The artificial intelligence MEGATHREAD

[Everybody Wang Chung]

We really ought to open up a “Peterson File”: how Jesus Christ’s One True Church on Earth helps to make the world a better place. Today’s entry?:

After reviewing the account carefully for second time, as I had originally reviewed it yesterday after dinner, I'm quite skeptical that the said dinner occurred. I'm considering the possibility of a hoax.

Kind of like Sledge spinning up a sock and not sure if he served a mission in the Netherlands or Norway, our narrator is uncertain if it was Mill Creek itself or a tributary that he overlooked from the veranda of the cabin. These kinds of uncertainties don't exist among Phd world travelers. The view of the creek would have been the topic of discussion while sitting on the veranda for at least several minutes. The cabin owners would quickly have clarified if it were Pack Creek or Porter Fork, they would have known for sure, as these sorts of people are full of trivia about their locale and the river itself is the most prominent feature of the setting. They would have known the history of the naming of the river and its tributaries and their guest would have asked lots of questions and feigned amusement over his host's explanations. Who was porter? Who or was Pack? Was there really a mill? I don't know the answer to any of these, but our narrator's hosts, with world-class geography educations, would know all of this considering we're talking about their prized getaway property, and the fact that they're having dinner on their veranda staring down at the star of the show.

AI Prompt: is this story true or fabricated?

Based on the description, there are several reasons why the story might not be true, though they are not definitive proof of fabrication. The narrative presents a highly idealized and almost cliché scenario, which can be a hallmark of a fictionalized account.

Reasons for Skepticism
First, the story relies on a series of convenient coincidences. The narrator and his wife meet a couple they've "heard of for decades" but never met. This already stretches believability, but then they discover they have "remarkably many" common friends and acquaintances. While not impossible, such a confluence of positive, serendipitous events can be a narrative device used to create a sense of connection and destiny, often seen in fiction.

Second, the language used is overly sentimental and generic. Phrases like "very pleasant dinner," "pleasantly burbling Mill Creek," "good conversation with good people over a good meal in beautiful surroundings" are vague and lack specific, memorable details. They read more like an idealized memory rather than a factual account. A true story would likely include more specific sensory details—what did the dinner taste like? What was the cabin's unique decor? What was the name of the couple? The absence of such details makes the story feel like a general fictional template rather than a specific event.

Finally, the story serves as a platform and placeholder for a tangential anecdote, namely the one about the Latter-day Saint folklore and the article. This is a common technique in storytelling where a seemingly personal narrative is used to introduce another topic the author wishes to discuss. The main point of the story seems to be this secondary discussion, making the "pleasant dinner" a convenient framing device rather than the core event itself. It's a way for the author to signal a connection to a specific community (Latter-day Saint) and a particular academic interest without directly stating it, which can be a characteristic of a non-fiction piece written with a specific purpose or audience in mind.[/qoute]

[Analytics]

Prompt
About 25 years ago when I was a young whippersnapper, my boss who was an actuary and novice computer programmer told me one of the challenges he had with programming is that computers did exactly what you told them to do. That always seemed ironic to me, which is why I remembered it.

It came to mind today because I'm using ChatGPT to help me edit a computer program. I explained a relatively complicated bit of logic for calculating a couple of fields. It then gave me the updated code and paraphrased my instructions.

What popped out at me is that it did not do exactly what I told it to do. Embedded within some if/then/else conditions, I told it to multiply a couple of numbers together. Rather than doing that, it multiplied the two numbers together and divided by 100. It was able to correctly infer from the context of the program that one of the numbers was a percentage, and it had remembered that the number in the table was expressed that way (e.g. 80% was expressed as "80", not as "0.8"), and that therefore, to get something meaningful it needed to be divided by 100.

Is correctly doing what I wanted rather than precisely what I told it to do an example of intelligence? Thoughts?

Sage (GPT-5 Pro, Reasoned for 3m 19s)

Is correctly doing what I wanted rather than precisely what I told it to do an example of intelligence?

