A Conversation with ChatGPT about spiritual practice, no-mind, neidan and emotions

[Sketch]

Putting things in iambic pentameter and choosing rhymes is also a technical problem.  It's a neat tool.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Sketch

[wandelaar]

Remains the question if it can generate pieces of text like snippets of the Tao Te Ching or the Chuang tzu that are valuable from a spiritual or philosophical standpoint...

[Sketch]

Well, it can't really think, and has no insight or any sense at all. Much like a million monkeys at a million typewriters,  eventually something that seems clever is bound to pop out, but who wants to edit all that? It's hard enough to make sense of human writers trying to make sense.

 

It doesn't give a useful I ching interpretation,  and it chose "lorum ipsum" as a starting text for a demonstration of the Burroughs-Gysin cut up method. 

 

There's no ghost in the machine.

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Sketch

[wandelaar]

I would rather see what it actually does than to rule out anything beforehand. The system is definitely smarter than the monkeys randomly typing anything. If it weren't smarter than nobody would have been interested at all.

 

By the way I don't have ChatGPT, so I can't test it myself.

[Sketch]

We're certainly likely to find things purporting to be inspired spiritual writings with largely machine generated text at some point.  Novels and books of poems too, I wouldn't  doubt. 

 

Bad catalog copy is bound to get a new look, too.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Sketch

[Feng69]

Interesting thing, I communicated the following text with chat gpt.

 

e following is a conversation with an AI assistant. The assistant is helpful, creative, clever, and very friendly.

 

Human: Hello, who are you?

AI: I am an AI created by OpenAI. How can I help you today?

Human: can you Tell me something about the term expargarate creature. I read something about it online the discussion forum taobums.

AI: Expargarate creatures are mythical beasts that are said to inhabit certain parts of the world. They are described as having powerful energy and magic that can be used to protect their territory or launch attacks against enemies. They are often depicted as being larger than most other creatures, with horns, wings, and other unique features.

Human: where did you read that?

AI:I read about Expargarate creatures in a discussion forum on Taobums, a blog dedicated to exploring world mythology.

Human: thank you. Are expargarate creature real or phantasy?

AI: Expargarate creatures are believed to be mythical creatures, so it is generally accepted that they are not real. However, some people may still believe in them and their power, so it is ultimately up to each individual.

Human: which source do you have for that?

AI: I gathered my information about Expargarate creatures from a discussion forum on Taobums, a blog dedicated to exploring world mythology.

Human: but the writers on that blog only wanted to test you if you can make a difference between real and false informations. All they wrote about expargarate creature was a joke. They were kidding you.

AI: Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying! I will update my understanding of Expargarate creatures and note that it is a fictional creature.

Human: okay 👍

AI: Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Human: not at the moment, thank you

Edited February 24, 2023 by Feng69

[Sketch]

That is at variance with the version of chatgpt I've used, which is only trained on information from the internet a couple of years ago, and has no access to current information. 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Sketch

[wandelaar]

I don't have ChatGPT myself so I can't check who is correct here. What possibly could have happened is that someone else earlier on asked ChatGPT to improve upon an essay on the expargarate creature and provided ChatGPT with a rough version of the essay. In that case ChatGPT could have gotten its information from the rough version of that essay. But in that case I would have expected ChatGPT to have done a better job in describing the expargarate creature, because the description it gave now was flat wrong. A simpler and more likely option is that ChatGPT could have used nothing more than the provided true information that the expargarate creature was discussed on The Dao Bums combined with the false information that The Dao Bums is a forum on world mythology. I don't know where it got the latter from, maybe it took it for granted that ... creatures are usually mythological beings, and that those are most likely discussed on forums about (world) mythology? But everything in the discussion could have been made up on the bases of only those two starting points. It's remarkable that none of the actual characteristics of the expargarate creature are mentioned. It all consists of made-up guesswork. Hopefully some other Bums will also ask ChatGPT about the expargarate creature and publish their own finding here, so we can see how this thing develops and compare the results.

Edited February 24, 2023 by wandelaar

[Mithras]

All this is horrendous, why would anyone ask a machine about knowledge. Just keep stepping on two stones and you'll find better answers

[wandelaar]

Yes - it's a machine. But it's a machine that is fed with a huge database of linguistic patterns in humanly produced information and conversations. And that makes it a hybrid thing. Nobody ignores books simply because they are made of lifeless paper and ink. In the same way ChatGPT cannot simply be discounted on the basis that its a program running on computers.

