2023 | Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

Is AI Merely Artificially Intelligent? Comparing AI ChatGPT and Bard to Wikipedia

APPENDIX: Artificial Intelligence, Comparing ChatGPT vs Bard, With and Without Footnotes and Sources

What is artificial intelligence? The original definition by Alan Turing is that a program is deemed artificially intelligent if the user conversing by keyboard is convinced that a live human being is responding. But keep in mind that artificially intelligent computer programs have zero comprehension. Although they can do quite well on intelligence tests, answering questions instantaneously, they are incapable of original thought. However, they excel at pattern matching, and the latest AI programs can replicate text from existing text samples. The program does not comprehend the meaning of these text samples, which means it has trouble evaluating their credibility. Thus, the generated output is often what programmers call GIGO: garbage-in, garbage-out.
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Martin Luther, Do Not Steal, Lutheran Catechisms, and German Peasants’ Revolt

Bruce Strom 0

Luther concludes by restating the positive and negative forms of the commandment, noting that tolerating theft by others by doing nothing also is a moral violation. “On one hand, we are forbidden to do our neighbor any injury or wrong in any way imaginable, whether by damaging, withholding, or interfering with his possession and property. We are not even to consent to or permit such a thing but are rather to avert and prevent it. On the other hand, we are commanded to promote and further our neighbor’s interests, and when he suffers want, we are to help, share, and lend to both friends and foes.” […]

Learning to Speak Alzheimer's: A Caregiver's Guide

Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s: A Caretaker’s Guide

Bruce Strom 2

In life, whenever someone criticizes you, or offers you advice, they always reveal more about themselves, their prejudices, their experiences, and sometimes their guilt, than they reveal about the situation at hand, and that applies to family members, friends, counselors, and doctors. […]

Summary of Homer’s Iliad: Warrior Culture of Ancient Greece

Bruce Strom 3

All ancient cultures were warrior cultures, out of necessity. War was a deadly business, if an ancient city-state lost the war the city would be plundered, often the military age men would be slain, and the women and children would be sold into slavery. In ancient Athens, a quarter of the population were slaves, and in ancient Rome about forty percent of the population were slaves. Most of these slaves were either born into slavery or were captured during war, some were captured and sold by pirates. […]

St John Climacus on Gluttony in Ladder of Divine Ascent, Eating for Health: DASH Diet

St John Climacus on Gluttony and Fasting, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 14, and Eating for Health: DASH diet

Bruce Strom 1

Earthly passions, if we do not control them, can lead us to selfishness, can lead us away from selflessness, can cloud the way to our salvation, and can prevent us from loving our neighbor as ourselves. St John Climacus teaches us that the primary passion is gluttony, the gluttony that keeps us from eating a healthy diet, that keeps us from eating in moderation. […]

Were the Christians Actively Persecuted by Marcus Aurelius, Stoic Philosopher and Good Roman Emperor?

Bruce Strom 0

Today we will reflect on this question: Did the good Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius actively persecute Christians? Why wasn’t Marcus Aurelius and other stoics impressed by the martyrdom of Christians in the arena? How could Marcus Aurelius espouse Christian values in his Stoic Meditations, while also including […]

The Historian Robin Waterfield Reflects on Xenophon’s Anabasis in Persia, and Other Greco-Persian Conflicts

Bruce Strom 1

The Greek hoplite infantry forces were the best warriors of their time, they were eagerly employed as mercenaries in the ancient world. The Greeks won the Battle of Cunaxa, and although Artaxerxes was wounded in the battle, his younger brother Cyrus died fighting. The Greek forces were stuck thousands of miles from home, but the Persian forces of Artaxerxes were fearful of directly attacking them. At first, the Persians guided them north towards the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, but then they double-crossed them, killing many of their generals. The Greeks simply elected new generals, with Xenophon now leading their forces, as they first fought the Persians, then mountain tribesmen, fighting for provisions, as they retreated to the Greek colonies on the shores of the Black Sea. […]

Platonic Dialogue: Protagoras and Socrates Debate: Can Virtue Be Taught?

Bruce Strom 0

Socrates wants his students to think for themselves, so we cannot assume that Socrates really believes that virtue cannot be taught. After all, at the end of the dialogue, Socrates asserts that true knowledge leads to virtue. Perhaps he seeks to dissuade the youths in Athens from studying under the Sophists, who claim to be able to teach anything, for a fee, a generous fee, of course.
What example comes to mind if we assert that virtue can be taught? We need to go no further than the Book of Judges, which is filled with horrible stories that atheists love to parade as proof that God is not a loving god. We must keep in mind the constant theme of the Book of Judges: Everyone in Israel did what was right IN HIS OWN EYES. Which is the slogan of the Sophists. […]

The Sophist Protagoras in Plato’s Dialogues, His Biography and Fragments of His Works

Bruce Strom 1

Protagoras begins one of his works with “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.”
The ancient author Sextus Empiricus also quotes this fragment, continuing the quote from Protagoras: “And for this reason he posits only what appears to the individual, thus introducing relativity.” “What Protagoras states then is this–that matter is in flux,” “and the senses are transformed and altered according to the times of life and to all other conditions of the bodies.” […]

History of Christian Persecutions, New Testament Through Marcus Aurelius

Bruce Strom 2

How widespread was the Christian persecution under the Roman Empire? Usually, it was a local affair, not until the reign of Diocletian was an empire-wide systematic persecution of Christians undertaken. The persecution under Nero was limited to Rome itself. The extent of the local persecution depended on the enthusiasm or cruelty of the local officials, many local officials had no enthusiasm for persecuting the local Christians, turning a blind eye. Overall, the number of persecutions was not huge, rarely were the Christian persecutions systematic, targeting all Christians. Indeed, the Christian martyrs in the twentieth century alone, mostly in Russia, dwarfed the number of Christian martyrs from the preceding nineteen centuries combined. […]