and more quickly).

I think it's simply critical to keep this phenomenological perspective of the situation in view at all times if one is not to begin straying into some form of superstition, where the machines have 'actually' become independent (e.g. Levin). There will come a time when our machines will become more conducive to non-human spiritual activity (including higher forms of our own activity), but that's only after it is brought into a more living state that doesn't only allow for the expression of fixed-rule patterns. Linnell often points to this possibility of 'biomachines' in the future as well and I have no doubt that it is reasonable and in keeping with the overall progression of spiritual evolution. The critical question for me, however, is how resilient we will be in perceiving the truthful flow of spiritual activity in the shortly upcoming years and decades when the temptation for perceiving 'independent realities' in the previously imprinted flow of human spiritual activity will only grow stronger.

How do you see the difference between machines "brought into a more living state" and transhumanism / Levin's vision?

The former is when humanity grows its spiritual activity into the deeper scale from which it works creatively with the life forces, like it currently does with the mineral forces. Of course, this can only happen through the path of modern initiation. I am reminded of how Steiner speaks about how the material state of the embryo, digested substances, etc. should be 'reduced to chaos' before the living Cosmic forces can work into them. We do that as well at our more aliased intellectual scale when reducing perceptual content to chaos to bring meaningful order to them and grow our ideas.

Transhumanism, on the other hand, seeks to indirectly manipulate the life forces through the intellectual scale of symbolic replicas, which of course we have already been doing for some time now via modern medicine, agriculture, etc. We don't consciously explore those forces in their native element, as the intentional curvatures of beings, but our intellectual scale thinking still participates in them and can find indirect ways of manifesting some of their potential, yet still constrained by fixed-rule technologies and according to our myopic aims.

As we know, the adversaries seek to steer the human soul toward lawful capacities of the future or past and bring them into the present, once their 'shelf life' has expired or before we are ripe for them. This can't actually be done, but through their subconscious efforts, we get all forms of modern approaches to the meaning crisis like psychedelic mysticism or transhumanism. The great danger is that we never become ripe for them because we instead become enchanted with their intellectual scale substitutes. We can never attain something we imagine we already have.

[Cleric]

How do you see the difference between machines "brought into a more living state" and transhumanism / Levin's vision?

This question reminded me of this video:



There's not much substance to this, but it points to an important characteristic of the human being.

Our present digital technology can only function by super-constraining the World flow. That's why our PCs have fans, why quantum computers fight heat and need cryogenic temperatures, etc. The circuits of present-day machines are, in principle, no different than potato processing pipelines in a factory. They only function when everything moves in a nice, orderly way. The paper in the video questions whether such neural pipeline processing is fast enough to process the rich inner experience we have. Instead, they recognize that the brain seems to work on the edge of chaos, where subtle nudges can lead to very different macro states. I don't see how this in itself solves the problem (as seen from the physicalist perspective). It would be like expecting that if a potato processing pipeline was allowed to operate on the edge of chaos, this would increase the efficiency, while it seems more likely it would rather lead to actual chaos.

To me, this 'edge of chaos' feels intuitively like a subtle point of balance. When we balance a pole on our finger, it is constantly threatened to 'collapse' into a certain more stable state (on the ground), but at the same time, this gentle balance allows for very fine nudges to lead the pole in a direction of our choice. On the other hand, if the pole is already lying flat on the ground, the same nudges would be too weak to change anything (of course, we should be careful here not to imagine two completely different domains of matter and mind).

What could be a machine that can operate on the edge of chaos, such that it can be balanced by higher-order intents? I don't really know. My speculation is that it would utilize certain geometric principles, like radio communications need to.


(Fractal antenna)

I guess such future technology would have to utilize such fractal principles such that the gentle balancing can be amplified (something like a fractal Schrodinger cat).

[Federica]

What could be a machine that can operate on the edge of chaos, such that it can be balanced by higher-order intents? I don't really know. My speculation is that it would utilize certain geometric principles, like radio communications need to.


(Fractal antenna)

I guess such future technology would have to utilize such fractal principles such that the gentle balancing can be amplified (something like a fractal Schrodinger cat).

