The Upper Room

12:04 AM

The latest Motu Proprio curtailing the TLM probably came out after they cut-off training data. (back when some markov chain led them to believe in the tintedness of farts)

GratefulDisciple

@PeterTurner Oh OK. Not fair then. I cannot resist to ask one last question: "What prompted Bart Ehrman to deny the Trinity?" And the ChatGPT flunks it. Maybe it's not yet ready for the Turing test, if the examiner is any good:

> Bart Ehrman is a historian and New Testament scholar, not a theologian. He has not publicly denied the Trinity, which is a central doctrine of mainstream Christianity. As a historian, Ehrman focuses on analyzing the historical evidence for early Christian beliefs and texts, and he has written extensively on the development of Christian doctrine over time.

> He is known for his critical approach to the study of religion and for his willingness to challenge traditional beliefs and interpretations. However, he has not publicly denied the doctrine of the Trinity.

That sounds like an answer that Dan Brown (author of Da Vinci Code book) would give 😀. The Church Grammar episode on canon mentioned how it's so popular that every 48 hours someone tweeted about how the canon was settled at Nicaea.

Peter Turner

I'm asking questions of chatbot instead of my teacher in networking class tonight

Q: what is the difference between a wired network and a LAN?
A: The main difference between a wired network and a LAN is that a wired network is a physical connection between two or more nodes, while a LAN is a logical connection between two or more nodes. A wired network typically uses Ethernet cables to connect nodes, while a LAN typically uses Wi-Fi or other wireless technologies.

not that helpful...

GratefulDisciple

12:28 AM

@PeterTurner It seems to excel when the question is frequent enough so that the answer can be close enough to a canned answer. For example, I asked "What are the steps to write a compiler for the C language?" The answer is quite good (gave me 6 general steps which are correct since it doesn't have to "think" to customize the compiler for an unusual language).

So when I asked things like "What is ultimate happiness according to Christianity?" or "How can I be happy on earth according to Christianity?" the answers are close to perfect, but it's biased to a Protestant answer though :-).

Peter Turner

12:45 AM

> According to Evangelical Christianity, God created all living things, including humans, out of love. He did so because He desired to have a relationship with His creation and to share His love with us. Evangelical Christians believe that God made humans in His own image, and that He gave us the ability to know, love, and serve Him. The ultimate reason for why God made humans, according to Evangelical Christianity, is because of His love for us and His desire for us to have a relationship with Him.

> Reformed Christians believe that God is the creator of the universe and all living things, including humans. They also believe that God created humans in His own image, and that He did so for His own purposes and glory. This means that the ultimate reason for why God made humans, according to Reformed Christianity, is for His own glory and for the fulfillment of His plans and purposes.

> Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God created humans to live forever in a state of happiness and peace on a paradise earth. They also believe that God gave humans the ability to exercise free will and make choices, so that we could choose to serve and worship Him. The ultimate reason for why God made humans, according to Jehovah's Witnesses, is for us to have the opportunity to live forever in a paradise earth and to serve and worship Him.

> Muslims believe that Allah created humans out of His own desire and for His own purposes. The exact reasons for why Allah may have created humans are not fully known, but Muslims believe that Allah's actions are ultimately just and wise.

> According to LDS theology, God made humans to have a physical body and to gain a mortal experience on earth. They believe that this experience allows us to grow and progress, and that it is essential for our eventual exaltation and eternal life with God. The ultimate reason for why God made humans, according to LDS theology, is to provide us with the opportunity to progress and become like Him.

> According to Swedenborg, God created the universe and all living things, including humans, out of love. He believed that the ultimate reason for why God created humans is to provide us with the opportunity to grow and develop spiritually, and to eventually become like God in character and nature.

...
> G.K. Chesterton was an English writer and philosopher who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chesterton was a Christian, but he did not belong to any particular denomination or theological tradition. Therefore, it is not possible to say with certainty what Chesterton believed about why God made humans.

> What is the thought that stop all thought?
>
>There is no one thought that can stop all thought. The human brain is capable of generating an almost infinite number of thoughts, and it is difficult to imagine a single thought that could completely stop this process.
>
>Additionally, the idea of a thought that could stop all thought is somewhat paradoxical, as thinking is a fundamental aspect of human consciousness and it is difficult to imagine a state in which no thoughts are occurring. In general, it is not possible for a single thought to stop all thought, and the idea of such a thought…

Matthew

1:54 AM

@PeterTurner Well, you did ask it to explain the difference between apples and oranges. I disagree with "a LAN typically...", but most of the Internet is a wired network. It's right that you asked the difference between a physical adjective and a logical adjective.

Peter Turner

2:21 AM

beta.openai.com/playground/p/… all the bad Trinity analogies at your fingertips

>
The Trinity is like an apple with three parts: the skin, the flesh, and the core. Each part is unique, yet they all come together to form one complete apple.

>
The Trinity is like a three-leaf clover, with each leaf representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit intertwined together in perfect harmony.

>
The Trinity is like an interlocking puzzle, where each piece is essential to completing the whole.

