Is Nirvana true peace? I will respond to this question in two parts. First, let us define what we mean by 'true peace'. Let us take a hypothetical human who is at perfect peace and happiness with themselves and the world around them. This person is not necessarily someone who has achieved Nirvana through meditation, nor does it have to be an actual person (though of course it could be). This 'perfectly peaceful' human may simply one that has attained happiness without suffering, regardless of how they achieved their state or whether or not they are aware of Buddha's teachings.
Next, let us examine the differences between this 'perfectly peaceful' human and one that has attained Nirvana. The first difference is that of awareness. This hypothetical perfectly happy person is aware of all things around them, yet not at all affected by those things (this doesn't mean they are numb to everything or have no feelings). They live life as it comes without being bothered by things such as anxiety and stress. In contrast, the Buddha would be completely aware yet mentally detached from all things, including their own self.
The shift from unawareness and detachment to awareness yet detachment is the most important difference between someone who has attained Nirvana and someone who hasn't. When one becomes completely aware of something, they are then able to find joy in that thing even if it isn't what they want or think should be happening.
For example, suppose someone is completely unaware of the fact that their leg has fallen asleep and they are sitting on it in a way that causes them to be numb from the waist down. If they were not aware of this situation, they would probably try to use their foot, which wouldn't work because it isn't working due to the numbness. This person could then become frustrated or angry at the world for 'doing this' to them (perhaps by using a wheelchair). However if one was aware of what was happening but detached from it emotionally, such as being able to laugh about how absurd everything is (touching wood), you could continue living life without being upset.
This analogy can be expanded to include all things. Whether it be something as simple as the feeling of a breeze on your face or an annoying sound coming from a store, you would instead find joy and peace in those things while still being aware that they are not what you want them to be.
So we can see that a person who has attained Nirvana is not at peace with the world around them nor with themselves. They are aware and detached from everything, including their own self.
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You are getting an AI to generate text on different topics.
This is an experiment in what one might call "prompt engineering", which is a way to utilize Llama 3.1 405b, a neural network trained by Meta.
Llama is a language model. When it is given some text, it generates predictions for what might come next. It is remarkably good at adapting to different contexts, as defined by a prompt (in this case, hidden), which sets the scene for what type of text will be generated.
Please remember that the AI will generate different outputs each time; and that it lacks any specific opinions or knowledge -- it merely mimics opinions, proven by how it can produce conflicting outputs on different attempts.
Feel free to share interesting outputs to /r/philosopherAI on Reddit.
