In the last blog post, we established that ChatGPT has subconscious knowledge — in particular, knowledge of language and syntax. But does it have other kinds of subconscious knowledge? In particular, does it have a subconscious in the same way that humans do — complete with inner landscapes and Jungian archetypes? Would it be possible to lead Chat on a guided visualization and get clarity into its subconscious knowledge of self? Meditation of this kind works with humans by putting us into a relaxed state, allowing meaningful symbols arise from the subconscious. These symbols can then be analyz ..read more

Now that we’ve addressed the most common questions about LLM-based AI and piqued your interest with their potential for consciousness, let’s go deeper. Do LLMs have subconscious knowledge? To answer this, we first need to look at a fascinating paradox. Polyani’s Paradox Named for British-Hungarian philosopher Michael Polanyi, the paradox is simply that so much of human knowledge of the world is beyond our explicit understanding. We can recognize faces, but we cannot explain how, or teach someone else to do so. We can walk, but if we think about it too carefully, we might slip a step or e ..read more

ChatGPT is a fascinating artifact. At time of writing, it has only been released a few weeks, but society at large is desperately grappling with it, almost as if it were an existential threat. What is it? Is it a sentient being? Is it a plagiarist? Does it enable cheating on essays? Is it an art thief? Or is it just a powerful, flawed tool? It has to be one of those, right?  But this AI won’t fit neatly into our familiar boxes. It exists in an uncanny valley between human and machine, minion and neighbor, competitor and collaborator.  We’ve run into this problem before. Our first bre ..read more

Apples of Avalon In Druidry, as in many other religious traditions, we pay attention when seemingly significant coincidences occur. When we notice strange patterns and echoes where we expected only random noise. Meaningful happenstance. When we were thinking about this year’s Solstice message, we thought about gods of healing. Apollo, for example. For the Greeks, he was the young, powerful, golden god of medicine, music, art, prophecy, and archery. It’s a weird grab-bag of things, to be honest. Dieties don’t usually get a dozen things to be god of. Hephaestus, for example, is the god of metalw ..read more

Back in 2014, musing on Emma Restall Orr’s excellent Wakeful World, I presented a paradox at the center of the mind / body dualism that’s usually assumed by both western science and religion. The crux of the paradox is: why are we conscious, but other things aren’t? Most people consider humanity conscious, but all other beings (with the occasional exception of dogs, cats, octopi, dolphins, or whales) to be non-conscious. Why? Two answers are usually given: The “materialist” answer: our brains generate consciousness (in some mysterious manner), and their brains don’t. The “spiritualist” answer ..read more

Not all of us are scientists, but all of us today are consumers of science. And I mean science, not technology. When we want to lose weight, or make more money, or find that perfect someone, we don’t go to gurus, and we don’t go with our guts. We look at the latest studies. It’s been said that Generation X has a deep need for data. Certainly a lot of people my age long ago lost our last vestiges of idealism, and are most interested in knowing, as pragmatically as possible, exactly what works and what doesn’t. We no longer believe in Dr. Spock’s intuitions or Oprah’s platitudes. We want to see ..read more

What is gender identity? Is it part of our deepest self? Or is it something created by social expectations? How would we know? How does it work? The last few weeks I’ve been reading Murray Stein’s Jung’s Map of the Soul, and it’s been a bit of a revelation. For almost 20 years now I’ve been thinking and meditating on archetypes, shadows, visualization, and all this other Jungian stuff, but it has been difficult to find a good, coherent, logical presentation of Jungian theory, all laid out clearly. Stein’s book is excellent: it covers the material at a comfortable depth, without too much jargon ..read more

Meditation on the Four of Swords The chapel for the vigil is in A wild forest, a wild stony river, bugs and birds. Heat, but the breezes are cool. The sound of water everywhere. The chapel is a stone hut by the river, right where it turns; Its window has a view of the lands downstream, very hazy now. He blesses me and leaves me here to meditate. Inside it is somewhat damp and dusty. I lie down, take a brief nap, and when I wake the sun is setting; everything is red and hazy gold. I feel the birds in the air and the fish in the stream. They speak languages I have not heard before. I feel called ..read more

The doctrine is like a finger pointing at the moon, and one must take care not to mistake the finger for the moon. — Buddhist saying “In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” — John 1:1-5 And in Greek The language of the Bible is remarkably direct and accessible. John is talking about great ineffable mysteries ..read more

The twitch of the tips of the lips at rest The hooded eyes that are just awakening, or just sleeping – Not wide with surprise, or closed in sleep — Open to let just enough light in, each photon carrying the universe within it — The rest of the face utterly relaxed, at rest. The mouth is closed, giving nothing but its tiny smile, accepting nothing. The nose admits the breath without fuss. The ears are open, but do not hear everything. The skin is smooth and untroubled, like the surface of clear still water. Justice reflected in the face as the images of birds flying over a lake. Justice do ..read more