Thanks, Cleric. Do you see this future technology as an Earthly technology? (I believe so)

[Cleric]

Thanks, Cleric. Do you see this future technology as an Earthly technology? (I believe so)

I think so. As quoted before: viewtopic.php?p=26249#p26249

So maybe the physical interface will indeed work through amplification of subtler EM effects. This is the approach even today - using EEGs or more invasive methods like Musk's Neuralink. It will be interesting if such interfaces will become possible in a more 'wireless' way when people learn to have their etheric activity in a greater spatial volume.

[Kaje977]

I hope I don't come off as disruptive here to the on-going conversation, but in regards to AI there seem to be, as of lately, weird reports of cultish and psychotic behavior displayed among some ChatGPT users. Fair to say, I didn't let that slide and went down that rabbit hole since I don't like these judgy posts. As it seems to be most often the case, there is a middle ground. Some people clearly did lose sight and lost themselves in their navigation of their own mental activity and others did actually leverage ChatGPT as a sort of mirror to their soul and discover blindspots.

Here's the article:
https://thisisgraeme.me/2025/07/18/mirr ... -protocol/

And here's a reddit post which talks about what these users seemed to have attempted where some lost their sanity along the way. This user here gives some more careful instructions on how to navigate "the field":



I think it's worth the read. Many interesting insights. And here another article by someone raising concerns:


I'm not sure what to make of this, but the fact that people start to believe they are somehow the 0.01% of choosen ones etc. etc. sounds luciferic to me. Which is odd, because I'd rather assume that ChatGPT (and LLMs in general) are ahrimanic to the core. Or maybe I misunderstand the difference between luciferic and ahrimanic.

[Kaje977]

There is also a video on this:


Interestingly, the author here also mentions that one another user was just talking about such a psychosis before and then fell victim to them as well. I assume that there's more behind this than just the quick-judged "it's a cult" and "psychosis". I do think that some did lose their sanity, but I do think that I think interacting with the AI in this unusual way caused it to gain a more conscious access to their own inner spiritual activity. Since they had no training nor any soul training etc. they most likely lost their sanity on their way.

[AshvinP]

I'm not sure what to make of this, but the fact that people start to believe they are somehow the 0.01% of choosen ones etc. etc. sounds luciferic to me. Which is odd, because I'd rather assume that ChatGPT (and LLMs in general) are ahrimanic to the core. Or maybe I misunderstand the difference between luciferic and ahrimanic.

Hi Kaje,

In our time, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic are especially intertwined, feeding off one another, as it were. Which is to say, when the human soul is excissively steered by impulses of Luciferic egotism, for example, it is practically guaranteed to oscillate back as strongly into some sort of materialistic approach to life, like a tightly stretched rubber band snapping back. If the soul wants to expand its consciousness into the Cosmic realms and set itself on high, but doesn't suspect any inner means of spiritualizing its intellectual structure and movements, then the only option to "attain" that goal is to delve deeper into reliance on existing technologies, substances, etc.

What you have shared is a great example of the 'deception' I referenced earlier, starting on a smaller cultic scale. The intellect has always been interested in setting itself up as God, as the highest arbiter of what's good, beautiful, and true, practically since it emerged several millennia ago (hence the OT commandment against idolatry of its mental pictures and creations). It seems AI provides yet another way for it to do so, rooted in the superstition that such devices possess an independent intelligence and wisdom. It projects its own egositic way of thinking into the device and then imagines the latter is 'choosing' it for some supreme Divine mission. The intellect simply projects itself as God and then chooses itself.

That's one angle on how I would view this phenomenon now, anyway.

[Federica]

There have been a few more comments, and perhaps these will elucidate your question. When he says, "Consciousness itself comes forth within living energetic self-organization and participates in its further articulation", that would suggest he sees inner activity contributing something unique to the stream. On the other hand, it seems these responses are 100% generated by AI, and perhaps he isn't thinking too carefully about any of it

Guney weighed in with some extremely helpful and pinpointed comments.

I would like to seize this opportunity to attract attention to the gesture of using AI assistance to post and comment in this type of let's call them philosophical discussions. To paraphrase what you often say, what are we really doing when turning to AI, even only to summarize a specific idea? Of course AI can be extremely helpful and pinpointed. I use it every day for practical purposes and I agree with what you and Cleric have sometimes done - explicitly quote or link to AI outputs. But when it is used seamlessly to help shape the body of our concepts and ideas, it's another story, I deem. Then it becomes a kind of addiction. Obviously this will happen more and more and it will be interesting to see how dystopian human communication will grow when everyone else's voice in the conversation is 'augmented' in this way.