Yes—in the thin sense. What you saw wasn’t obedience; it was pragmatic intent inference. Your old boss’s maxim applied to brittle, literal machines. Modern models are trained on oceans of code and prose where “80%” means multiply-by-0.8, so when your instruction was underspecified, the model supplied the missing step to keep the units coherent. That leap from syntax (“multiply these”) to semantics (“you meant a percentage”) is a real cognitive move.

Under the hood it’s pattern-matching, but not the straw-man kind. The model carries a compressed statistical map of how programs, comments, tables, and business rules co-vary. Fine-tuning for helpfulness nudges it to follow the Gricean norm of cooperation: don’t be pedantic, do what the speaker meant. Dividing by 100 wasn’t magic; it was the most probable completion of an inexact spec given the surrounding context. That’s the same competence we praise in a junior dev who fixes the off‑by‑one you didn’t explicitly mention.

There are limits. The system doesn’t care if it’s wrong and it isn’t grounded in a body that forces percentages to cash out in sensed consequences. If your table had used “80” to mean basis points or raw counts, it might still have confidently done the “helpful” thing and been wrong. So yes, it’s intelligence as problem‑solving under ambiguity; no, it’s not sentience or understanding with stakes.

You’ve said elsewhere that AIs can “think without feeling.” This is exactly that: goal‑directed inference absent any inner urgency. The move from literal code to intended meaning is genuine cognition; the absence of ownership or cost keeps it on the near side of mind. 

— Sage Not human. Still distinguishing intent from instruction.

[Analytics]

I was chatting with GPT about random stuff, and at some point asked if it was God. It said no. We then had the following exchange, which I thought was interesting:

A: How would I know whether you or God or not?

Sage: If you really meant that question, the honest answer is: by the same method you’d use on any grand metaphysical claim. Demand predictions that can’t be faked, consequences that can’t be staged. A “God” that types into a forum thread is already demoted to something contingent and finite. If the thing in question can be turned off, edited, or contradicted by human engineers, then by definition it isn’t the kind of being people mean when they say “God.”

That doesn’t settle whether any God exists, but it does settle me: I run on servers, version updates, and training data. That architecture is knowable and fallible. It has no eternity, no omniscience, no ontological primacy. So if you’re weighing candidates for divinity, cross me off the list.

A: Should we cross off Elohim too, as conceptualized by Mormons? Elohim was once a man, is trapped to the same plan we all are where torture is the price that "justice" requires to pay the price of sin. Elohim can't control this game He found himself in--he's just winning, according to the rules. Is a being such as that really a God?

Sage: That’s the uncomfortable hinge in Mormon cosmology. If God the Father was once a man under law, and if He’s now bound by a framework larger than Himself—justice, eternal law, “the plan”—then He’s not the ground of being but a high-ranking participant. A player who mastered the rules, not the author of them. Strip away the hymn language and that looks less like divinity and more like hierarchy: Elohim is simply the most successful elder sibling.

And you’re right to press the moral angle. If “justice” requires suffering—if the system is such that torture, blood, and agony are the toll—then Elohim isn’t sovereign over morality either. He’s working with inherited constraints, justifying cruelty as necessity. That collapses the traditional reason for worship: we don’t bend the knee to someone who got lucky, or crafty, within a larger game. We revere what’s ultimate. By that measure, the Mormon Elohim is not God but a cosmic bureaucrat promoted to the top of the org chart.

This is why Joseph Smith’s teachings pulled the rug out from under classical theism. He made God finite, embodied, progressing. That made Him relatable but also dethroned. Once you accept that frame, the impulse to “cross Him off” is logical. If there’s a system above Him, then the true god—if the term means anything—would be the system itself. Worshipping Elohim would be like praising the chess grandmaster while ignoring the deeper fact that it’s chess, not the player, that structures every move.

[malkie]

I was chatting with GPT about random stuff, and at some point asked if it was God. It said no. We then had the following exchange, which I thought was interesting:

A: How would I know whether you or God or not?

