Put Up Your Doxas
The AI revolution is here. Time to fight.
Anyone who has been reading this Substack for the last nine months may have noticed a pattern in my writing, which is that I don’t cite much. This is intentional. The topics that I write about here and the claims that I make, when talking about the mechanics of classical education or otherwise, are generally what I have received from my teachers. To be sure, citation is important, and if pressed, for example, I can show you where Plato discusses the organs of the soul (see: Republic, book 4, as well as Laws, Phaedo, and Phaedrus), and where St. Paul affirms Plato’s ideas in Scripture (see: Philippians 3:19), but I often don’t do that when posting something here, and the reason is because I am trying to pass on the truths taught to me by my teachers in the same way I received them; that is, through simple language and trust. I generally only share a quote or a direct source when I feel that direct exposure to a subject is most instructive.
There is a word for this type of knowledge: doxa. A Doxa is slightly paradoxical, in that it is a belief, but it is also truth. It is received wisdom that can be trusted and acted upon, which is passed analogically from teacher to student in one of two ways: either through experience, or instruction. Doxas received from experience are of greater value than from instruction, but the latter may often transform into the former when it is believed and trusted, hence, the need for belief. For example: my savings account only is what it is because my wife assiduously trusted the financial doxas passed on to her by her parents. She turned their wisdom into her experience, and then we turned that experience into a minivan this summer. Pretty great, I must say.
Doxas are a beautiful and precious thing. Whether we acknowledge them or not, every one of us has our own unique set of doxas that we live by, bestowed to us by our teachers and trusted loved ones. Further, we are surrounded by them everywhere, in books, in questions, in the mimetic solutions to problems we seek out on YouTube and the like. Whether it’s how to make a delicious pan sauce or how to drain and refill the air conditioning fluid in a 2010 Ford Escape, we have the ability to preserve and share our doxas in seemingly limitless ways.
But doxas are in serious danger, and if we don’t take them up, if we neglect the work it takes to share them with others and keep them consistent and true, we’re going to find ourselves overrun by an inhuman force that threatens to obviate the way we encounter, learn, and share knowledge. I’m talking about machine learning, the apotheosis of the information age: so-called “artificial intelligence.” AI.
I should be clear in stating that AI, like any technology, can be safely and effectively harnessed and used for good things. It’s an extremely useful tool for compiling and sorting information, scheduling and time management, and I even have one friend who has used ChatGPT to plan out his backyard garden with flora that takes his soil well and complements the other vegetables in it. In the right hands and with the right mindset, machine learning tools can be incredibly helpful.
But that takes real training and discipline. One particular doxa I have comes to mind: There was a monk who visited a priest at a monastery far away from his own. As he was walking through the interior entrance, he noticed a demon chained to a wall. Startled, he asked the priest what it was doing there. The priest said, “Oh, that’s the telephone.”