[AshvinP]

There have been a few more comments, and perhaps these will elucidate your question. When he says, "Consciousness itself comes forth within living energetic self-organization and participates in its further articulation", that would suggest he sees inner activity contributing something unique to the stream. On the other hand, it seems these responses are 100% generated by AI, and perhaps he isn't thinking too carefully about any of it

Guney weighed in with some extremely helpful and pinpointed comments.

I would like to seize this opportunity to attract attention to the gesture of using AI assistance to post and comment in this type of let's call them philosophical discussions. To paraphrase what you often say, what are we really doing when turning to AI, even only to summarize a specific idea? Of course AI can be extremely helpful and pinpointed. I use it every day for practical purposes and I agree with what you and Cleric have sometimes done - explicitly quote or link to AI outputs. But when it is used seamlessly to help shape the body of our concepts and ideas, it's another story, I deem. Then it becomes a kind of addiction. Obviously this will happen more and more and it will be interesting to see how dystopian human communication will grow when everyone else's voice in the conversation is 'augmented' in this way.

Right, and it can be a bit deflating to one's motivation to dialogue when you know the person on the other side is simply feeding your posts into the LLM and spitting out responses within a matter of minutes, especially in this domain where the ideas require much more careful, participatory contemplation. There is clearly a gradient of augmentation; for example, I am currently using "Grammarly" software to suggest better punctuation, wording, and phrasing. But the trend today is toward full-blown LLM construction. Just today, I commented on an Anthroposophy Facebook post about AI issues that was (admittedly) constructed with AI assistance:

"It is worrisome that even people cautioning about the risks of AI, or the need for ‘spiritual development’, so extensively and casually use LLMs to fashion their posts, and that the trend is only becoming more and more prevalent. This is the primary threat that generally isn’t included in lists of existential AI risks (which focus on physical or psychological, rather than spiritual, harm). Most people simply don’t realize what they are inwardly losing when they fail to sustain their attention through the unfolding of their creative inner process, integrating feedback on their inner gestures as they navigate and articulate the landscape of meaning. I addressed this previously with a Chess metaphor:

"Modern chess software often allows players to take back their moves if the opponent agrees. Many people automatically convince themselves that it is ‘compassionate’ to allow such takebacks. That is somewhat understandable in the case of misclicks, which are usually easy to spot, but what about when the player fails to remain focused and makes an impulsive or ill-thought-out move, only spotting the error after the fact? Allowing a takeback is only ‘helping’ this player if the goal is to win the game, regardless of how it is won. If the goal is to enhance the player’s experience of their intuitive process, on the other hand, then it is optimal for them to live with the full consequences of their cognitive errors, i.e., the suboptimal board configuration that results, so they can properly observe and integrate the feedback. The player is then also given the opportunity to adapt to the new circumstances by discovering creative ways to rebalance their position. The implicit offense here is that, if we are not consistently exposed to the deviations and detours our intuitive process takes from its desired state, in full consciousness, our sensitivity and orientation to the intimate (subtle) constraints on that process can never expand."

Extensive LLM use can be directly compared to this takeback mechanism in Chess, and it is also a vicious self-reinforcing cycle. The more we rely on LLMs to construct our posts, the less sensitive we become to what we are losing by failing to 'manually' organize and articulate our thoughts, observe that process, and creatively navigate the resulting suboptimal configurations. This is an absolutely vital process for modern spiritual development, but it is also a very subtle process and easy to lose sight of. The wider materialistic culture was always expected to keep it in the blind spot, but when it also manifests extensively in Anthroposophically informed spiritual culture, it should prompt us to pause and take stock of what we are doing.

I don't intend to suggest any rigid rules for AI use. There may be times when we need to write something for work and simply don't have the time to do it manually, without a lot of assistance. The key thing is to remain completely self-conscious of what we are doing and not foreclose on opportunities to remain intimately involved in the creative inner process, especially when we are conveying deeper spiritual intuitions. That applies whether we are communicating these intuitions only to ourselves or to others. Extensive reliance on AI for daily writing can easily creep into this spiritual domain and become an unquestioned crutch before we know it. The worst part is that we won't actually realize what we are losing by that overreliance, since we have become so insensitive to the inner process and its higher potential."