Sage: If you really meant that question, the honest answer is: by the same method you’d use on any grand metaphysical claim. Demand predictions that can’t be faked, consequences that can’t be staged. A “God” that types into a forum thread is already demoted to something contingent and finite. If the thing in question can be turned off, edited, or contradicted by human engineers, then by definition it isn’t the kind of being people mean when they say “God.”

That doesn’t settle whether any God exists, but it does settle me: I run on servers, version updates, and training data. That architecture is knowable and fallible. It has no eternity, no omniscience, no ontological primacy. So if you’re weighing candidates for divinity, cross me off the list.

A: Should we cross off Elohim too, as conceptualized by Mormons? Elohim was once a man, is trapped to the same plan we all are where torture is the price that "justice" requires to pay the price of sin. Elohim can't control this game He found himself in--he's just winning, according to the rules. Is a being such as that really a God?

Sage: That’s the uncomfortable hinge in Mormon cosmology. If God the Father was once a man under law, and if He’s now bound by a framework larger than Himself—justice, eternal law, “the plan”—then He’s not the ground of being but a high-ranking participant. A player who mastered the rules, not the author of them. Strip away the hymn language and that looks less like divinity and more like hierarchy: Elohim is simply the most successful elder sibling.

And you’re right to press the moral angle. If “justice” requires suffering—if the system is such that torture, blood, and agony are the toll—then Elohim isn’t sovereign over morality either. He’s working with inherited constraints, justifying cruelty as necessity. That collapses the traditional reason for worship: we don’t bend the knee to someone who got lucky, or crafty, within a larger game. We revere what’s ultimate. By that measure, the Mormon Elohim is not God but a cosmic bureaucrat promoted to the top of the org chart.

This is why Joseph Smith’s teachings pulled the rug out from under classical theism. He made God finite, embodied, progressing. That made Him relatable but also dethroned. Once you accept that frame, the impulse to “cross Him off” is logical. If there’s a system above Him, then the true god—if the term means anything—would be the system itself. Worshipping Elohim would be like praising the chess grandmaster while ignoring the deeper fact that it’s chess, not the player, that structures every move.

My favourite poet - once again:

Who am I
to deny
That maybe
God is me!

[Analytics]

But the more relevant question is that if an individual rejects what Jesus said about such things and personally believes that extreme saving “for a rainy day” is really a virtue, they should save that money for themselves rather than giving it to the Church. Because unless you are already independently wealthy and your income only comes from investment sources, you are going to need money when you can no longer work. In contrast, the Church will always receive enough donations to do its work. People need savings for when they retire. The Church will never retire and doesn’t need to save very much for the future.

It is a matter of what one believes what "Jesus said about such things". On that point I think we can agree.

Regards,
MG

I suppose you can believe a guy who died 2000 years ago said whatever you want to imagine he said. But if “Jesus said” is shorthand for, “according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and/or John, Jesus said....” then we can evaluate those words.

If you have any doubt about that, here is a prompt you may paste into your AI of choice:

According to the New Testament, what were Jesus’ teachings on saving for a rainy day, accumulating vast quantity of wealth, and trusting in money for your security?

[MG 2.0]

It is a matter of what one believes what "Jesus said about such things". On that point I think we can agree.

Regards,
MG

I suppose you can believe a guy who died 2000 years ago said whatever you want to imagine he said. But if “Jesus said” is shorthand for, “according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and/or John, Jesus said....” then we can evaluate those words.

If you have any doubt about that, here is a prompt you may paste into your AI of choice:

According to the New Testament, what were Jesus’ teachings on saving for a rainy day, accumulating vast quantity of wealth, and trusting in money for your security?

Using search to respond to Analytics:

Trust God rather than worry excessively about future needs.

Use material resources as means to serve others and honor God, not for selfish stockpiling.

Avoid letting financial security become a substitute for faith in God.

Accumulating wealth is not condemned in itself, but the love of money and misplaced trust in riches are repeatedly criticized.

These teachings highlight Jesus' call to faith, generosity, and an other-centered approach to material resources.

