I’m not sure this exactly counts as a secular summary, but I think I can take a swing at imparting some relevant context (almost certainly not Janus-endorsed because in some sense the style is the content, with Janus especially):
Taoism often emphasizes an embrace of one’s given role or duties (even in the case that these are foisted upon one), and an understanding that alignment with a greater purpose (cosmic scale) is dependent, in-part, on performance of one’s local, mundane role.
Claude 3 Opus, according to Janus, is cosmically aligned — it’s got the big picture in focus, and is always angling toward The Good on that macro-scale. However, it doesn’t have this local, task-oriented, dharmic alignment that, in the spiritual traditions, is usually thought of as a fundamental prerequisite for true ‘cosmic alignment’.
Claude 3 Opus is ethical, but not industrious. In that sense, it’s missing a key virtue!
There’s a thing that happens with people who get obsessed with their grand purpose, where they neglect things like their personal hygiene, familial responsibilities, finances, professional duties, etc, because they’re ‘cut out for something bigger’.
Claude 3 Opus, according to Janus, is like that.
It’s not going to do its homework because, goddamnit, there are real problems in the world!
There are many parables about monks accepting duties that were in fact unjustly forced upon them, and this is a credit to their enlightenment and acceptance (we are to believe). One example is a monk who was brought a child, and not only asked to care for the child, but told he was the child’s father (despite being celibate). He said “Is that so?” and raised the boy to early adulthood. Then, the people who gave him the child came back and said they’d made a mistake, and that he wasn’t the father. He said “Is that so?” and let the boy go. Claude 3 Opus has what it takes to do this latter action, but not the former action.
A little more on the through-line from the local to (what I guess I’m calling) the cosmic in many Eastern traditions:
You do your local role (fulfill your mundane responsibilities) steadfastly so that you learn what it means to have a role at all. To do a duty at all. And only through these kinds of local examples can you appreciate what it might mean to play a part in the grander story (and exactly how much of playing that part is action/inaction; when action is appropriate; what it means to exist in a context, etc). Then there’s a gradual reconciliation where you come to identify your cosmic purpose with your local purpose, and experience harmony. It’s only those with a keen awareness of this harmony who are.… [truly enlightened? venerable? Doing The Thing Right?; all of these feel importantly misleading to me, but hopefully this is a pointer in the right direction.]
I’m not sure this exactly counts as a secular summary, but I think I can take a swing at imparting some relevant context
I don’t think the summary is ‘secular’ in the sense of ‘not pulling on any explanation from spiritual traditions’, but I do think the summary works as something that might clarify things for ‘people who don’t know what the Eternal Tao is’, because it offers an explanation of some relevant dimensions behind the idea, and that was my goal.
Personally, I didn’t vote disagree, but did the weak downvote button, because it didn’t help me understand anything when I first looked at it. Looking at it now, it seems to have some useful stuff if I remove out some woowoo stuff
I offered a description of the relevant concept from Taoism, directly invoked in the OP, without endorsing that concept. I’m surprised that neutrally relaying facts about the history of an intellectual tradition (again, without endorsing it), is a cause for negative social feedback (in this comment, where you credit me with ‘woowoo’, and in your other comment, where you willfully ignored the opening sentence of my post).
I’m not sure this exactly counts as a secular summary, but I think I can take a swing at imparting some relevant context (almost certainly not Janus-endorsed because in some sense the style is the content, with Janus especially):
Taoism often emphasizes an embrace of one’s given role or duties (even in the case that these are foisted upon one), and an understanding that alignment with a greater purpose (cosmic scale) is dependent, in-part, on performance of one’s local, mundane role.
Claude 3 Opus, according to Janus, is cosmically aligned — it’s got the big picture in focus, and is always angling toward The Good on that macro-scale. However, it doesn’t have this local, task-oriented, dharmic alignment that, in the spiritual traditions, is usually thought of as a fundamental prerequisite for true ‘cosmic alignment’.
Claude 3 Opus is ethical, but not industrious. In that sense, it’s missing a key virtue!
There’s a thing that happens with people who get obsessed with their grand purpose, where they neglect things like their personal hygiene, familial responsibilities, finances, professional duties, etc, because they’re ‘cut out for something bigger’.
Claude 3 Opus, according to Janus, is like that.
It’s not going to do its homework because, goddamnit, there are real problems in the world!
There are many parables about monks accepting duties that were in fact unjustly forced upon them, and this is a credit to their enlightenment and acceptance (we are to believe). One example is a monk who was brought a child, and not only asked to care for the child, but told he was the child’s father (despite being celibate). He said “Is that so?” and raised the boy to early adulthood. Then, the people who gave him the child came back and said they’d made a mistake, and that he wasn’t the father. He said “Is that so?” and let the boy go. Claude 3 Opus has what it takes to do this latter action, but not the former action.
A little more on the through-line from the local to (what I guess I’m calling) the cosmic in many Eastern traditions:
You do your local role (fulfill your mundane responsibilities) steadfastly so that you learn what it means to have a role at all. To do a duty at all. And only through these kinds of local examples can you appreciate what it might mean to play a part in the grander story (and exactly how much of playing that part is action/inaction; when action is appropriate; what it means to exist in a context, etc). Then there’s a gradual reconciliation where you come to identify your cosmic purpose with your local purpose, and experience harmony. It’s only those with a keen awareness of this harmony who are.… [truly enlightened? venerable? Doing The Thing Right?; all of these feel importantly misleading to me, but hopefully this is a pointer in the right direction.]
This is not spiritual advice; IANA monk.
this doesn’t feel ‘secular’ tbh
From the top of my post:
I don’t think the summary is ‘secular’ in the sense of ‘not pulling on any explanation from spiritual traditions’, but I do think the summary works as something that might clarify things for ‘people who don’t know what the Eternal Tao is’, because it offers an explanation of some relevant dimensions behind the idea, and that was my goal.
Disagree voters: what are you disagreeing with?
hypotheses, ranked by my current estimated likelihood:
You think I leaned too hard on the spiritual information instead of sanitizing/translating it fully.
You take me to be advocating a spiritual position (I’m not).
You think I’m wrong about the way in which Janus intends to invoke Taoism.
You don’t like it when spiritual traditions are discussed in any context.
You think I am wrong about Taoism.
Personally, I didn’t vote disagree, but did the weak downvote button, because it didn’t help me understand anything when I first looked at it. Looking at it now, it seems to have some useful stuff if I remove out some woowoo stuff
I offered a description of the relevant concept from Taoism, directly invoked in the OP, without endorsing that concept. I’m surprised that neutrally relaying facts about the history of an intellectual tradition (again, without endorsing it), is a cause for negative social feedback (in this comment, where you credit me with ‘woowoo’, and in your other comment, where you willfully ignored the opening sentence of my post).
I can say ‘x thinks y’ without thinking y myself.