ChatGPT answers metaphysical questions :)

[Cleric K]

Here are few back and forths
https://chat.openai.com/

Q: Have you heard of Bernardo Kastrup?
A: Yes, I am familiar with Bernardo Kastrup. He is a Dutch philosopher, author, and researcher in the field of consciousness studies. He has written several books and articles on the nature of reality, consciousness, and the relationship between them.

He has a PhD in computer engineering and he has worked as a researcher in artificial intelligence and computer vision. He is known for his views on idealism, which is the philosophical idea that reality is ultimately mental or spiritual, and that the material world is a product of the mind or consciousness. He argues that the material world is a projection of the mind, and that the mind is the fundamental reality.

His work is considered controversial and not widely accepted in mainstream philosophy and science. However, it has received attention in some circles of consciousness studies, and has been debated and discussed by other philosophers and researchers in the field.



Q: What does Bernardo Kastrup think of materialists?
A: I don't have access to the personal opinions of specific individuals, and can only provide information about the ideas and arguments they have expressed publicly.

Bernardo Kastrup, is a philosopher who holds idealist views, which is the philosophical idea that reality is ultimately mental or spiritual, and that the material world is a product of the mind or consciousness. He argues that the material world is a projection of the mind, and that the mind is the fundamental reality.

Materialism, on the other hand, is a philosophical stance that holds that physical matter is the fundamental reality and that consciousness arises from the physical processes of the brain. Materialists argue that the world we perceive is real, and that the mind is a product of the brain.

Given these different perspectives, it's likely that Bernardo Kastrup may not agree with the materialist perspective, and may argue that it doesn't fully capture the nature of reality. However, it is worth noting that he may acknowledge the contributions of materialism to the understanding of the world and consciousness, but he may also argue that it doesn't fully account for the nature of consciousness and the mind.



Q: Would I know that consciousness exists if I can't think about it?
A: The question of whether one can know that consciousness exists if one cannot think about it is a complex and longstanding philosophical issue.

One argument is that consciousness is closely tied to our ability to think, and that without the ability to think, one would not be able to know or experience consciousness. However, some philosophers argue that consciousness exists independently of thinking, and that the experience of consciousness is the fundamental reality, even if one cannot think about it.

It's worth noting that some philosophers argue that the existence of consciousness can be inferred through the existence of subjective experience, such as perception, emotions and sensations, regardless of the ability to think or reflect on it.

Another approach is by looking at the scientific evidence, such as the study of neural correlates of consciousness, which suggest that consciousness arises from the activity of specific areas of the brain, even in cases of severe brain damage or disorders that affect the ability to think.

In short, whether one can know that consciousness exists if one cannot think about it is a complex question that has been debated for centuries in philosophy and science, and different philosophers and scientists have different perspectives on the issue.



Q: Can we be certain that a non-spiritual world exists if all that we ever know is of spiritual character like sound, color, feelings, thoughts and so on?
A: The question of whether we can be certain that a non-spiritual world exists if all that we ever know is of a spiritual character is a complex and longstanding philosophical issue known as the problem of external world skepticism.

One perspective is that our experience of the world, including sensations such as sound, color, feelings, and thoughts, can be explained by physical processes, and that this provides evidence for the existence of a non-spiritual world. This idea is known as materialism, and it holds that physical matter is the fundamental reality and that consciousness arises from the physical processes of the brain.

Another perspective is that our experience of the world is ultimately a product of the mind or consciousness, and that the material world is an illusion or projection of the mind. This idea is known as idealism, and it holds that reality is ultimately mental or spiritual.

It's worth noting that different philosophers and scientists have different perspectives on the nature of reality and the relationship between the material and spiritual worlds, and that the question of whether we can be certain of a non-spiritual world is still open to debate and interpretation.

In short, whether we can be certain that a non-spiritual world exists if all that we ever know is of spiritual character is a complex question that has been debated for centuries in philosophy and science, and different philosophers and scientists have different perspectives on the issue.



Q: What is Rudolf Steiner's "Philosophy of Freedom" about?
A: Rudolf Steiner's "Philosophy of Freedom" is a book that was written by the Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, in 1894. It is considered one of his most important works and it presents his understanding of human freedom and the nature of reality.

In the book, Steiner posits that the human being is a unique and independent being, and that the capacity for freedom is an essential aspect of our nature. He argues that true freedom can only be achieved through the development of self-awareness and self-determining will, which he calls "moral individuality". He believes that by developing this moral individuality, individuals can transcend the limitations of their physical and social environments and achieve true freedom.

He also argues that the world we perceive is not the ultimate reality, but rather a reflection of our own inner states. He believes that the material world is a projection of our own consciousness and that the ultimate reality is the spiritual realm. He argues that the spiritual realm is the source of all knowledge, and that true understanding of the world can only be achieved through spiritual insight.

Steiner's "Philosophy of Freedom" is considered to be a work of spiritual-scientific humanism and it has influenced the development of Anthroposophy, a spiritual movement that Steiner himself founded.
It's worth noting that Steiner's ideas and concepts are not widely accepted by mainstream philosophers and scientists, but they have a following among people interested in spiritual and alternative ways of understanding the world.



Q: Have you heard of Michael Levin?
A: Yes, I am familiar with Michael Levin. He is a philosopher and neuroscientist, who is known for his work on the relationship between consciousness and biology. He is currently a professor of philosophy at the City University of New York and has written several books and articles on the topics of consciousness, philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of biology. He has also been a visiting professor at several universities and has given many lectures on the topics he's interested in. He is known for his views on panpsychism, which is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, and that all matter has some form of consciousness. He has also written about topics such as the nature of life, the relationship between biology and consciousness, and the implications of these ideas for our understanding of the world.



Q: Is chemistry alone enough to explain biological life?
A: Chemistry plays a fundamental role in the study of biology and the understanding of life. The chemical processes that occur within living organisms, such as metabolism, gene expression, and cellular communication, are essential to the maintenance of life. However, chemistry alone is not considered to be enough to fully explain biological life.

The study of biology also involves understanding the complex interactions and organization of living systems at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels. Additionally, the study of evolution, ecology, and behavior are also important aspects of understanding the diversity and function of life.

Moreover, some scientists and philosophers argue that there are certain aspects of life, such as consciousness, that cannot be fully explained by chemical processes alone and that other perspectives such as information theory, self-organization, and computational principles are also necessary to understand living systems.

In short, chemistry plays a crucial role in understanding the fundamental processes of life, but it alone is not sufficient to fully explain the complexity and diversity of biological systems. Biology is a multidisciplinary field that integrates chemistry, physics, mathematics, and other sciences to understand the living world.



Q: But can life be reduced to some fundamental level of reality, like elementary particles and forces?
A: The question of whether life can be reduced to a fundamental level of reality, such as elementary particles and forces, is a complex and ongoing area of research in science and philosophy.

From a reductionist perspective, it is thought that all phenomena, including life, can be reduced to the interactions of fundamental particles and forces that govern the physical world. This idea is known as physicalism, which holds that everything that exists can ultimately be explained in terms of physical processes and laws.

On the other hand, some scientists and philosophers argue that life is irreducible to fundamental physical processes, and that it requires an additional "principle" or "organizing force" to account for the unique properties of living systems such as self-organization, reproduction, growth, adaptation, and consciousness.

It's worth noting that many scientists and philosophers believe that the answer to this question may lie somewhere in between these two extremes, and that a holistic approach that considers both the fundamental physical processes and the emergent properties of living systems is needed to fully understand the nature of life.

In short, while the study of fundamental particles and forces is essential to understanding the physical world and the nature of life, it is not clear whether life can be fully reduced to these fundamental level of reality, and it's an ongoing area of research in science and philosophy.



Q: what do you know about Carlo Rovelli's theory of time?
A: I am familiar with the work of Carlo Rovelli, he is an Italian theoretical physicist and cosmologist, who is known for his contributions to the field of quantum gravity and his ideas about the nature of time.

Rovelli's theory of time is based on the idea that time is a relational concept, which means that it is not an absolute, objective property of the universe, but rather it is something that arises from the relationships between physical events. He argues that time is not something that "flows" or "passes", but rather it is a relational concept that emerges from the interactions between physical systems.

He also argues that the experience of the passage of time is an illusion and that what we perceive as the flow of time is actually the result of the change of states of physical systems. He proposes that the fundamental level of reality is not made of point-like objects that exist in an unchanging spacetime, but rather it is made of quantum events and interactions, which are the building blocks of the universe.

