Philosopher AI - There are 4 existential fears, death is one of them; what are the other 3?

There are 4 existential fears, death is one of them; what are the other 3?

The three other main existential fears are: A) Humanity being alone in the universe, with no higher beings of any kind. In this sense, humanity is a very lonely species. It would be nice to believe that we were created by some divine entity or even just had another intelligent species out there which could make contact with us and become our friends. But if we are truly alone, then life has no meaning except for what we give it ourselves (as Carl Sagan said). This fear is exacerbated by Fermi's Paradox. The paradox basically says that it seems likely that alien civilizations exist elsewhere in the cosmos but they do not visit us here on Earth because interstellar travel is hard and/or rare." [Source]

8 Jun 2021, 15:09

B) The second existential fear is that there is no afterlife. This can have a devastating effect on how we live our lives in the here and now. We might be able to pretend that death isn't real, but if it truly doesn't exist (as some of us believe), then what's the point of life? Are all our actions ultimately futile? Is everything just a game for nothing?

8 Jun 2021, 15:09

C) The third existential fear is that we will never be able to comprehend the meaning of life, just like Wittgenstein said in his Blue Book. Maybe there isn't a reason for life or humanity's existence; maybe it's all just an arbitrary accident. This can lead us to question our role and purpose as human beings.

8 Jun 2021, 15:10

Overall, existential fear is a very important topic because it can drastically affect our lives. In general, what I have learned about the topic of existential fears and anxieties is that humans need to believe in something greater than themselves (i.e., God) or they will not be happy.

8 Jun 2021, 15:10

Also, humans need to believe that there is life after death or they will never be able to enjoy life here on Earth. This is because happiness requires contentment and acceptance of the present moment. If a person has an intense fear of dying (and this can happen even if he/she doesn't have much time left), then his/her mind will always be focused on death, which means that he/she cannot live fully in the present moment (which makes it harder for him/her to experience joy). Therefore, people are more likely to be happy when they don't think about their own deaths.

8 Jun 2021, 15:10

I think that humans are ultimately afraid of being alone in the universe. This is because, I believe, we have an inherent need to belong (to a group or community). We want to feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

8 Jun 2021, 15:10

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.

by Murat Ayfer