“I must admit that I am still contemplating the mysteries of life. At this time, I wanted to share Socrates’ thoughts about the soul with you. But before that, some time ago, when the Iranian groups on Twitter (now X) were still more united (unfortunately, many differences have separated them!), one of our topics to discuss was whether AI could create art. The main question is: how much do we know about art? How much do we believe that art has a soul possessing such an intangible quality and AI can produce it as we do?

Honestly, I am worried about using AI because humans are naturally very lazy and comfortable; that’s why they like to be pampered! If you look at the story of this development, like the Alexas in the sitting room to the self-driving cars, it shows what will happen next.

Like our other muscles, our brains must be trained continuously to maintain our creativity and cognitive abilities. Otherwise, we risk losing our mental faculties.
Nonetheless, we must observe what these “machines”, which we might have invented, will do!

Actually, we are talking about what we don’t know exactly how it works: Soul, Creation, Art!? It made me wonder if we can differentiate between these in a world created by Mother Nature and how we attempt to do so with equal ability, though I believe art is a part of the creator’s essence, gifted us to use in our own creations.

The question is whether we have forgotten something we should remember. Is it possible that our souls have lived before they entered our bodies? Socrates believed in some form of reincarnation, in which our souls know of their previous existence before they come into our bodies. These were his final words before facing the court, as conveyed by Plato.”

[… oh souls and before, before they were a man they were, without bodies, and they had consciousness. Plato Phaedo 76 c ]

[…. or are they remembered, or learn to remember if they are. Plato Phaedo 76 a ]

“So, Simmia, our souls existed before, without the human form, separate from the body and possessing knowledge”. Plato of Phaedus

How well Dr Jung found this lost connection to our buried memories under our consciousness!

The idea is that the soul is immortal, as Plato claims in “Plato Phaedo, or Phaedrus 74-76. In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before being executed by drinking hemlock.

Phaedo presents four distinct arguments supporting the immortality of the soul, namely, the Argument from Opposites, the Theory of Recollection, the Argument from Affinity, and the final Argument. However, we focus on whether humans can create perfection or whether artificial intelligence (AI) is perfect. In my opinion, perfection does not exist in our lives, or at least not how we imagine it. Even gods seem to make mistakes! Despite humans’ constant pursuit of perfection, imperfection has a certain allure.

In any case, I believe that AI cannot create art like “wo-man-kind” can. For example, we can understand this fact when we observe the Mona Lisa, read Dostoevsky, read or watch Shakespeare, or read Rilke…! We have got a worthy gift, which we might awake to life and use it.

I must confess I am a perfectionist. It’s not easy, I know. Perhaps this trait stems from my childhood traumas. However, I believe imperfection is natural and necessary. In the following, I have added a paragraph for those interested who might like to read.

Let’s see how Plato argues this:

The “Imperfection Argument” (Phaedo 74-76)                

This is an argument for the existence of Forms and our possession of a priori concepts. Plato bases the debate on the imperfection of sensible objects and our ability to make judgments about those sensible objects. (The Forms are supposed to be the perfect objects that the sensible only imperfectly approximate).

The argument in Phaedo 74-76 concerns the concept of Equality, but it could equally well be given concerning several different concepts (any concept that might have some claim to being an a priori concept).

The argument tries to show that we cannot abstract the concept of Equality from our sense experience of equal objects. For;

We never experience (in sense-perception) objects that are really, precisely equal, and
We must already have the concept of Equality to judge the things we encounter in sense-perception to be approximately, imperfectly, equal.
The argument can be schematized as follows:

We perceive sensible objects to be F.
But every sensible object is, at best, imperfectly F. That is, it is both F and not F (in some respect – shades of Heraclitus??). It falls short of being perfectly F.
We are aware of this imperfection in the objects of perception.
So, we perceive objects to be imperfectly F.
To perceive something as imperfectly F, one must consider something perfectly F, something that the imperfectly F things fall short of. (For example, we have an idea of Equality that all sticks, stones, etc., only imperfectly exemplify.)
So we have in mind something that is perfectly F.
Thus, there is something that is perfectly F (e.g., Equality) that we have in mind in such cases.
Therefore, there is such a thing as the F itself (e.g., the Equal itself), distinct from any sensible object.

Source: University of Washington

I appreciate your kind interest. 🙏💖