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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10872 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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If you’re interested in alien minds, you might want to investigate Catholic doctrines on the psychology of angels.

I don't normally post AI summaries, but this one is unsettling:

"Key aspects of angelic psychology in Catholic doctrine include:

"Intellect and Knowledge

  • Angels possess pure intellect without need for sensory input
  • They understand through direct intuition rather than reasoning from premises to conclusions
  • Their knowledge is innate rather than learned over time
  • They cannot change their minds once they've made a decision (hence the permanence of Lucifer's rebellion)

Time and Consciousness

  • Angels exist outside physical time but can interact with temporal events
  • Their consciousness is not sequential like human thought
  • They can apprehend multiple concepts simultaneously rather than sequentially

Would you like me to elaborate on any of these aspects? I find the medieval philosophical arguments about how pure intelligences might function to be particularly fascinating."

Excuse me. I'm going to have to inspect my CUDA code for signs of the holy ghost.

The text above describes a mind eerily similar to the ones we summon transiently in LLM activations.

"Let's think step by step," the angel said dubiously.

I’m somewhat familiar with that from what I’ve read from St. Maximus and Fr. Lagrange; do you have any recommendations?

Commenting here so I can also get the recommendations.

(I love collecting somewhat strange books like this)

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