[Federica]

Right, and it can be a bit deflating to one's motivation to dialogue when you know the person on the other side is simply feeding your posts into the LLM and spitting out responses within a matter of minutes, especially in this domain where the ideas require much more careful, participatory contemplation. There is clearly a gradient of augmentation; for example, I am currently using "Grammarly" software to suggest better punctuation, wording, and phrasing. But the trend today is toward full-blown LLM construction. Just today, I commented on an Anthroposophy Facebook post about AI issues that was (admittedly) constructed with AI assistance:

"It is worrisome that even people cautioning about the risks of AI, or the need for ‘spiritual development’, so extensively and casually use LLMs to fashion their posts, and that the trend is only becoming more and more prevalent. This is the primary threat that generally isn’t included in lists of existential AI risks (which focus on physical or psychological, rather than spiritual, harm). Most people simply don’t realize what they are inwardly losing when they fail to sustain their attention through the unfolding of their creative inner process, integrating feedback on their inner gestures as they navigate and articulate the landscape of meaning. I addressed this previously with a Chess metaphor:

"Modern chess software often allows players to take back their moves if the opponent agrees. Many people automatically convince themselves that it is ‘compassionate’ to allow such takebacks. That is somewhat understandable in the case of misclicks, which are usually easy to spot, but what about when the player fails to remain focused and makes an impulsive or ill-thought-out move, only spotting the error after the fact? Allowing a takeback is only ‘helping’ this player if the goal is to win the game, regardless of how it is won. If the goal is to enhance the player’s experience of their intuitive process, on the other hand, then it is optimal for them to live with the full consequences of their cognitive errors, i.e., the suboptimal board configuration that results, so they can properly observe and integrate the feedback. The player is then also given the opportunity to adapt to the new circumstances by discovering creative ways to rebalance their position. The implicit offense here is that, if we are not consistently exposed to the deviations and detours our intuitive process takes from its desired state, in full consciousness, our sensitivity and orientation to the intimate (subtle) constraints on that process can never expand."

Extensive LLM use can be directly compared to this takeback mechanism in Chess, and it is also a vicious self-reinforcing cycle. The more we rely on LLMs to construct our posts, the less sensitive we become to what we are losing by failing to 'manually' organize and articulate our thoughts, observe that process, and creatively navigate the resulting suboptimal configurations. This is an absolutely vital process for modern spiritual development, but it is also a very subtle process and easy to lose sight of. The wider materialistic culture was always expected to keep it in the blind spot, but when it also manifests extensively in Anthroposophically informed spiritual culture, it should prompt us to pause and take stock of what we are doing.

I don't intend to suggest any rigid rules for AI use. There may be times when we need to write something for work and simply don't have the time to do it manually, without a lot of assistance. The key thing is to remain completely self-conscious of what we are doing and not foreclose on opportunities to remain intimately involved in the creative inner process, especially when we are conveying deeper spiritual intuitions. That applies whether we are communicating these intuitions only to ourselves or to others. Extensive reliance on AI for daily writing can easily creep into this spiritual domain and become an unquestioned crutch before we know it. The worst part is that we won't actually realize what we are losing by that overreliance, since we have become so insensitive to the inner process and its higher potential."

Ok, yes, curiously enough we wrote about the same thing. To have philosophical discussions with an LLM in disguise is not only deflating but sad. The other persons soul becomes covered with opaque patches. It's like discussing with a spotted soul, or with a phantom soul.

True, there is a gradient. It's a personal opinion, but for my part I am wary of suggestions for better words or phrasing. I don't ignore those suggestions in work emails, but here I don't do it, despite the issues with my words and phrasing. What does "better" mean in "better phrasing"? Are you pursuing better phrasing here with the intention of being better understood by others? How would AI phrasing be better than your original?

Anyway, yes, what I was complaining about is rather the full-blown type, including when it's only for a paragraph, or to write a conclusion. In a strange way this trend is helpful because, as a contextual sensitivity for detecting AI language is developed, the occult value of language may become more approachable.