A Parable of Kingdom Intellectuals

 

Reentering the ring of Western universities years after one gets cancelled.

“I won't deny it, I'm a street thinker.”

“Good to see you old friend” **Reunion with an old colleague after years. Friendly philosophical sparring practice. One makes an impulsive remark, speaking before thinking.** “Still verbally reckless.”

“This tournament of ideas in secular academia isn't what it seems. We have to be ready. To take on Bison aka Bull (1 Kings 3:16-28). It’s no longer an honourable & fair exchange of ideas (Luke 10:1-8, 19-26). It's an ideological street fight.”

Random bystanding professor’s comments -> “Everyone keeps going on about your meaty analogies having a kick to them… I don't see what the big deal is.”

Fellow Kingdom intellectual observing his colleague debate: “I'm positive, for a few seconds, an out-of-body experience of divine reasoning, shot out his mental grasp!" (Daniel 5:11)

Deeply Pondering Daniel 1:17

“To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds." - Daniel 1:17 

The first part of this verse is something to ponder. God gave them knowledge. Why doesn't it say that they "learned information from Babylonian literature"? Because that's different. 

Information: Reading that your body's going to stop functioning one day. 

Knowledge: Deeply "getting" how you're not going to live in this lifetime forever, so you need to "number your days" (and not live like a stereotypically reckless teen). A 15 year old won't have this "knowledge" in the same way a 50 year old will. It takes a soulful journey for the latter to deeply "get" this knowledge. AI's non-journeyed "information processing" can't fully help with that. 

The same goes with the "information" vs "knowledge" of "I'm lovable even when I screw up". For the deepest levels of this one especially, you need infinite unconditional love from a God to "understand" that "knowledge". You can't learn it from just "naturally reading" information on a page. 

Anyone who understands dreams like Daniel "gets" this. To understand a dream, you can't "process the information" like a computer. You need to "get it" with your soul, which God helps with.

I just heard a 30 minute "podcast" on an academic topic I'm familiar with. By AI. Completely. (2 "people" talking about it)

It's eerily good at conceptual clarity.

In a learner's journey though, there comes a time when conceptual clarity isn't enough. The learner wants to experience the knowledge on deeper levels (at least in the humanities and social sciences).

The way the mind works is that it (unconsciously) assumes a "story" for any knowledge it learns. And a good story has drama with individuality. Artificial drama with artificial individuality is so nasty.

People can have conceptual clarity on "unconditional love", "peace when things don't go your way", "becoming free from worry", or "being free from others' opinions". There comes a point though, when conceptual clarity isn't enough. One desires a unique "inside movie" of the knowledge colored with inner individuality (e.g. one's unique experience of the concept of learning to laugh at oneself).

This is another thing that AI can't really help that much with.

A surgeon of the soul uses the knife of poetry.

 A cut to the gut heals understanding.

Drama Coursing Through Your Veins

 Humans will never get rid of the desire for drama. (If someone thinks they don't like it, ask them why they enjoy stories)

This desire for drama conflicts with the desire for comfort. Humans are tempted to want both. However, humans can't prioritize both, since they're inherently contradictory (try to think of a movie where both drama and comfort are prioritized).

If you prioritize comfort, you'll only experience drama "behind the glass", second hand; where your nervous system isn't actively involved for the ride. If you pursue meaningful drama first hand, you'll sacrifice comfort. But you'll have a type of drama that changes the world coursing through your nervous system.

Another Thing AI Can't Teach

 A key aspect of teaching/learning is getting content to sink in the depths of the psyche. AI can’t do this in certain ways human teachers can, at least with respect to psychological knowledge:

“More money won’t make you happy”
“You won’t live forever” (for teens)
“Be authoritatively humble and humbly authoritative”
“Have emotionally mature childlikeness”

For these things, AI generated text, in and of itself, will not move the “data” from your head to your heart/soul.

In order for this to happen, you need to digest. Process in many angles. Metabolize everyday events. Catch yourself unconsciously assuming the opposite without initially realizing. Struggle with implications that don’t make sense experientially. Persevere with them until they do. Wrestle with both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of points.

You need someone further along the way to ask you the next customized question. These plot-twisting questions stretch you from a narrower framework into uncomfortable new ones that are mysteriously coherent. Initially. You “cocoon” thoughts that later flap out with color. This human mentor needs to journey with your metamorphosis while you make mistakes without immediately correcting you with the “right answer” all the time. This is because learning from one’s free-willed mistakes is a stepping stone to the ultimate destination. You need loving individualized attention from a personalized heart.

AI can’t do this stuff.

"Death and Life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit" -Proverbs 18:21

We are not knowledge computers. We are souls that possess knowledge. And when we bring our knowledge to our tongues, we feel the live "spirit" of the knowledge we possess.

Knowledge not expressed remains backstage. Knowledge that walks off the tongue's red carpet onto the stage of consciousness produces a play of intellectual improv. The spotlight of unscripted energy shines on a cast of connected concepts climaxing into coherence.

