Richard Oxenberg

Can AI Large Language Models like ChatGPT actually understand what they are saying? If not, how do they manage to convey the appearance of understanding? What is "understanding" anyway? I thought it might be interesting to explore these questions with ChatGPT itself. What ensued was a wide-ranging dialogue that touched upon the nature of meaning, language, cognition, the brain, human existential striving, the proper place of AI, and, ultimately, the metaphysics of consciousness. The aim throughout was to become clear about the similarities - and profound dissimilarities - between LLMs and human cognition. This work is a transcript of that dialogue.

When Moses asks God's name in the biblical book of Exodus, God responds, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," traditonally translated, "I Am That I Am," and understood by Thomas Aquinas and others as an expression of God's aseity, i.e., God's ontological self-subsistence. This traditional translation and interpretation was challenged by Martin Buber and Franz Rosensweig as an imposition of Greek metaphysical thinking on the Hebrew Bible. They maintained that the divine name is intended to convey, not divine aseity, but divine personal presence. Rosenzweig's and Buber's interpretation has now been largely embraced by many, if not most, biblical scholars. In this essay, I argue for a restoration of the ontological reading of the divine name, but one informed by Buber's and Rosenzweig's personalistic reading. My claim is that the divine name has personal relevance precisely as an expression of divine aseity, and that, indeed, we lose something essential about the meaning of the divine name if we disregard this.

A sound democracy must be peopled by citizens who see concern for the dignity of others, and for the good of society as a whole, as integral to their own private good, such that private and public interest coincide. This requires a degree of moral and intellectual sophistication that can only be achieved through a robust program of value-oriented, ethical, broadly ‘philosophical’ education. The morally realized citizen-kings of Kant’s Kingdom of Ends can become such only as they approximate to Plato’s intellectually-realized philosopher-kings. So a value-oriented education is essential to the democratic form as such.

This work is the transcript of a theological dialogue I had with ChatGPT that spanned a couple of days. I began it merely out of curiosity over how ChatGPT might respond to questions and challenges I posed. As it progressed, I became increasingly impressed with the nuance, depth, and relevance of its responses. The dialogue became, for me, something of a contemplative exercise. I still don’t know quite how to understand the ability of generative A.I. to respond with such (apparent) understanding and even insight. I’ve decided to post this dialogue, not only because of the puzzle it poses concerning A.I, but even more, because I believe that the theological conclusions ‘we’ arrived at have real merit. In the end, the theological views expressed here echo those that I’ve expressed in other works of mine, but the expression of these views are enhanced by the way ChatGPT picks up on them, rephrases them, elaborates upon them, and often places them in the context of the classical theological tradition. I might add that I have been an A.I. skeptic for some time now, concerned over the potential dangers of A.I. in general. But this dialogue, anyway, reveals its potential use as a vehicle for reflection, even profound reflection.

This is the first chapter of a projected book to be entitled, The Ego and the Spirit. This book will endeavor to examine what lies at the heart of human spiritual aspiration from a psychological, philosophical, and religious perspective. In this first chapter, I discuss the predicament of the human ego, charged with a task that it cannot fulfill: To establish itself securely within being. The ego's efforts to fulfill this task through its dealings with the things and people of the material world lead to distortions in its self-experience, its relations with others, and its involvement in life in general. The world's spiritual traditions have long recognized the predicament of the ego and present themselves as a means to its resolution. In this first chapter, though, the focus is on the ego and its predicament.

Can we find a phenomenological basis for the ethical 'ought'? This essay addresses this question through a reflection on Husserl's fifth Meditation. In the fifth Meditation Husserl endeavors to show the manner in which I constitute the other through an associative pairing of the other with my own subjectivity. This essay argues that this same associative pairing forces me to acknowledge the other as a person of intrinsic worth insofar as I recognize myself as one. Having acknowledged the intrinsic worth of the other in this way, I cannot but acknowledge my obligation to treat the other as I would like to be treated. Thus, the ethical imperative, in the form of the Golden Rule, proves to be implicated in the very constitution of the other in his or her otherness.