The Fourth Way is a term coined by Gurdjieff to denote a new approach or method of action. It may be said that the three commonly known ways are those of religion, science – and art. In these three ways two out of every three people in every society have always lived. These people are often divided into adherents, specialists etc., who concentrate on just one way as their main source for living and self-development; they tend to view other approaches with some degree of disdain.
For instance, adherents of the 'religious way' tend to regard scientific and artistic people as being somewhat amoral or even immoral; they may also consider themselves superior in general.
On the other hand, adherents of science and art tend to look down upon or even ridicule religionists as being irrational and unscientific. This is often true not only in western societies but also elsewhere.
The Fourth Way is different in that Gurdjieff's approach to living seeks to incorporate all three of these ways. This is possible by understanding that each way has a certain amount of value and also certain drawbacks; it can be said that the more one focuses on just one way, the less beneficial they are for general development.
Gurdjieff was a pioneer in the use of what may be called 'objective psychology' which he used to study how people live and think. He also developed methods for self-development that can provide a way out of many problems or difficulties faced by those who seek to attain greater freedom, happiness – and consciousness.
However, the benefits of the Fourth Way can only be achieved by overcoming a number of obstacles and difficulties.
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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 GPT-3, a neural network trained and hosted by OpenAI.
GPT-3 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.