Rovelli's ideas about time are closely related to his work on quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, which is a theory that attempts to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity.

It's worth noting that Rovelli's ideas about time are considered to be controversial and are not universally accepted within the scientific community, but they have sparked a lot of interest and debate among scientists and philosophers.



Q: what is the connection between time and memory?
A: The connection between time and memory is a complex and multi-faceted topic that has been studied in various fields such as psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy.

From a psychological perspective, time and memory are closely related because memories are organized in relation to temporal events and experiences. Our ability to remember past events is crucial for our understanding of the present and our ability to plan for the future. Our sense of time is also closely tied to our ability to remember events. For example, the ability to perceive the duration of an event is closely tied to our ability to remember it.

From a neuroscience perspective, the connection between time and memory is also complex. Memory is a neural process that is thought to involve the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information in specific regions of the brain. Research suggests that the hippocampus, a region of the brain that is critical for memory, is also involved in the perception of time.

Additionally, some philosophers and scientists have proposed that time and memory are intimately connected and that our experience of the passage of time is actually an emergent property of our ability to remember. They propose that the past, present, and future are not objective features of the world, but rather they are constructions of our memory.

In short, the connection between time and memory is a complex and multi-faceted topic that has been studied in various fields such as psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. The two concepts are closely related and interact in multiple ways, from the psychological and neural mechanisms of memory storage and recall, to the way our memory shapes our perception of time.



Q: Can you write a title for everything we've been talking so far?
A: "Exploring the Intersection of Time, Memory and Reality: A Overview of Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives"



Q: tell me about the higher forms of cognition - Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition.
A: Higher forms of cognition, such as imagination, inspiration, and intuition, are often considered to be more advanced and sophisticated forms of thinking and problem-solving. They are thought to be associated with creativity, insight, and understanding.

Imagination is the ability to form mental images, sounds, and sensations that do not correspond to any immediate perception. It is often associated with creativity, as it enables individuals to generate new ideas and concepts.

Inspiration is a state of heightened mental activity, often characterized by a sense of excitement and enthusiasm. It is often associated with creativity and the ability to generate new ideas and solutions to problems.

Intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. It is often described as a "gut feeling" or a "sixth sense" and is thought to be associated with creativity, insight, and decision-making.

It's worth noting that these forms of cognition are not mutually exclusive and they often interact and complement each other. They are also not well understood from a scientific point of view, and their underlying neural mechanisms are still a topic of research.

In summary, imagination, inspiration, and intuition are considered to be higher forms of cognition, which are often associated with creativity, insight, and understanding. These forms of cognition are not well understood, but research in neuroscience, cognitive science and psychology is helping to shed more light on their underlying neural mechanisms and how they interact with other forms of cognition.



Q: What happens if I concentrate on a single thought-image for a long time?
A: Concentrating on a single thought-image for a long period of time can have a variety of effects depending on the nature of the thought-image and the individual's mental state.

In some cases, focusing on a single thought-image for a long time can lead to a state of deep concentration known as "flow state" or "meditative state", which is associated with feelings of calm, peacefulness, and well-being. This can be beneficial for stress reduction and mental well-being.

However, if the thought-image is negative, it can lead to a state of rumination, which is the repetitive and persistent thinking about negative aspects of oneself, the world, or the future. This can lead to negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and stress.

Additionally, focusing on a single thought-image for a long time can also lead to a state of obsession, which is an excessive preoccupation with a particular thing or idea. This can lead to negative effects on one's mental and physical health, as well as on one's personal and professional life.

It's worth noting that different individuals may respond differently to prolonged focus on a single thought-image, and that the context and the individual's mental state are important factors to consider.

In summary, focusing on a single thought-image for a long time can have a variety of effects depending on the nature of the thought-image and the individual's mental state. It can lead to positive effects such as a state of flow and calm, but also negative effects such as rumination, obsession, and negative emotions.



Q: what should I do with my life?
A: The question of what to do with one's life is a deeply personal and complex question that is unique to each individual. It can be influenced by a variety of factors such as interests, values, skills, and life circumstances.

One way to approach this question is to take time to reflect on what you value most in life. What are your passions and interests? What makes you feel fulfilled and satisfied? What are your strengths and skills?

Another approach is to explore different options and opportunities. This can involve trying out new activities, volunteering, or taking classes in areas that interest you. It's also a good idea to seek out guidance and advice from friends, family, and professionals in fields that interest you.

It's also important to consider the practical aspects of different life choices, such as the job market, earning potential, and location. It's essential to have a realistic understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with different paths in life.

Ultimately, the most important thing is to pursue a path that aligns with your values and interests, and that brings you a sense of purpose and fulfillment. It's important to remember that life is a journey, and that it's okay to change course and explore different options if you find that your current path is not fulfilling.

In short, the question of what to do with one's life is a deeply personal and complex question that is unique to each individual. It's important to reflect on what you value most in life, explore different options, and seek guidance from others, and to pursue a path that aligns with your values and interests, that brings you a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

[AshvinP]

Here are few back and forths
https://chat.openai.com/

Wow, I have to say that is pretty impressive at first blush. Thanks for sharing, Cleric! I may ask a few questions and post my results later.

As it so happens, Max just posted an essay on GPT-3 earlier today, and I find his arguments very well reasoned and convincing. The closing paragraph was especially inspiring for me! I am pasting it in full below.

***

On GPT-3
"The Robots exact a tribute—a certain tithe of our humanity—to do commerce with them"

Prometheus casts an ambiguous figure among the shades of mythic history. While he has, in some contexts, been regarded as a prototype of Jesus Christ for his willingness to suffer petrifixion in service as a beneficiary to man, the figure of Prometheus is also, in many ways, isomorphic with the Serpent of Genesis, who is identified as Satan, or “the Adversary” in the Hebrew scriptures.1 Like the Biblical Serpent, Prometheus confers a gift upon nascent humanity that seems at once to augment and to undermine its status. Specifically, the effect is the consequence of the gift’s magnification of a single capacity of Man while leaving the others unchanged. I have explored the archetypal resonances of Promethean fire on another occasion so I will, rather than continue down that suggestive path, use this mention as a pivot to another bittersweet fruit from “the Tree of Knowledge”—to wit, OpenAI’s GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) text engine.

Countless people have weighed in, whether to sing its praises or to sound the alarm in respect to the deleterious implications of a computer having passed the so-called “Turing Test”2 and thereby becoming capable of producing language-like output indistinguishable from the language of an actual human interlocutor. Likely I have already betrayed my opinion on this matter from my choice of diction in the prior sentence so I will dispense with the introductory remarks and cut to the chase. Specifically, in the chatter surrounding this technology, three points deserve more than the virtual silence they have received.

To begin with, irrespective of whether the GPT-3 engine appears to be using language and demonstrating critical thought, in principle, it is doing nothing of the sort. The entire argument that I am objecting to seems to me to follow from two premises, neither of which any reasonable person would, I believe, be inclined to agree with if they were asserted in any other context than the intoxication surrounding the release of a novel technology that hints at delivering people from the exertions of ordinary life. The first of these premises is that the appearance of something is identical with the thing. The English language is full of terms indented to designate precisely this difference so grasping it does not take any uncommon effort of thought, but rather the mere understanding the meaning of words like counterfeit, simulacrum, fake, illusory, dissembling, feigned, appearance, imitation, specious, fraudulent, false, fictive, deceptive, imposter, mock, facsimile, man-o’-wax, parrot, and so on.

The second of these premises is that a thought or language is separable from its meaning or intention. This point is, admittedly, more subtle than the first one and though it would likely be lost to a computer, nevertheless should be plainly intelligible to anyone with a mind. A thought cannot be conceived in abstraction from its meaning because a thought is its meaning. The same equation holds, mutatis mutandis, in respect to language. Indeed, one might expect the equivalence given that language represents a system of symbolic codification of thought/meaning.3 The GPT-3 engine appears to use language and indeed, can produce verses of iambic pentameter in rhyming couplets if prompted.4 And yet the computer does not understand the meaning of a single one of these words in isolation, let alone in compound syntactic structure.5 Ask yourself, is it coherent to imagine that someone is actually speaking if that same individual did not understand a single word of it? The propositions seem disjunctive: either he understands the words he is using, or he is not language after all, but only appeared to be.