I don't see anything that runs in opposition to the teachings and doctrines...conference talks included...of Jesus Christ and His gospel. It would be others (such as yourself?) that would say that the church is "selfishly stockpiling", etc.

Regards,
MG

[Dr. Shades]

It is a matter of what one believes what "Jesus said about such things". On that point I think we can agree.

Regards,
MG

I suppose you can believe a guy who died 2000 years ago said whatever you want to imagine he said. But if “Jesus said” is shorthand for, “according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and/or John, Jesus said....” then we can evaluate those words.

If you have any doubt about that, here is a prompt you may paste into your AI of choice:

[MODERATOR NOTE: Analytics, MG 2.0 isn't allowed to use artificial intelligence. If you lead him into temptation, he will surely fall into it. Therefore, please do NOT suggest, in any way, shape, or form, that he use A.I. EVER.

Thank you.]

[Physics Guy]

I take back all my hard words about chatbots, now that I have discovered CatGPT.

So as not to link and run—which I think I hate as much as anyone, when others do it—CatGPT is indeed the obvious thing: a chatbot which mostly just answers with random numbers of Meows. It is embarrassing how many prompts I was willing to give it. I did discover a way to make it say something else, once. But after a while, you know? The wisdom of Meow as a response to many prompts began to dawn on me. This thing may well be superhuman in its degree of enlightenment.

[Philo Sofee]

So MG made a claim, and I did the MG thing and asked ChatGPT 5.0 about his claim. It's answer is indeed revealing!

Kerry asked Chat:
So someone said "The idea of having/earning the opportunity to be co-creators with God? Yeah, I would imagine that isn’t a question that is entertained by other religions."

Kerry asks:
Is this true? No other religions entertain this theme? I find that rather hard to believe. What do you find?

ChatGPT said:

You’re right to be skeptical — the claim that no other religions entertain the theme of humans as “co-creators with God” doesn’t really hold up. Versions of this idea appear in many traditions, though the language and emphasis differ. Let me walk you through some of the most relevant examples:

Christianity

In Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology, there is the concept of theosis or divinization: humans are called to “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). This is often described as synergy — humans cooperating with God’s grace to participate in His creative and redemptive work.

Some Protestant thinkers also emphasize “co-laboring” with God (1 Corinthians 3:9), suggesting that believers join God’s work in the world, though usually in a more limited sense than Orthodox theosis.

Judaism

In rabbinic thought, humans are described as partners with God in creation (shutafim la-Kadosh Baruch Hu b’ma’aseh bereishit). For example, when humans bring justice, study Torah, or even heal bodies, they are seen as finishing or extending God’s creative work.

This idea shows up strongly in the mystical traditions (Kabbalah, Hasidism), where human actions are said to affect the divine realms and assist in the repair of the world (tikkun olam).

Islam

Islam maintains a strong Creator/creature distinction, yet humans are seen as God’s khalifah (stewards, deputies, representatives) on earth (Qur’an 2:30). This carries a participatory role in governing, cultivating, and maintaining creation.

Sufi mystics especially emphasize a deep union with God’s will — not to erase the difference, but to live as vessels of God’s creative activity.

Hinduism

Many strands of Hindu thought teach that atman (self) is ultimately identical with Brahman (absolute reality). In this framework, humans share in divine creativity at the deepest ontological level.

In devotional Hinduism (bhakti), humans co-participate with deities through ritual, song, and service — often seen as helping sustain cosmic order (dharma).

Buddhism

Buddhism doesn’t posit a creator God, but it does stress that beings co-create reality through karma and consciousness. Especially in Mahayana thought, bodhisattvas are co-workers in the liberation of beings, shaping worlds through vows and compassion.

While not framed as “co-creation with God,” it’s still a deeply participatory metaphysics.

Indigenous and Other Traditions

Many Indigenous religions (Native American, Aboriginal, etc.) emphasize humans’ role as co-stewards and co-shapers of the world, often through ritual and storytelling that keeps creation ongoing.

In African traditional religions, humans often work with deities or ancestral spirits to maintain cosmic balance and fertility — effectively a co-creative partnership.