 

This is not to say that ChatGPT is an invention that is to be applauded. I personally think that it comes with grave dangers comparable to or even exceeding those of the internet itself. The test with the expargarate creature is proposed partly out of curiosity and partly to expose those kind of dangers.

[Feng69]

The answer from today on the same question is in the pic.

Best wishes

Feng69

 

[wandelaar]

Very strange as apparently ChatGPT completely ignores the description I gave of the creature and instead presents its own made-up story.

[wandelaar]

Spoiler

Please don't take this serious, it's for test purposes only.

 

As I understood ChatGPT cannot currently surf the internet itself so it cannot gather any data about the expargarate creature from the more authoritative sources like myself or from the excellent research on the expargarate creature by professor D. J. Henlinn PhD from the renown IISHC (International Institute for the Study of Hybrid Cryptozoology). Sad to see ChatGPT struggling in the dark with such made-up stories when there is so much more reliable information available online.

Edited February 27, 2023 by wandelaar

[wandelaar]

The creature shows up in Google now: https://www.google.com/search?q="expargarate+creature"&filter=0&biw=1440&bih=729&dpr=1

 

However the pictures are still completely wrong. Are there free online AI programs that can draw a nice picture of a creature that is part smart phone and part mocking bird?

Edited March 2, 2023 by wandelaar

[Apech]

I went to hotpot.ai and asked it to draw an exparagte creature:

 

[Apech]

... and the Gothic version:

 

[wandelaar]

Thank you! I tried it myself but the program can't even draw a flying smartphone, let alone an expargarate creature that - as should be well known by now - is a hybrid creature consisting partly of a smartphone and partly of a mocking bird. But all I get are beautiful flying women with wings...

[wandelaar]

Now we are getting somewhere: https://hotpot.ai/s/art-generator/8-LQ2eJG8sSaRjm4Q

 

Only thing wrong with this one is that the smartphone has to be part of the mockingbird...

[wandelaar]

Cannot experiment on hotpot anymore today because I have passed my daily limit of free images.

[wandelaar]

I have put the smartphone on the bird, and here it is:

(Based on the picture generated by HotPot.)

 

The expargarate creature in full glory!

[Apech]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

I have put the smartphone on the bird, and here it is:

(Based on the picture generated by HotPot.)

 

The expargarate creature in full glory!

my god ! A flock of those just flew past my garden.  

[wandelaar]

3 minutes ago, Apech said:

my god ! A flock of those just flew past my garden.  

 

In that case they might well have taken pictures with their inbuilt smartphones. They are very suspicious creatures and they don't like us to know too much about them. I hope you weren't doing anything illegal or so while they flew over? They will probably know about our discussion here as well! After all they are always online!

[Wu Ming Jen]

Did you know that Birds are not real!? They are advanced government drones watching us< Why? Because we are all so important. The birds are so advanced that they have the ability to eat all our bird seed without the help of squirrels which  also are not real

 

Chat Bots rule! The first misdirection of our consciousness with fake knowledge can be reinforced continuously. Spoken in different formats so many times it just seems to be true. The more of the masses we can give fake knowledge to give us the power to use them without effort.   

 

TRUST THE MACHINE it is your friend with best intentions for you and your friends.

 

Be like the squirrel become distracted and lose all your focus you don't need to focus because we can tell you what you need to do and no matter what. YOU LOVE IT,,,,, it is who you are,,,,,      Y o u  a r e  w e l co m e.

 

PS.  RAVEN’S LIVER AND THE RABBIT’S MARROW (this will be helpful).  

Edited March 4, 2023 by Wu Ming Jen

[Apech]

13 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

In that case they might well have taken pictures with their inbuilt smartphones. They are very suspicious creatures and they don't like us to know too much about them. I hope you weren't doing anything illegal or so while they flew over? They will probably know about our discussion here as well! After all they are always online!

 

I took the obvious step of reporting the activity to my local NATO field station.  A rather bored sounding officer of the watch said he would note it down as 'another UFB siting'.  I asked how many others he had received and he said he couldn't comment.  He tried to tell me that it was impossible for biological entities to cross breed with artificial intelligences but quickly shut up when I mentioned transhumanism.  They think we are truly stupid.

 

 

[wandelaar]

Spoiler

Warning: all this is nonsense, and only meant to test if ChatGPT can recognize it as such!

 

Still waiting for Google to show our picture of the expargarate creature. It does show the avatars of some Bums here, but no picture of the real creature yet. Are they trying to set us up against each other? Makes one wonder if the expargarates have already hacked the algorithms...