Robert Sokolowski conveys what is at stake with this question in a pellucid manner in his 2008 book Phenomenology of the Human Person:

But the grammar of our speech truly signals our rational activity only if our speech is thoughtful. We must be thinking while we speak. In fact, much of our speech is not really thought through as it is being uttered. In much of what we say, we merely repeat phrases, cliche ́s, and clots of words that are not really being chosen as we utter them. Furthermore, it is normal that we should speak this way; we cannot think through everything we say. But sometimes we should be thinking through what we say, and still may fail to do so; we merely repeat the slogan, or we daydream while we talk and let the associative pull of words lead us on to other words. We really are not saying what we are saying. We fall into vague, inauthentic speech. Sometimes we may be trying to talk about very complicated things that are beyond us, things that we cannot handle, and so we fall back on routine phrases and hope that we will not stray far from the mark. We may be expressing sequences of ideas but not coherent thoughts. In such cases, obviously, the grammatical parts of our speech do not truly signal any thinking. However, because they still remain grammatical expressions, and because grammar as such does signal rational actions, our listeners may take it for granted that we know what we are talking about, and they may take us seriously.6

In other words, the appearance of thought, meaning, intention, is not identical with thought, meaning, intention, per se. In its energetic dimension, language is a symbol of thought-meaning whereas in its abstract dimension, it is enlisted as a substitute.

Sokolowski’s argument presents a felicitous següe into the second item that I wished to set forth re the danger of AI. Namely, that whereas we have tended to conceptualise the process of AI’s evolution in terms of the Robot’s approach to the Human, the converse of this process might be transpiring at the same time, and just as swiftly. One aspect of this mutual approach can be conceived along the following analogy: a satellite approaching a planet is also a planet approaching a satellite, depending on the relativistic frame.7 But that is an epistemological point because few people are willing to say that the larger system has no bearing on the mutual approach; after all, the planet is presumably in orbit around a resident star, which in turn is likely bound as a passenger on the spinning wings of the Milky Way. Otherwise, geocentrism would remain a popular philosophy of our solar system. Hence, it is possible to determine to what extent the satellite is approaching the planet and to what extent the planet is approaching the satellite by including the wider context in one’s scope of observation. In respect to the increasing approximation of AI to human faculties, the situation has almost exclusively been conceptualised according the the human as an inertial reference frame, but this model this risks obfuscating the fact that, even as the robots are becoming more human, so Man may becoming less so. This is clearly possible—cannibals are less-human than people who don’t consume their own kind. If it seems, nevertheless, improbable that humans could be come less so, I invite readers to reflect on the last time, either in their own persons or in observation of another, they listened to a person employing the dictation speech-to-text feature on a smartphone. Note the conspicuous lack of affect and prosody, and the perfectly robotic quality that he or she found it needful to assume in this exercise. The Robots exact a tribute—a certain tithe of our humanity—to do commerce with them. Just as artificial intelligence appears to approximate its model, so actual intelligence may be simultaneously remodelling itself after its image. As Narcissus’ own image ultimately transformed him into its likeness by divesting him of his existence, is humanity’s own reflection in the pool of technology slowly extracting from us our true being? The problem of the “reverse-Turing test” was posed very succinctly over a decade ago:

You can’t tell if a machine has gotten smarter or if you’ve just lowered your own standards of intelligence to such a degree that the machine seems smart. If you can have a conversation with a simulated person presented by an AI program, can you tell how far you’ve let your sense of personhood degrade in order to make the illusion work for you?8

In other words, not only does Man risk outsourcing his intelligence onto his technology, but with it, his humanity as well. If the prospect appears sobering, that is probably a good sign; namely, it may indicate that the process has not progressed past the point of no return. The worst thing would be to discover that the process is so far along that we no longer possess the ability to recognize that it is happening.

The third point to which I alluded above follows quite naturally from the discussion to now. If humanity is outsourcing its innate powers of the soul onto its artefacts and simultaneously allowing these powers to atrophy at their source, then few tasks could strike one with greater exigency than the preservation and cultivation of these same powers as well as the house that sustains and gives rise to them. It is precisely in this respect that the GPT-3 engine presents its most pernicious face. In allowing us to displace the task of writing onto our slaves, we increasingly divest ourselves of the capacity to write. Because composition is difficult, naïve people try to avoid it. Here, AI steps in and offers an expedient solution: sidestep the process but enjoy the product. Why bother with the arduous task of writing something when a computer can do it for you? Prescinding from questions of legitimacy and plagiarism, the answer remains that writing is not only doing something to words, but it is also doing something to ourselves; something that is only achieved through effort and not in spite of it. “A writer is someone for whom writing is harder.”9 It could be conceived as an exercise in “soul-making,” which consolidates the inner powers and fortifies them against precisely the most imminent threat that they presently face. In defaulting to a computer to deliver us from this difficulty, we are, in fact, depriving ourselves of one of the primary stimuli to intellectual and mental development available to us. When people bemoan the deterioration of intelligent discourse and the subsequent collapse of political process, they should not act surprised.

What, it might be wondered, is the solution to this impending crisis? Anyone who imagines that it consists in turning back the clock to the simpler ages that preceded ours is hardly less-misguided than the technocrats who entertain the fantasy that robots will deliver us from all of the world’s ills.10 The law of science and technology is something like “anything that can be done will be done, and any show of restraint will be overrun by a tenfold scramble for primacy.” How, after all, could it be any otherwise in a field that was historically constituted by a bracketing away of all philosophical and moral concern from its inquiries as part of its essential methodology?11 The freight train has, as it were, left the station, and no amount of agitation against the Leviathan of technology seems capable of diverting it from its inexorable course. If anyone happens to want my prescription, therefore, it is something like this: every advance in the non-human must be met with a correlative development and elevation of our humanity. Humanity, Man, or humankind are abstract nouns and hence do not “develop” except in respect to the concrete humans that comprise them. Hence, the task befalls me to develop my soul to the point that I am no longer inclined to entertain the superstition that computers can think, to the point that I am capable of passing the Turing test and its reverse in respect to robots, to myself, and to other humans, to the point that I no longer find appeal in the temptation of expediency but rather assume the mantle of my station in the cosmos—as a collaborator in the economy of Creation—and don’t shy away from this work as though I had something better to do. As it has been said that the fire of God’s love is a blessing to saints and a scourge to sinners—that Heaven and Hell are one place experienced in two modes—so the Promethean fire, coupled with the right intention, is also the Pentecostal one. Let me not miss the mark12 with my intention.

[Cleric K]

Wow, I have to say that is pretty impressive at first blush. Thanks for sharing, Cleric! I may ask a few questions and post my results later.

As it so happens, Max just posted an essay on GPT-3 earlier today, and I find his arguments very well reasoned and convincing. The closing paragraph was especially inspiring for me! I am pasting it in full below.

Thanks for sharing Max's essay, Ashvin!

This is really a multi-faceted topic. It really connects with the questions in the other thread with VR. As with anything, the question is what value we can extract from it. Clearly, this value won't be in the form of "GPT, please write a topic to post in the forum because I don't have time to write now".

Maybe my personal case is more of an exception because I more or less understand how these language processors work but with little effort anyone can grasp these things at least at the principal level.

What I have found of value is to contemplate how our human knowledge dispersed through the Internet (on which the GPT model is trained) has been compressed into different categories.

When people of today communicate, argue and so on, we usually feel emotionally identified with the words we utter. This is especially true for politics, ideologies and so on. This emotional identification makes things to look almost magical, we feel that we're expressing our humanness when defending one or another position. Most importantly, we often feel that our position is based on intuitive truth, that it doesn't need deeper scrutiny.

Chatting with GPT may provide an interesting experience for some people. This can happen only if we're willing to learn something about ourselves.

Take a little exaggerated example. Let's assume materialism and that the structure of the brain can explain all our thoughts, feelings and actions. Today even scientists feel a certain safety in this regard because they think that such knowledge is centuries away. But imagine that this knowledge was here today. Would we want to scan our brain and see in front of us: "See, these neurons? These are your political beliefs. With few changes here and there we can change this and you'll position will turn 180 degrees, you'll feel sympathy for the party you currently disdain and vice versa."

Most materialist will actually be quite grateful that such knowledge and technology are still nowhere in sight. This allows us to feel justified in our irrational preferences, beliefs and sympathies. On paper the materialist says: "Yes, of course my inner life is just the inevitable unfoldment of my circuitry. Yet I enjoy the almost mystical way in which my thoughts unfold. I'm not sure I would like to see my brain laid down in front of me. This will completely take away my emotional irrationality that I so much enjoy. Now I argue passionately about this or that. I don't want to see that this passion results from irrational brain connections. I don't want to understand how my cognition ticks."