>
(is not like) A three-legged stool, where each leg is dependent on the other for stability. The Trinity is more like a triangle, where each corner is equal in strength and importance.

> The Trinity is like a mom and her children. They are all important, but the mother is the most important one. She is the one who provides food and shelter for her children. The other two are there to help with things like laundry and taking care of the house, but they are not as important as the mother.

> The Trinity is like a group of friends. Friends are like family, and they are all related to each other. The Trinity is like a community. A community is like a family, and it includes members from all over the world.

> The three branches of the Trinity are the three gifts of the three men who were to bring the sun into the sky.

> The Trinity is like The three days of creation. The three days of creation are like: The three days of creation are a time for learning and an opportunity for success.

GratefulDisciple

12:30 PM

@PeterTurner This example and this one illustrates both the strength and the weakness of ChatGPT to be a research assistant: understand English functionally well (can score high in ESL tests like TOEFL or IELTS) and able to pull relevant citations from its learning corpus (strength) but with limited understanding far below subject matter experts (weakness).

I am looking forward to see how well it can improve in 10 years and what would be its asymptote limit. I doubt it can reach the level of Star Trek Data, however much I wish it can do that.

I think theology has to prepare a philosophical defense to respond to these reality of machine creatures by being able to describe what makes human nature and God deserving to be placed in separate ontological categories, just as theology today needs a philosophical defense of why these 4 human soul's distinctives cannot be reduced to brain, culture, and upbringing:

1) awareness of us as God's creatures in relation to Him through which we a) are driven to find ultimate satisfaction only in beatific vision, b) feel the urge to give thanks, c) aspire to participate in everything that is great under the aspect of #2, #3, and #4, but yet d) feel deeply our creaturely dependent on something ontologically greater

2) Participate in transcendent Beauty where we instinctively (not through upbringing) can recognize various kinds of beauties in nature, art, music, literature (thus we recognize the "greats" in each field like Michelangelo, Mozart, Shakespeare;

3) Participate in transcendent Truth where we instinctively want to philosophize and to explore various kinds of truths in empirical nature (through science), in mathematics, in linguistics, in history (not just facts, but historiography), in morality (principles of right/wrong behavior), in society (sociological truths), in our soul (psychological truths), in the supernatural, etc.

4) Participate in transcendent Goodness where a) we naturally recognize heroes and saints and feel how they are deserving of medals / recognition, b) we feel horror if the weak are abused, c) we celebrate love in its various manifestations, d) recognize our failings when compared to the greatest love in Jesus.

GratefulDisciple

1:11 PM

Speaking of Jesus, we are now in Advent, my favorite season of the year, because to me this is the fulfillment of all myths and other religions: God incarnates as one of us, sojourning with us from baby to mature adult, not in His glory as creator and the source of everything great (described above), but as an approachable lowly servant who can relate and sympathize with every well meaning downtrodden and suffering human being, literally "God with us".

In His incarnation of Jesus He models for us the way of the lamb: doesn't abuse his power, ready to forgive the repentant no matter the offense, patient to us children who make so many boo-boos when trying to be good and grow up.

That's why I feel tragically sad when people are turned off by other Christians who preach the gospel using fire & brimstone, Bible thumping / verse throwing, legal / rhetorical force for its own sake, guilt trip, or triumphalism, which I admit I did on occasions out of my pride. So this Advent I need to be reminded of the way of humility, which God himself does.

Peter Turner

1:42 PM

@GratefulDisciple This morning our men's group listened to a talk by Dr. Kreeft on the subjective proofs for God's existence. One of them was simply Bach. (the argument from beauty)

I wonder if Dall-e, monkey Shakespeare or auto-gen Mozart will ever rise to the level of evoking notions of transcendent beauty.

GratefulDisciple

2:08 PM

@PeterTurner Yes, I would be interested to see/hear the result. My guess is that many non-connoisseurs will be fooled, but specialists or researchers would not. Remember though, that we are talking about the capacity of soul for transcendent beauty, so this is about the hearer's soul NOT the producer. Even CS Lewis shared how he as a kid was transported to another world when looking at his brother's Animal Land in a tin can.

Therefore, I think just because an AI can "create" a passable work of art / music is not sufficient to deny that a real human soul has capacity to participate with transcendentals that are ontologically different, that the ancients were halfway there when believing how an artist is inspired by his/her muse, a god.

It's a philosophical debate, for sure, but Christians can legitimately insist that this factor is included in the argument: that WE are the instruments in the experiment, as indispensable as Hubble/JWST for astronomy. It is an existential instrument.

GratefulDisciple

9:21 PM

@PeterTurner Since we are discussing transcendentals, I hope you like my question. The article linked in the question refers to Peter Kreeft too.

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Q: What are the correct pairings between the soul's faculties and the 3 transcendentals?

The three transcendentals and imago dei Medieval scholastic theology inherited the notions of transcendentals from Greek metaphysics. CCC 41, interpreting Wis 13:5, teaches that our soul has the ability to perceive God through the 3 transcendentals Truth, Goodness and Beauty in created things by...

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