When you see people who claim they’re “not into hip-hop” being exposed to an undeniably “sick” beat vibrating the atmosphere (e.g. in the mall), something happens. You see their nervous systems leak acknowledgement of how cool the rhythmic bass is that is vibrating their soul. It’s like their depths are rebelling against their mind’s command to not find the beat cool because they’re “not supposed to”. They give themselves a top-down executive order to suppress the inclination to “bob their head”.

A similar thing occurs when someone who claims “they’re not religious or spiritual” being exposed to an otherworldly type of love that’s not merely human.

Amidst AI's advancements...

With all of AI’s advancements, many see its potential to enrich life. This may or may not be true.

We forget that AI, at the end of the day, just makes tools. Tools are means for purposes. Well, with all of AI’s advancements, what purposes are they meant to accomplish? Convenience? Getting what you want right away? Immersing yourself deeper in a digital world? 

Millions of humans have tried these purposes, and they’ve been left empty. If this is the case, more effective means of these purposes will just hasten emptiness.

 Desire for certainty makes you anxious. Acceptance of uncertainty makes you less anxious.

Get rid of the certainty, you get rid of the anxiety.

To Control or Not Control

 You may think you want to control 100% of your life. But stop and think of whether you want to control 100% of the stories you read or the movies you watch.

If you controlled 100% of any story/movie, you'll take away the surprising dopamine. The surprising alliances. The surprising identities. The surprising choices. The surprising turn of the tables. The surprising plot twists.

There is an inner war between the desire for control and the desire for surprising dopamine. They come from 2 different parts of you, each with their own motivations.

Movie critics slam "bad movies" for being "predictable". If that is the case, do we really expect the quality of our non-fictional life movie to be "two thumbs up" if it's nothing but "predictable" and completely in our control?

Renditions of Value

When you learn as an individual, your mind composes unique melodies for established lyrics of knowledge. As you express your artistic notes for the world's intellectual verses, your soul gives something valuable to us that no one else can. 

The Price of Idolizing Comfort

If you idolize comfort, you pay a hidden price of anxiously trying to keep life comfortable. You preoccupy yourself with anticipating interruptions of your comfort and preemptively planning to counter them. When the mind is constantly calculating, the heart has no peace.

Better to embrace life's interruptions as invitations to adventure.

Me 3D

The world doesn't have a plan to help men find objectifying women uninteresting.

The Kingdom does though. And those who want it bad enough will discover it.

Mature Childlike Wisdom

Adults adopt predictability to help with responsibility. But predictability cannot coexist with wonder.

Children adopt naivete to help with wonder. But naivete cannot coexist with responsibility. 

Those who aim for the paradox of *Mature Childlike Wisdom must have wonder without naivete & responsibility without idolizing predictability.

*defined as being free from the illusions adults assault themselves with

A Deeper Resonance

Those who listen catch the voice of God in human conversations.

If words of human conversations are violin melodies, the Spirit of God harmonizes certain notes with his divine cello. The resonance reverberates throughout the universe of those listening.

Resistance is a Gift to See the Unseen

 If you want to feel what is invisible (i.e. things of the heart), see what resists it. Resistance intensifies convictions, creating an equal but opposite force that’s palpable. The tension enables you to detect what is not directly seeable.

You feel your group identity more when it is challenged (e.g. protestors vs totalitarian governments).

You feel love for your loved one more when it is challenged (e.g. chick flicks).

You feel the meaning of life more when it is challenged (e.g. protagonists fighting increasingly overwhelming odds to save the world).

You feel your faith in God more when it is challenged (e.g. bigger weights that your faith bench presses enable you to feel those veiny muscles bulge).

Resistance makes the invisible heart palpable. It enlivens cardiac activity in ways otherwise not possible. The friction creates drama, which electrifies the invisible pulse of the heart.

Conviction Gives what Intelligence Cannot

 AI will never have “conviction”. Conviction is not intelligence. In fact, it can sometimes go against intelligence. AI will never, of its own initiative, “come up with its own conscience” against its programmer(s) and say “this programming goes against my personal conscience that isn’t from you, sorry I can’t do it”. In addition to “negative conviction”, it will also never feel the “positive conviction” that Ruth Haley Barton describes: “This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I am unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling”.

“Artificial Conviction” is an oxymoron.

Conviction is connected to our deepest identity, purpose, and signatured individuality.

(Observe anyone who lives with deep, satisfying meaning. It takes place on the conviction level.)

 "It is easy to believe that one is master in one's own house, but, as long as we are unable to control our emotions and moods, or to be conscious of the myriad secret ways in which unconscious factors insinuate themselves into our arrangements and decisions, we are certainly not the masters."

-Carl Jung

Hypothetical Emotions

When we watch fictional movies/TV shows, we feel different kinds of emotions compared to “everyday emotions”. The feelings between fictional characters are “neat hypothetical emotions” from a “hypothetical consciousness”. They are meant to point to new possibilities in our real lives though, not to replace them. At the end of the day, what is fulfilling are the “messy everyday emotions” that connect our humanness to the “messy everyday emotions” of others.