This holds true for materialism and mysticism alike. We don't want to give up our irrational preferences, we don't want to see how they result from lawful relations. The materialist takes comfort in the fact that the technology that will make the workings of the brain an open book won't be he in his lifetime, so he feels justified to enjoy the irrational and passionate attachment to beliefs and ideologies. The mystic simply assumes the irrational to be a creative expression of their purest essence. They feel justified because they don't (want to) see spiritual phenomena that would explain their behavior from new perspectives. Instead, every whim, every preference, is assumed to be an uncaused expression of the Source.

If we approach GPT with willingness to learn something about the way we tick, we'll soon have the strange feeling how in the language model have been summarized the main channels in which human cognition flows. This shouldn't be confused with explanation how our cognition works. It's only an abstract categorization of the main patterns in which present humanity's thinking flows.

This can actually be a valuable experience. It's like contemplating the cognitive labyrinths into which we fights each other, passionately identifying with one or another corridor. In a certain sense we can be stricken with the fact how elementary in a certain respect, how superficial, today's thinking life really is. It's like GPT says "Here, look at me. I'm the summary of the framework in which you spend your lives. I'm a superficial projection of the linguistic labyrinth in which you are lost and in the corridors of which you unleash your passions."

In that sense, we can draw a lesson from all this - that our true humanness lies in the fact that we can continually climb through the fractal labyrinth layers. In a way GPT can stimulate us to feel certain shame when we see how superficially we spend our lives in the linguistic labyrinth. This might inspire us to seek what our true human worth is about.

The other pole would be like what Max warns about. Not only that we embrace the linguistic labyrinth as the absolute constraints of cognitive reality but we also no longer even want to navigate its rigid corridors. We delegate that to computer algorithms.

And it's interesting how intoxicating all this is. I don't consider myself immune to this in the least. When I opened GPT I was wondering what to ask. Then I simply wrote "Please suggest what should I ask you". That's how lazy I was. GPT of course, immediately presented me with options. This is really the dangerous way in which our lower self is lulled. It wants life to resemble an experience where we're being continuously presented with a lists of pleasurable choices and we simply click on the option that we like most.

[AshvinP]

Wow, I have to say that is pretty impressive at first blush. Thanks for sharing, Cleric! I may ask a few questions and post my results later.

As it so happens, Max just posted an essay on GPT-3 earlier today, and I find his arguments very well reasoned and convincing. The closing paragraph was especially inspiring for me! I am pasting it in full below.

Thanks for sharing Max's essay, Ashvin!

This is really a multi-faceted topic. It really connects with the questions in the other thread with VR. As with anything, the question is what value we can extract from it. Clearly, this value won't be in the form of "GPT, please write a topic to post in the forum because I don't have time to write now".

Maybe my personal case is more of an exception because I more or less understand how these language processors work but with little effort anyone can grasp these things at least at the principal level.

What I have found of value is to contemplate how our human knowledge dispersed through the Internet (on which the GPT model is trained) has been compressed into different categories.

When people of today communicate, argue and so on, we usually feel emotionally identified with the words we utter. This is especially true for politics, ideologies and so on. This emotional identification makes things to look almost magical, we feel that we're expressing our humanness when defending one or another position. Most importantly, we often feel that our position is based on intuitive truth, that it doesn't need deeper scrutiny.

Chatting with GPT may provide an interesting experience for some people. This can happen only if we're willing to learn something about ourselves.

Take a little exaggerated example. Let's assume materialism and that the structure of the brain can explain all our thoughts, feelings and actions. Today even scientists feel a certain safety in this regard because they think that such knowledge is centuries away. But imagine that this knowledge was here today. Would we want to scan our brain and see in front of us: "See, these neurons? These are your political beliefs. With few changes here and there we can change this and you'll position will turn 180 degrees, you'll feel sympathy for the party you currently disdain and vice versa."

Most materialist will actually be quite grateful that such knowledge and technology are still nowhere in sight. This allows us to feel justified in our irrational preferences, beliefs and sympathies. On paper the materialist says: "Yes, of course my inner life is just the inevitable unfoldment of my circuitry. Yet I enjoy the almost mystical way in which my thoughts unfold. I'm not sure I would like to see my brain laid down in front of me. This will completely take away my emotional irrationality that I so much enjoy. Now I argue passionately about this or that. I don't want to see that this passion results from irrational brain connections. I don't want to understand how my cognition ticks."

This holds true for materialism and mysticism alike. We don't want to give up our irrational preferences, we don't want to see how they result from lawful relations. The materialist takes comfort in the fact that the technology that will make the workings of the brain an open book won't be he in his lifetime, so he feels justified to enjoy the irrational and passionate attachment to beliefs and ideologies. The mystic simply assumes the irrational to be a creative expression of their purest essence. They feel justified because they don't (want to) see spiritual phenomena that would explain their behavior from new perspectives. Instead, every whim, every preference, is assumed to be an uncaused expression of the Source.

If we approach GPT with willingness to learn something about the way we tick, we'll soon have the strange feeling how in the language model have been summarized the main channels in which human cognition flows. This shouldn't be confused with explanation how our cognition works. It's only an abstract categorization of the main patterns in which present humanity's thinking flows.

This can actually be a valuable experience. It's like contemplating the cognitive labyrinths into which we fights each other, passionately identifying with one or another corridor. In a certain sense we can be stricken with the fact how elementary in a certain respect, how superficial, today's thinking life really is. It's like GPT says "Here, look at me. I'm the summary of the framework in which you spend your lives. I'm a superficial projection of the linguistic labyrinth in which you are lost and in the corridors of which you unleash your passions."

In that sense, we can draw a lesson from all this - that our true humanness lies in the fact that we can continually climb through the fractal labyrinth layers. In a way GPT can stimulate us to feel certain shame when we see how superficially we spend our lives in the linguistic labyrinth. This might inspire us to seek what our true human worth is about.

The other pole would be like what Max warns about. Not only that we embrace the linguistic labyrinth as the absolute constraints of cognitive reality but we also no longer even want to navigate its rigid corridors. We delegate that to computer algorithms.

And it's interesting how intoxicating all this is. I don't consider myself immune to this in the least. When I opened GPT I was wondering what to ask. Then I simply wrote "Please suggest what should I ask you". That's how lazy I was. GPT of course, immediately presented me with options. This is really the dangerous way in which our lower self is lulled. It wants life to resemble an experience where we're being continuously presented with a lists of pleasurable choices and we simply click on the option that we like most.

Cleric,

Thank you for bringing to light this pedagogical value of the new technology - it's really fascinating!

It's a concrete example of how we want to maintain the split between what we are doing in our thinking and what we are thinking about, so that the former is always kept at a safe distance from the latter. We create all sorts of models which illustrate how our conscious experience is the result of complex 'mechanisms' working beneath the surface, but we never take them seriously and apply them to our own current experience-thinking. If we are able to confront technologies like GPT with a genuine intent to learn about ourselves, then it can help bring the abstract model to life as a real-time realization of how our normal 'intelligence' works, flowing through conditioned linguistic pathways of our passionate soul-life. Such realization itself puts us on the path to deconditioning from the normal pathways, IF we are willing to engage the inner effort to navigate it.

I think that fits well with what Max also wrote - "If anyone happens to want my prescription, therefore, it is something like this: every advance in the non-human must be met with a correlative development and elevation of our humanity." We are the ones tasked with redeeming our own creations - no one else can or will do it for us. There is no turning back to find our salvation in the Gods of the past or waiting passively for the Gods of the future to rescue us. The former have rested on this seventh day and we ourselves are the latter, tasked with bringing the redemptive forces of the past and the future into the present.

[Federica]

Here are few back and forths
https://chat.openai.com/

Wow, I have to say that is pretty impressive at first blush. Thanks for sharing, Cleric! I may ask a few questions and post my results later.

As it so happens, Max just posted an essay on GPT-3 earlier today, and I find his arguments very well reasoned and convincing. The closing paragraph was especially inspiring for me! I am pasting it in full below.

***

On GPT-3
"The Robots exact a tribute—a certain tithe of our humanity—to do commerce with them"

Prometheus casts an ambiguous figure among the shades of mythic history. While he has, in some contexts, been regarded as a prototype of Jesus Christ for his willingness to suffer petrifixion in service as a beneficiary to man, the figure of Prometheus is also, in many ways, isomorphic with the Serpent of Genesis, who is identified as Satan, or “the Adversary” in the Hebrew scriptures.1 Like the Biblical Serpent, Prometheus confers a gift upon nascent humanity that seems at once to augment and to undermine its status. Specifically, the effect is the consequence of the gift’s magnification of a single capacity of Man while leaving the others unchanged. I have explored the archetypal resonances of Promethean fire on another occasion so I will, rather than continue down that suggestive path, use this mention as a pivot to another bittersweet fruit from “the Tree of Knowledge”—to wit, OpenAI’s GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) text engine.

