[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Asked of Chatgpt: "Are there any definitions or descriptions that depict a positive ignorance in Sankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutras or classic 10 Upanishads whether in context or otherwise?

[Michael Chandra Cohen]

AUM Bhaskarji mahaprabhuji, Thanks for the informed response.

As you know, I have studied for a number of years with another direct
disciple of SSSS, Atma Chaitanyaji/Musta Ramji/Ira Shepetin  and sat with
his teacher, Sri Swami Atmanandendraji. Both admanently and
vigorously condemn mulavidya such that refuting the vada seems to take on a
path of its own. Swami Prakashanandendraji however, though not a direct
disciple, takes a more tolerant view holding that mulavidya gets to the
same place but must suffer pained logic and unnecessarily convoluted
reasoning.

Personally, I find the most difficult consequence of SSSS's critiques is to
imagine that 1200 years of India's most venerable spiritual genius have
erred in their fundamental understanding of Bhasyakara and actually lack
the intuitive experience of Advaita truth. Who is MCC to think he knows
better?

On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 1:47 PM Michael Chandra Cohen <
michaelchandra108 at gmail.com> wrote:

> AUM, Sudhanshu ji, I'm not sure you noticed my reply to an earlier
> message:
>
> Sudhanshu ji, We have been through this dialogue more than once. You are
> making distinctions in non-existence where none can exist. Hare's horn and
> rope/snake are distinct not from the perspective of non-existence but from
> the perspective of existence - one appears, the other not but both are
> equally non-existent.
>
> --
>
> On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 4:28 PM <dwaite at advaita.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> Dear Michael,
>>
>>
>>
>> My point was that ChatGPT is only retrieving and summarizing the views of
>> others. It is not making any intelligent assessment of its own. (Although I
>> guess we could all be accused of doing exactly that!) And it is not itself
>> translating any Sanskrit, only taking the translations that it finds
>> online. If, for example, the majority of the material that exists online on
>> this subject has been written by followers of SSS, then it would not be
>> surprising to find that its conclusions coincide with those of SSS. Another
>> point is that many (most?) of the material written by sampradAya teachers
>> exists only in book form, so will not be available to ChatGPT. Even if it
>> has been (illegally?) programmed by scanning in all the books in print,
>> many of the truly authoritative ones will only be in Sanskrit and I have
>> grave doubts about its proficiency in that language!
>>
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Dennis
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* advaitin at googlegroups.com <advaitin at googlegroups.com> *On Behalf
>> Of *Michael Chandra Cohen
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 3, 2024 1:40 PM
>> *To:* advaitin at googlegroups.com; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <
>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>; Sudhanshu Shekhar <
>> sudhanshu.iitk at gmail.com>; Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at hitachienergy.com>; H
>> S Chandramouli <hschandramouli at gmail.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [advaitin] Asked of Chatgpt: "Are there any definitions
>> or descriptions that depict a positive ignorance in Sankara's commentary on
>> the Brahma Sutras or classic 10 Upanishads whether in context or otherwise?
>>
>>
>>
>> Namaste Dennis, Perhaps our first proper interaction - a pleasure to make
>> your acquaintance although I've read a bit from you online.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am not an expert in AI however I did notice Chatgpt relying on
>> secondary source material which I was able to remedy by directing it
>> instead to prathanatraya bhasya. As for its language limitations, I agree
>> although it did produce some limited Sanskrit slokas, the translation of
>> which may be open to question. However, my questions asked for analysis of
>> the corpus of texts comparing uses of avidya as positive ignorance versus
>> avidya as lack of knowledge. The latter came back decisively as Sankara's
>> intention. This despite the fact that all historic translations would have
>> to reflect a mulavidyavada bias. That said, Chat's evidence can always be
>> recalled to explore the verse's original language though I feel confident
>> the effort would yield the same result.
>>
>> As for your clever analysis of mithyAjnana, I wish to point to other uses
>> of mithya in the same text that support mithya jnana as opposed to mithya
>> ajnana, i.e.,  *mithyeti bhavitum yuktam, * *mithunīkṛtya, * *mithyāpratyayarūpaḥ.
>> *Further, it seems to me, mithya ajnana, false ignorance, is a tautology
>> and thus an absurd grammatical interpretation that our astute
>> Bhasyakara would never intend. Surely there are other phrases that would
>> better express his intention if indeed it were to imply a positive
>> ignorance.
>>
>>
>>
>> Please excuse me if I do not respond further.  My language skills are
>> limited and this conversation can easily go over my head.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 2:04 PM Michael Chandra Cohen <
>> michaelchandra108 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sudhanshu ji, We have been through this dialogue more than once. You are
>> making distinctions in non-existence where none can exist. Hare's horn and
>> rope/snake are distinct not from the perspective of non-existence but from
>> the perspective of existence - one appears, the other not but both are
>> equally non-existent.
>>
>> --
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