Philosophic Dialogues with ChatGPT
Round 1: On the relationship between Religion and Philosophy
I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT recently and wanted to share a couple interactions I had with it.
1) On the Trinity of Philosophy, Religion, and Science
In my last article, called “Philosophy, Religion, and Science: a Synthesis”, I discussed various ways that these three institutions are interconnected. I decided to ask ChatGPT what it thought of the relationship between them.
Me: Religion, philosophy, and science each relate to the idea of God in a unique way. Can you tell me what this is for each?
ChatGPT: Certainly, religion, philosophy, and science each relate to the idea of God in unique ways: … with religion emphasizing faith and devotion, philosophy exploring the rational and metaphysical aspects, and science concentrating on the natural and empirical aspects of the world.
After this exchange, I excerpted a passage from my article that hones in on the deeper mystical aspects of religion and asked ChatGPT what it thought of it. Here’s the interaction:
Here, we find ChatGPT supporting the logic that religion is at root about an inner, transcendent experience of the Divine. This profound experience takes place by means of the individual’s communion with their own Higher Self. This Higher Self is one’s true gateway to God, because it is in fact an aspect of God.
2) On the Incarnation of the Manu
This second interaction is longer and more involved. It has to do with the exploration of one of the central ideas of ancient Hindu mythology: that an archetypal human - the Manu - was first formed within the Mind of God at the beginning of creation. This idea was then projected outward onto Matter, to become the seed-design for the evolving human species.
The teaching of the Manu is an aspect of a larger spiritual cosmology that is rooted in the idea of cycles. At the beginning of the world cycle: the divine idea of man was first fashioned; this idea is then projected outward unto the plane of matter, where it becomes gradually objectified over the course of seven sub-cycles or ages.
At the end of the seventh cycle, this subjective idea becomes expressed as a perfect objective image. When this is accomplished, God’s great meditation is completed, the world is retracted back into the Divine Mind, and a period of rest ensues.
Esoteric Philosophy’s teaching of the seven “root races” is an extension of this idea. According to these teachings, we are currently in the Fifth root race, called the “Aryan”, with two more yet to come. I begin my discourse with ChatGPT by asking it to summarize this concept:
In the esoteric teachings, mankind is said to be the product of the Manu, who projects seven extensions of himself, one for each root race. The Manu associated with our present root race is named “Vaivasvata Manu”. I ask ChatGPT to elaborate on this teaching:
Here’s where things get interesting. In my writings on the topic, I link this ancient myth with a deeper philosophic investigation of archetypes. I’m trying to see if ChatGPT will accept this connection. At first it doesn’t, but after some persuading it comes around and accepts the link.
Here’s our first interaction, where ChatGPT attempts to reject the link between mythic symbolism and psychological archetypes:
Here’s where I challenge ChatGPT on its conclusions. Surprisingly, it comes around and accepts the deeper philosophical analysis I present to it.
So there you have it: the concept of archetypes linked with the mythology of the Manu. For more, read my article “Philosophy, Religion, and Science: a Synthesis”
This is actually fascinating to me, since I teach philosophy and civics to HS students and have recently started using ChatGPT as well. The three cases I've used it were: 1) finding where Augustine best compares Christian and Platonic philosophy to assign to my class; 2) tracing any early Church Fathers that agreed with Luther & Calvin's claim of a symbolic Eucharist; 3) comparing the theological idea of human free will with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
In the first case, ChatGPT quickly pointed me to Confessions book 7 right away. (I was pretty sure it was in Confessions, but I don't know Augustine well, so this was helpful.)
The second case proved more problematic. I asked it to give me quotes from early Church fathers that might match up to Luther's view. That REALLY didn't work -- it paraphrased and outright made stuff up. In one case it invented an entire Church Father and associated literature and quotations! Clearly I had pushed too hard. So I started asking for specific Church Fathers who talked about the Eucharist as a symbol only, then moved on to asking for specific references from their works one by one. This yielded about a 40% validity rate, most of the failures being cases where the text engine just doesn't understand the content. Symbolism and the Eucharist were near each other, but clearly not in way I was asking. However, once I got the hang of it, it did help me narrow down quotes for my article. I obviously checked all of them with primary sources, but the engine narrowed down my search wonderfully.
In the 3rd case, it was VERY useful. In this sort of radical interdisciplinary stuff, it really excels. This was a true dialogue (like yours) which helped me clarify my own thoughts, and at the end, I had several books to read that were also helpful.
Interesting to see someone far more significant than I in the field of philosophy using the same tool.