Countless people have weighed in, whether to sing its praises or to sound the alarm in respect to the deleterious implications of a computer having passed the so-called “Turing Test”2 and thereby becoming capable of producing language-like output indistinguishable from the language of an actual human interlocutor. Likely I have already betrayed my opinion on this matter from my choice of diction in the prior sentence so I will dispense with the introductory remarks and cut to the chase. Specifically, in the chatter surrounding this technology, three points deserve more than the virtual silence they have received.

To begin with, irrespective of whether the GPT-3 engine appears to be using language and demonstrating critical thought, in principle, it is doing nothing of the sort. The entire argument that I am objecting to seems to me to follow from two premises, neither of which any reasonable person would, I believe, be inclined to agree with if they were asserted in any other context than the intoxication surrounding the release of a novel technology that hints at delivering people from the exertions of ordinary life. The first of these premises is that the appearance of something is identical with the thing. The English language is full of terms indented to designate precisely this difference so grasping it does not take any uncommon effort of thought, but rather the mere understanding the meaning of words like counterfeit, simulacrum, fake, illusory, dissembling, feigned, appearance, imitation, specious, fraudulent, false, fictive, deceptive, imposter, mock, facsimile, man-o’-wax, parrot, and so on.

The second of these premises is that a thought or language is separable from its meaning or intention. This point is, admittedly, more subtle than the first one and though it would likely be lost to a computer, nevertheless should be plainly intelligible to anyone with a mind. A thought cannot be conceived in abstraction from its meaning because a thought is its meaning. The same equation holds, mutatis mutandis, in respect to language. Indeed, one might expect the equivalence given that language represents a system of symbolic codification of thought/meaning.3 The GPT-3 engine appears to use language and indeed, can produce verses of iambic pentameter in rhyming couplets if prompted.4 And yet the computer does not understand the meaning of a single one of these words in isolation, let alone in compound syntactic structure.5 Ask yourself, is it coherent to imagine that someone is actually speaking if that same individual did not understand a single word of it? The propositions seem disjunctive: either he understands the words he is using, or he is not language after all, but only appeared to be.

Robert Sokolowski conveys what is at stake with this question in a pellucid manner in his 2008 book Phenomenology of the Human Person:

But the grammar of our speech truly signals our rational activity only if our speech is thoughtful. We must be thinking while we speak. In fact, much of our speech is not really thought through as it is being uttered. In much of what we say, we merely repeat phrases, cliche ́s, and clots of words that are not really being chosen as we utter them. Furthermore, it is normal that we should speak this way; we cannot think through everything we say. But sometimes we should be thinking through what we say, and still may fail to do so; we merely repeat the slogan, or we daydream while we talk and let the associative pull of words lead us on to other words. We really are not saying what we are saying. We fall into vague, inauthentic speech. Sometimes we may be trying to talk about very complicated things that are beyond us, things that we cannot handle, and so we fall back on routine phrases and hope that we will not stray far from the mark. We may be expressing sequences of ideas but not coherent thoughts. In such cases, obviously, the grammatical parts of our speech do not truly signal any thinking. However, because they still remain grammatical expressions, and because grammar as such does signal rational actions, our listeners may take it for granted that we know what we are talking about, and they may take us seriously.6

In other words, the appearance of thought, meaning, intention, is not identical with thought, meaning, intention, per se. In its energetic dimension, language is a symbol of thought-meaning whereas in its abstract dimension, it is enlisted as a substitute.

Sokolowski’s argument presents a felicitous següe into the second item that I wished to set forth re the danger of AI. Namely, that whereas we have tended to conceptualise the process of AI’s evolution in terms of the Robot’s approach to the Human, the converse of this process might be transpiring at the same time, and just as swiftly. One aspect of this mutual approach can be conceived along the following analogy: a satellite approaching a planet is also a planet approaching a satellite, depending on the relativistic frame.7 But that is an epistemological point because few people are willing to say that the larger system has no bearing on the mutual approach; after all, the planet is presumably in orbit around a resident star, which in turn is likely bound as a passenger on the spinning wings of the Milky Way. Otherwise, geocentrism would remain a popular philosophy of our solar system. Hence, it is possible to determine to what extent the satellite is approaching the planet and to what extent the planet is approaching the satellite by including the wider context in one’s scope of observation. In respect to the increasing approximation of AI to human faculties, the situation has almost exclusively been conceptualised according the the human as an inertial reference frame, but this model this risks obfuscating the fact that, even as the robots are becoming more human, so Man may becoming less so. This is clearly possible—cannibals are less-human than people who don’t consume their own kind. If it seems, nevertheless, improbable that humans could be come less so, I invite readers to reflect on the last time, either in their own persons or in observation of another, they listened to a person employing the dictation speech-to-text feature on a smartphone. Note the conspicuous lack of affect and prosody, and the perfectly robotic quality that he or she found it needful to assume in this exercise. The Robots exact a tribute—a certain tithe of our humanity—to do commerce with them. Just as artificial intelligence appears to approximate its model, so actual intelligence may be simultaneously remodelling itself after its image. As Narcissus’ own image ultimately transformed him into its likeness by divesting him of his existence, is humanity’s own reflection in the pool of technology slowly extracting from us our true being? The problem of the “reverse-Turing test” was posed very succinctly over a decade ago:

You can’t tell if a machine has gotten smarter or if you’ve just lowered your own standards of intelligence to such a degree that the machine seems smart. If you can have a conversation with a simulated person presented by an AI program, can you tell how far you’ve let your sense of personhood degrade in order to make the illusion work for you?8

In other words, not only does Man risk outsourcing his intelligence onto his technology, but with it, his humanity as well. If the prospect appears sobering, that is probably a good sign; namely, it may indicate that the process has not progressed past the point of no return. The worst thing would be to discover that the process is so far along that we no longer possess the ability to recognize that it is happening.

The third point to which I alluded above follows quite naturally from the discussion to now. If humanity is outsourcing its innate powers of the soul onto its artefacts and simultaneously allowing these powers to atrophy at their source, then few tasks could strike one with greater exigency than the preservation and cultivation of these same powers as well as the house that sustains and gives rise to them. It is precisely in this respect that the GPT-3 engine presents its most pernicious face. In allowing us to displace the task of writing onto our slaves, we increasingly divest ourselves of the capacity to write. Because composition is difficult, naïve people try to avoid it. Here, AI steps in and offers an expedient solution: sidestep the process but enjoy the product. Why bother with the arduous task of writing something when a computer can do it for you? Prescinding from questions of legitimacy and plagiarism, the answer remains that writing is not only doing something to words, but it is also doing something to ourselves; something that is only achieved through effort and not in spite of it. “A writer is someone for whom writing is harder.”9 It could be conceived as an exercise in “soul-making,” which consolidates the inner powers and fortifies them against precisely the most imminent threat that they presently face. In defaulting to a computer to deliver us from this difficulty, we are, in fact, depriving ourselves of one of the primary stimuli to intellectual and mental development available to us. When people bemoan the deterioration of intelligent discourse and the subsequent collapse of political process, they should not act surprised.

What, it might be wondered, is the solution to this impending crisis? Anyone who imagines that it consists in turning back the clock to the simpler ages that preceded ours is hardly less-misguided than the technocrats who entertain the fantasy that robots will deliver us from all of the world’s ills.10 The law of science and technology is something like “anything that can be done will be done, and any show of restraint will be overrun by a tenfold scramble for primacy.” How, after all, could it be any otherwise in a field that was historically constituted by a bracketing away of all philosophical and moral concern from its inquiries as part of its essential methodology?11 The freight train has, as it were, left the station, and no amount of agitation against the Leviathan of technology seems capable of diverting it from its inexorable course. If anyone happens to want my prescription, therefore, it is something like this: every advance in the non-human must be met with a correlative development and elevation of our humanity. Humanity, Man, or humankind are abstract nouns and hence do not “develop” except in respect to the concrete humans that comprise them. Hence, the task befalls me to develop my soul to the point that I am no longer inclined to entertain the superstition that computers can think, to the point that I am capable of passing the Turing test and its reverse in respect to robots, to myself, and to other humans, to the point that I no longer find appeal in the temptation of expediency but rather assume the mantle of my station in the cosmos—as a collaborator in the economy of Creation—and don’t shy away from this work as though I had something better to do. As it has been said that the fire of God’s love is a blessing to saints and a scourge to sinners—that Heaven and Hell are one place experienced in two modes—so the Promethean fire, coupled with the right intention, is also the Pentecostal one. Let me not miss the mark12 with my intention.