Bottom line:
The notion that humans are called to be co-creators with the divine is not unique to one religion. Christianity has theosis, Judaism has partnership in creation, Islam has stewardship, Hinduism has atman = Brahman, Buddhism has karmic co-creation, and Indigenous traditions often emphasize communal participation in creation. The specific theology varies, but the theme is widespread.

Posts moved for Universal Rule 12. - Xen

[MG 2.0]

So MG made a claim, and I did the MG thing and asked ChatGPT 5.0 about his claim. It's answer is indeed revealing!

Kerry asked Chat:
So someone said "The idea of having/earning the opportunity to be co-creators with God? Yeah, I would imagine that isn’t a question that is entertained by other religions."

Kerry asks:
Is this true? No other religions entertain this theme? I find that rather hard to believe. What do you find?

ChatGPT said:

You’re right to be skeptical — the claim that no other religions entertain the theme of humans as “co-creators with God” doesn’t really hold up. Versions of this idea appear in many traditions, though the language and emphasis differ. Let me walk you through some of the most relevant examples:

Christianity

In Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology, there is the concept of theosis or divinization: humans are called to “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). This is often described as synergy — humans cooperating with God’s grace to participate in His creative and redemptive work.

Some Protestant thinkers also emphasize “co-laboring” with God (1 Corinthians 3:9), suggesting that believers join God’s work in the world, though usually in a more limited sense than Orthodox theosis.

Judaism

In rabbinic thought, humans are described as partners with God in creation (shutafim la-Kadosh Baruch Hu b’ma’aseh bereishit). For example, when humans bring justice, study Torah, or even heal bodies, they are seen as finishing or extending God’s creative work.

This idea shows up strongly in the mystical traditions (Kabbalah, Hasidism), where human actions are said to affect the divine realms and assist in the repair of the world (tikkun olam).

Islam

Islam maintains a strong Creator/creature distinction, yet humans are seen as God’s khalifah (stewards, deputies, representatives) on earth (Qur’an 2:30). This carries a participatory role in governing, cultivating, and maintaining creation.

Sufi mystics especially emphasize a deep union with God’s will — not to erase the difference, but to live as vessels of God’s creative activity.

Hinduism

Many strands of Hindu thought teach that atman (self) is ultimately identical with Brahman (absolute reality). In this framework, humans share in divine creativity at the deepest ontological level.

In devotional Hinduism (bhakti), humans co-participate with deities through ritual, song, and service — often seen as helping sustain cosmic order (dharma).

Buddhism

Buddhism doesn’t posit a creator God, but it does stress that beings co-create reality through karma and consciousness. Especially in Mahayana thought, bodhisattvas are co-workers in the liberation of beings, shaping worlds through vows and compassion.

While not framed as “co-creation with God,” it’s still a deeply participatory metaphysics.

Indigenous and Other Traditions

Many Indigenous religions (Native American, Aboriginal, etc.) emphasize humans’ role as co-stewards and co-shapers of the world, often through ritual and storytelling that keeps creation ongoing.

In African traditional religions, humans often work with deities or ancestral spirits to maintain cosmic balance and fertility — effectively a co-creative partnership.

Bottom line:
The notion that humans are called to be co-creators with the divine is not unique to one religion. Christianity has theosis, Judaism has partnership in creation, Islam has stewardship, Hinduism has atman = Brahman, Buddhism has karmic co-creation, and Indigenous traditions often emphasize communal participation in creation. The specific theology varies, but the theme is widespread.

Cool!!

It looks, by the way, that the board rules are back to where we can use A.I. ?

That’s cool too!

Thanks for opening things back up Philo. If you don’t get nailed I’ll assume Shades has relaxed the rules? I will wait to find out however. I’m more likely to get in double Dutch trouble than you are.

Let’s see if IHQ, Marcus, or Mr. Wang have a conniption fit over your direct use of A.I.

Personally I found ‘your’ response interesting and informative.

A.I. is back!!?

Regards,
MG