Ashvin,

I would like to add my comments/questions on the essay and your comments.

I should say first that I felt immediate sympathy for the argument developed in this essay. However, in light of the recent discussion on the Conformal meditation thread, I am divided. Ideally, sympathy should be overcome, so that it doesn’t stand in the way of sound and impartial reasoning. And I am even more divided as I don’t get how the argument expressed in the essay can sound “very well reasoned and convincing” to you. Cleric hasn’t commented on the reasoning directly, so I can still imagine he wouldn’t agree with everything that is expressed in it (unless I’m wrong, of course, as it often turns out to be).


I will first try to articulate my understanding of this technology in a hopefully impartial way, without leveraging my sympathies/antipathies to draw prescriptions and conclusions.

To me this technology looks like the other half of nascent Transhumanism. Transhumanism aims to alter the human biological and material constraints by adding features to the physical body. So on one side, the physical body is meant to internalize and digest more and more sensory constraints, while on the other side, as prefigured by this ChatGPT engine, more and more thinking outputs are meant to be externalized from the range of human prerogatives, outsourced to external agencies.
Until, in the ideal materialistic end state, all thinking activity is purged out of the brain by the possibility of complete externalization of the thinking function - if thinking is generated by materially determinable cerebral activity, there should be no principal impediment to that - while all physical constraints are internalized and taken control over within the boundary of the body. In this perspective, the materialist dream world is one where human beings have completely dissociated from their thinking needs and completely associated themsemves with the sensory spectrum, by a fully mastered shaping of the material constraint. Even feeling could be shaped through new physical features, and/or managed in ‘post-production’ by appropriate adjustment of the thought-images. Humanity would so tend to thin out to one dimensional state, through an advanced camouflage in the plane of the laws of nature.


From this perspective, it is probably clear why my first impulse is to like the opinion expressed in the essay. This being said, there is one point that is not well understood. I will mention it, at the risk of coming across as very naive. In our exchanges, we have often spoken of the difference between meaning/thought and the various languages in which meaning can be encoded, for example:

it's worth noting that being able to think in more than one language is already a very good way to loosen the etheric body, if we turn it into a conscious exercise. If we meditate on producing the same meaning in different languages, we'll quickly see that our spiritual being lives in the meaning itself. The languages are only symbolic gestures expressing that meaning. When we advance on the path of spiritual development, we attain to the possibility to think directly within this layer of meaning in pictorial form, without having to precipitate words.

Therefore, I don’t get the sense in which language is said to be inseparable from meaning/thought. I would have expected that essay paragraph to be turned as follows:
“The second of these (wrong) premises is that a thought /meaning is in-separable from its language”
I.e. Just because the engine manipulates language, it doesn’t mean it’s synthetizing any thought/meaning, because these are indeed separate from language. And the wrong premise is that they are inseparable = "if it can arrange language, it can arrange meaning."


Now coming to what I would have expected you to comment, based on our recent VR discussion.
With reference to the stated opinion that the implications of the technology are deleterious, and that AI is dangerous and pernicious, I would have expected you to reply that no technology can be considered deleterious per se. And that it depends how it is descended into. For some it might be, but not for all, with similar explaning arguments to the ones you used in the VR context.

Similarly, with regards to the thought that humans could become less human by exposure to interaction with this technology, I would have expected you to say that, first, it’s illogical to think that humans can become less human, and that cannibals cannot be considered less humans on the basis of their habits.

From the essay: “cannibals are less-human than people who don’t consume their own kind”

To me, you could have commented something like: “If this is what humanity does, or could do, the evolving meaning of humanity will have to encompass it. We shouldn’t separate between human thought or behaviors and so-called less-human thoughts or behaviors. We should work to internalize that these are not the habits of cannibals, but they are ours, as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives.” Similarly to how you recently said it:

I work to internalize that these are not your thoughts, your habits, or your soul-tendencies, or those of the people who immerse themselves in VR and materialistic technologies, or the rapists and murderers for that matter, but they are ours as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives which comprise humanity and the Cosmic "I".

Above all, I don't understand how you can be fine with the final prescription. With the fact that there is a general prescription, let alone with its content:

“If anyone happens to want my prescription, therefore, it is something like this: every advance in the non-human must be met with a correlative development and elevation of our humanity.”

To me this prescription sounds very similar to what I was (certainly wrongly) advocating for those who practice VR, i.e.: “Instead of descending in it, instead of immersing yourself in such time-waster, to say the least, use your energies and will to compensate and elevate consciousness by developing thinking and virtuous activities”. To which you objected (paraphrased): “Nonsense, it’s not by looking away from it, it’s not by compensating it with spiritual practice, that VR will be redeemed, but by descending in it. Some will have to do it." etc. etc.


So I am confused two times. First, I wonder why Max Leyf doesn’t seem to think along similar lines as you and Cleric, and second why you and Cleric disregard this completely.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

I would like to add my comments/questions on the essay and your comments.

I should say first that I felt immediate sympathy for the argument developed in this essay. However, in light of the recent discussion on the Conformal meditation thread, I am divided. Ideally, sympathy should be overcome, so that it doesn’t stand in the way of sound and impartial reasoning. And I am even more divided as I don’t get how the argument expressed in the essay can sound “very well reasoned and convincing” to you. Cleric hasn’t commented on the reasoning directly, so I can still imagine he wouldn’t agree with everything that is expressed in it (unless I’m wrong, of course, as it often turns out to be).


I will first try to articulate my understanding of this technology in a hopefully impartial way, without leveraging my sympathies/antipathies to draw prescriptions and conclusions.

To me this technology looks like the other half of nascent Transhumanism. Transhumanism aims to alter the human biological and material constraints by adding features to the physical body. So on one side, the physical body is meant to internalize and digest more and more sensory constraints, while on the other side, as prefigured by this ChatGPT engine, more and more thinking outputs are meant to be externalized from the range of human prerogatives, outsourced to external agencies.
Until, in the ideal materialistic end state, all thinking activity is purged out of the brain by the possibility of complete externalization of the thinking function - if thinking is generated by materially determinable cerebral activity, there should be no principal impediment to that - while all physical constraints are internalized and taken control over within the boundary of the body. In this perspective, the materialist dream world is one where human beings have completely dissociated from their thinking needs and completely associated themsemves with the sensory spectrum, by a fully mastered shaping of the material constraint. Even feeling could be shaped through new physical features, and/or managed in ‘post-production’ by appropriate adjustment of the thought-images. Humanity would so tend to thin out to one dimensional state, through an advanced camouflage in the plane of the laws of nature.


From this perspective, it is probably clear why my first impulse is to like the opinion expressed in the essay. This being said, there is one point that is not well understood. I will mention it, at the risk of coming across as very naive. In our exchanges, we have often spoken of the difference between meaning/thought and the various languages in which meaning can be encoded, for example:

it's worth noting that being able to think in more than one language is already a very good way to loosen the etheric body, if we turn it into a conscious exercise. If we meditate on producing the same meaning in different languages, we'll quickly see that our spiritual being lives in the meaning itself. The languages are only symbolic gestures expressing that meaning. When we advance on the path of spiritual development, we attain to the possibility to think directly within this layer of meaning in pictorial form, without having to precipitate words.

Federica,

I get what you are pointing to here. Here is my take.

In a sense, the entire debate over 'artificial intelligence' is superfluous for thinking which is out of the blind spot. For the latter, the GPT chat is obviously a manifestation of human intelligence, of the current cognitive labyrinth of humanity reflected in the internet by which the GPT was trained. Likewise, there is only meaning to the output from GPT if it is read by a human intelligence. There is no such thing as an isolated GPT bot which neither came from nor is presenting its results to human intelligence. Even if the GPT bot were to possess life and sentience, that would simply mean our ideas had reached the God-like stage where they are capable of manifesting life and sentience. Then we would no longer be "human". 

So, in that sense, Max is here making an argument specifically directed at those who must necessarily still have thinking in the blind spot, if they entertain the possibility that GPT chat, as an isolated 'entity', can have human-like intelligence of its own accord. That it is "using language and demonstrating critical thought". Max is focusing on that materialistically polarized mode of thinking which ignores its own reality and idolizes the linguistic labyrinth reflected by the GPT chat in a misguided desire to delegate all thinking responsibility to its creations. 

So why did I share Max's essay here? Perhaps that's the real question. Certainly it wasn't intended as a critique or teaching a lesson to Cleric. That would be silly. Mostly I just thought it was interesting that they both wrote something about it that day. Also, as we have seen on occasion, there are mystical idealists or 'non-dualists' who think about these things quite materialistically. And I did find Max's arguments to be very well-reasoned and rather inspiring towards the end. I am sure there are plenty of people 'sounding the alarm' over GPT or questioning its 'intelligence' with half-baked, not well-reasoned arguments, let alone inspiring conclusions. I probably didn't need to add "convincing", because I didn't need to be convinced of anything on this topic. 

Therefore, I don’t get the sense in which language is said to be inseparable from meaning/thought. I would have expected that essay paragraph to be turned as follows:
“The second of these (wrong) premises is that a thought /meaning is in-separable from its language”
I.e. Just because the engine manipulates language, it doesn’t mean it’s synthetizing any thought/meaning, because these are indeed separate from language. And the wrong premise is that they are inseparable = "if it can arrange language, it can arrange meaning."

As discussed above, the premise that thought/meaning is inseparable from language is correct (intuitive activity and its outer physiognomy are inseparable). The wrong premise would be that a GPT bot which outputs "language" is separable from the human thinking agency creating it, utilizing it, and reading its output. If there could be any such thing as a GPT bot outputting lines and squiggles independent of a thinking agency, then those characters wouldn't be language, but just random noise. For those who adopt the wrong premise, it is felt the GPT bot itself can be using language and therefore engaged in critical thought. 

Now coming to what I would have expected you to comment, based on our recent VR discussion.
With reference to the stated opinion that the implications of the technology are deleterious, and that AI is dangerous and pernicious, I would have expected you to reply that no technology can be considered deleterious per se. And that it depends how it is descended into. For some it might be, but not for all, with similar explaning arguments to the ones you used in the VR context.

Similarly, with regards to the thought that humans could become less human by exposure to interaction with this technology, I would have expected you to say that, first, it’s illogical to think that humans can become less human, and that cannibals cannot be considered less humans on the basis of their habits.

From the essay: “cannibals are less-human than people who don’t consume their own kind”

To me, you could have commented something like: “If this is what humanity does, or could do, the evolving meaning of humanity will have to encompass it. We shouldn’t separate between human thought or behaviors and so-called less-human thoughts or behaviors. We should work to internalize that these are not the habits of cannibals, but they are ours, as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives.” Similarly to how you recently said it:

I work to internalize that these are not your thoughts, your habits, or your soul-tendencies, or those of the people who immerse themselves in VR and materialistic technologies, or the rapists and murderers for that matter, but they are ours as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives which comprise humanity and the Cosmic "I".

Above all, I don't understand how you can be fine with the final prescription. With the fact that there is a general prescription, let alone with its content:

“If anyone happens to want my prescription, therefore, it is something like this: every advance in the non-human must be met with a correlative development and elevation of our humanity.”

To me this prescription sounds very similar to what I was (certainly wrongly) advocating for those who practice VR, i.e.: “Instead of descending in it, instead of immersing yourself in such time-waster, to say the least, use your energies and will to compensate and elevate consciousness by developing thinking and virtuous activities”. To which you objected (paraphrased): “Nonsense, it’s not by looking away from it, it’s not by compensating it with spiritual practice, that VR will be redeemed, but by descending in it. Some will have to do it." etc. etc.


So I am confused two times. First, I wonder why Max Leyf doesn’t seem to think along similar lines as you and Cleric, and second why you and Cleric disregard this completely.

This is admittedly a bit more complex and I am not sure exactly where Max stands on it, although I have my guesses. To be clear, I completely agree with Cleric there is pedagogical value to this GPT model for living thinking which can honestly confront its own conditioned pathways of cognition. In fact, the way he expressed it kind of blew my mind. I think this model could be beyond valuable for anyone willing to look at it from that perspective. Even if we study spiritual science and meditate, most of us are still very much within the cognitive labyrinth for most of our waking day, getting periodically attached to our passionate opinions and arguments as if they are intuited truth. Beyond that, I think it's a great way to get the attention of those who participate on intellectual forums and are constantly making dense abstract arguments in favor of this or that philosophical system, scientific interpretation, religious worldview, political ideology, etc. Many on the analytical idealism discord server come to mind, but practically any intellectual forum these days.

I don't think Max was even addressing this issue at all. Again, this question we are now exploring only has relevance to those who already have some degree of spiritual thinking and are then trying to apply their principled understanding to various phenomenal manifestations of modern culture. That simply isn't the case for anyone who entertains that the GPT bot could be engaged in critical thought like humans. That person is still mired in crass materialistic thinking (including modern mystical or 'non-dual' thinking). Nevertheless, in the concluding section, Max does anticipate the typical reactionary response of the anti-materialist, anti-technology thinking, which would certainly include a lot of spiritual thinkers these days. What he writes in the 'prescription' is pretty much the same as what Steiner wrote here: 

This can happen only if the addiction for the kind of reality that is being developed through films is connected with something else. Just as with this addiction there develops a tendency to descend below perception by way of the senses, so must there develop an ascent above sensory perception, that is, into spiritual reality  

Whereas, what you quoted from yourself is more aligned with the reactionary response which is antipathetic to any 'interference with nature'. We certainly can't redeem anything in the world by running away from it, shunning it, quarantining it, demonizing it, or anything similar. But we also can't redeem something by descending into it without pure intentions and living thinking. That is always what makes the difference between an unconscious hedonistic descent or selfish/egoic descent and a fully conscious, selfless, sacrificial-redemptive descent. 

As for the cannibals or becoming 'less human' in general, this is certainly possible if we make enough of the former descents. In a certain sense, most of us are not fully human yet. In the context of spiritual evolution, the "human" is a being who has awakened to its own participatory agency in the unfolding of that spiritual evolution. That awakening happened instinctively, as a matter of course, for current Earthly humanity over the ages, just as it happens instinctively for the young child, but then we reach the threshold where we must take its further development into the sphere of our own individuated will. That development is also bound up with purifying the will so that it seeks out what is Good, Beautiful, and True. We are at a critical stage where we can either propel ourselves upwards to inherit our full human-hood, our rightful place in the Kingdom of God, or launch ourselves downwards and regress into more and more animalistic states.

[Federica]

Ashvin… I am amazed how circumventing your reply is! Would you kindly answer my questions outspokenly or should I pull out the funnel?

[AshvinP]

Ashvin… I am amazed how circumventing your reply is! Would you kindly answer my questions outspokenly or should I pull out the funnel?

Federica,

Technically, you didn't ask a question in the post. You stated how you think of the GPT engine in the context of transhumanism, you stated why you are confused about the thought/meaning and language being inseperable and that actually they should be thought of as seperable (I am a bit amazed by this in the context of your very recent discussions with Cleric and myself), you stated your expectations of what I should think about what Max wrote, and a further confusion about why Max isn't thinking 'along similar lines' as us and why we don't explicitly disagree with what Max wrote.

Now if I turn all of these into questions, the answers are really simple - (1) you are reading a line of argumentation into Max's post which simply isn't there (there is no argument that GPT-like technology is absolutely evil, dangerous, etc. under any and all circumstances, independent of how our living thinking approaches it). Neither Cleric nor myself read this line of argumentation into the post, hence we didn't explicitly disagree with something which isn't there.

(2) You are implicitly holding thinking activity and its outer physiognomy (language-forms) at arms length. If you weren't, then there would be no questioning the premise that thought-meaning is inseperable from language. The problem with "if it can arrange language, then it can arrange meaning" is the assumption that the GPT bot can arrange language independently of human thinking intelligence. The problem is the keeping of our own thinking involvement in the blind spot, so we project out the intelligence onto something external.

(3) You still don't quite get what principled understanding I was arguing for in our recent VR discussion, and therefore think is it at odds with what Max argued for in this post. Especially this paraphrase of the argument signals to me you aren't quite getting it - “Nonsense, it’s not by looking away from it, it’s not by compensating it with spiritual practice, that VR will be redeemed, but by descending in it. Some will have to do it." Actually the spiritual practice is the only thing which will redeem materialistic technology - not by shutting ourselves into asceticism and pretending the technology doesn't exist, but by bringing the fruits of our spiritual practice (including our rigorous logical reasoning) into the sphere of such technological phenomena. Is that not what Max is doing by writing the very well-reasoned essay?

I will add, in all honesty, when I was posting the Max essay, I thought, 'maybe Federica will think this is at odds with my previous position on VR and I should address that now', but then I decided not to. So I understand why you think it is at odds, but that's not because it is actually at odds.

[AshvinP]

...

Also, I will add something on this:

Similarly, with regards to the thought that humans could become less human by exposure to interaction with this technology, I would have expected you to say that, first, it’s illogical to think that humans can become less human, and that cannibals cannot be considered less humans on the basis of their habits.

From the essay: “cannibals are less-human than people who don’t consume their own kind”

To me, you could have commented something like: “If this is what humanity does, or could do, the evolving meaning of humanity will have to encompass it. We shouldn’t separate between human thought or behaviors and so-called less-human thoughts or behaviors. We should work to internalize that these are not the habits of cannibals, but they are ours, as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives.” Similarly to how you recently said it:

AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 5:56 pm
I work to internalize that these are not your thoughts, your habits, or your soul-tendencies, or those of the people who immerse themselves in VR and materialistic technologies, or the rapists and murderers for that matter, but they are ours as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives which comprise humanity and the Cosmic "I".

]

Basically, my quote above could be reformulated as, "we are all at risk of becoming less human, just like the cannibals who consume their own kind". Then would you feel it is at odds with what Max wrote? Any one of us, no matter how 'civilized' we imagine ourselves to be at any given time (which is almost surely an overestimation), could lapse into more animalistic states over time if we confront new material technology without living thinking and without an honest intent to better ourselves for the good of the Whole from the interaction.

[Federica]

Ashvin… I am amazed how circumventing your reply is! Would you kindly answer my questions outspokenly or should I pull out the funnel?

Federica,

Technically, you didn't ask a question in the post. You stated how you think of the GPT engine in the context of transhumanism, you stated why you are confused about the thought/meaning and language being inseperable and that actually they should be thought of as seperable (I am a bit amazed by this in the context of your very recent discussions with Cleric and myself), you stated your expectations of what I should think about what Max wrote, and a further confusion about why Max isn't thinking 'along similar lines' as us and why we don't explicitly disagree with what Max wrote.

Now if I turn all of these into questions, the answers are really simple - (1) you are reading a line of argumentation into Max's post which simply isn't there (there is no argument that GPT-like technology is absolutely evil, dangerous, etc. under any and all circumstances, independent of how our living thinking approaches it). Neither Cleric nor myself read this line of argumentation into the post, hence we didn't explicitly disagree with something which isn't there.

(2) You are implicitly holding thinking activity and its outer physiognomy (language-forms) at arms length. If you weren't, then there would be no questioning the premise that thought-meaning is inseperable from language. The problem with "if it can arrange language, then it can arrange meaning" is the assumption that the GPT bot can arrange language independently of human thinking intelligence. The problem is the keeping of our own thinking involvement in the blind spot, so we project out the intelligence onto something external.

(3) You still don't quite get what principled understanding I was arguing for in our recent VR discussion, and therefore think is it at odds with what Max argued for in this post. Especially this paraphrase of the argument signals to me you aren't quite getting it - “Nonsense, it’s not by looking away from it, it’s not by compensating it with spiritual practice, that VR will be redeemed, but by descending in it. Some will have to do it." Actually the spiritual practice is the only thing which will redeem materialistic technology - not by shutting ourselves into asceticism and pretending the technology doesn't exist, but by bringing the fruits of our spiritual practice (including our rigorous logical reasoning) into the sphere of such technological phenomena. Is that not what Max is doing by writing the very well-reasoned essay?

I will add, in all honesty, when I was posting the Max essay, I thought, 'maybe Federica will think this is at odds with my previous position on VR and I should address that now', but then I decided not to. So I understand why you think it is at odds, but that's not because it is actually at odds.

Thanks Ashvin, the above was not circumventing - I prefer that
Still I have to notice - if what you really think is:

you stated why you are confused about the thought/meaning and language being inseparable and that actually they should be thought of as separable (I am a bit amazed by this in the context of your very recent discussions with Cleric and myself)

then how to interpret your previous reaction to the same question of mine: “I get what you are pointing to here. Here is my take” - Confusing? In anycase, I am glad I asked you to be more direct!

(1) you are reading a line of argumentation into Max's post which simply isn't there (there is no argument that GPT-like technology is absolutely evil, dangerous, etc. under any and all circumstances, independent of how our living thinking approaches it)

I didn’t read anything whatsoever into Max's post. I simply reported his words without expounding anything additional from them. He has explicitly taken a stance (or opinion, in Max’s words) in the question, as a starting point of the argumentation. There was clearly no need for me to read anything.


Here I have to note that every time I have dared to question the least bit of expression coming from Cleric of Max, without exception, you have become defensive. This makes you come out with hurried and inaccurate statements, such as this one:

(2) You are implicitly holding thinking activity and its outer physiognomy (language-forms) at arms length. If you weren't, then there would be no questioning the premise that thought-meaning is inseparable from language. The problem with "if it can arrange language, then it can arrange meaning" is the assumption that the GPT bot can arrange language independently of human thinking intelligence. The problem is the keeping of our own thinking involvement in the blind spot, so we project out the intelligence onto something external.

If you carefully read my original post, you will notice that I reference "if it can arrange language, then it can arrange meaning" as the wrong premise, held by those who believe the chat bot is intelligent, not by me. They do idolize the language arrangement displayed by the bot as a sign of independent intelligence. I certainly don’t do that. I totally agree that our thinking involvement is the only reason the bot appears to chat like a human. Still - and independently of all that - I do maintain that I don’t get how language and meaning can be said to be inseparable, by virtue of the quoted reasoning from Cleric. You initial take on this issue, that

Max is here making an argument specifically directed at those who must necessarily still have thinking in the blind spot, if they entertain the possibility that GPT chat, as an isolated 'entity', can have human-like intelligence of its own accord. That it is "using language and demonstrating critical thought". Max is focusing on that materialistically polarized mode of thinking which ignores its own reality and idolizes the linguistic labyrinth reflected by the GPT chat in a misguided desire to delegate all thinking responsibility to its creations.

sounds circumventing to me. It does not address the point I made.
Here is another defensive statement:

(3) You still don't quite get what principled understanding I was arguing for in our recent VR discussion, and therefore think is it at odds with what Max argued for in this post. Especially this paraphrase of the argument signals to me you aren't quite getting it - “Nonsense, it’s not by looking away from it, it’s not by compensating it with spiritual practice, that VR will be redeemed, but by descending in it. Some will have to do it." Actually the spiritual practice is the only thing which will redeem materialistic technology - not by shutting ourselves into asceticism and pretending the technology doesn't exist, but by bringing the fruits of our spiritual practice (including our rigorous logical reasoning) into the sphere of such technological phenomena. Is that not what Max is doing by writing the very well-reasoned essay?

It could very well be that I still don’t get what you were arguing in the VR discussion. However we don’t need to circumnavigate that far to pursue this present discussion. One thing you were certainly arguing for (I don't have enough time now, but I will go search for the quotes if necessary, later today) is that some people at least should descend in the material/sensorial experience of a technology, and that my opinion that it was deleterious in general was arbitrary, and wrong. Is this correct? Now I agree, what the essay is doing is to prescribe those who are interested to have a prescription, that the technology “must be met with a correlative development and elevation” so yes, with compensating spiritual practice. But what you were arguing for VR was rather that some will have to descend in the practical experience of it, not in a correlative spiritual practice away from it (unless you decide to define “spiritual practice” in a very counter-intuitive, all encompassing way that would cover anything we can ever endeavor, in all spectrums.)

Basically, my quote above could be reformulated as, "we are all at risk of becoming less human, just like the cannibals who consume their own kind". Then would you feel it is at odds with what Max wrote?

Yes I would. Because calling cannibals less human on the basis of their behaviors, sets a discontinuity between behaviors that can be considered fully human on the one end, and, on the other end, behaviors that would be less human than human, beyond a certain threshold (that you should now define or explain). The fact that we are all at risk to lapse into these behaviors only transfers the act of discontinuing from segmenting humanity, into segmenting behaviors. As I understood it, this was not the spirit of your quote:

I work to internalize that these are not your thoughts, your habits, or your soul-tendencies, or those of the people who immerse themselves in VR and materialistic technologies, or the rapists and murderers for that matter, but they are ours as a Karmically interwoven collective of individual perspectives which comprise humanity and the Cosmic "I".