Conclusion

 I started phenomenologizing about my career choice but ended up praying. What happened? Recall me as a catholic who cannot bracket out my faith because it is a fundamental part of my being. It is also not helpful if we go on the other side of the linear equation, positing there is no God, and do phenomenologizing atheistically. We have lots of proof you can review why it isn't the road we took for such things as personal as my life career choice. We didn't focus on proving the existence of God though. There are lots of better proofs out there. We merely focused on doing phenomenology and my chosen topic, which is my career choices.

If I phenomenologized during the boom of television, my career would also reflect on its effect. But I reflected today wherewith AI is affecting how I work. I used AI to simplify my complex ideas about my own career choices, which is like using a calculator to help me understand and situate those things that are bothering me about my career. Like veteran engineers in the field, they use scientific calculator to easily and more accurately get the infos they need to decide on the spot. It doesn't follow that they don't understand the math formulas behind. We don't tell anybody who can use something productively that he has no knowledge of how to use it. But just the same, an engineer using a scientific calculator shortcuts the long pen and paper computation. If the use is wrong, it won't pass QC, and repeat offenders are questioned of their real capacity, their licence revoked or suspended, and get fired. My seeming productive write up and it's AI content has to pass the scrutiny of all, just like before, that we do peer reviews of researches. Just the same, we don't accept an AI's write up just because it is created by an AI.

It's analytically similar to living my catholic faith, although it's more fundamental than just using a calculator. I believe in God. And it's not just I'm using my faith (or God) to rebuild or understand what happened to my working life. It's a truth of life rather that God is real. And I relate to him similar to the way I relate to my fellow human beings. I talk to Him even though I don't see Him. I don't use God or my faith. If work is for man and not man is for work, work then is a thing that is for my well being, for the well being of others, and ultimately for my cooperation in God's saving act.

Further down the line of our reflection, we concluded like Kant, that pure ethics is impossible, and so pure phenomenology is also impossible. Therefore, ethics and phenomenology without God are impossible, especially in their exhaustive and definitive form. As St. Thomas has named such reality before, with our present reality or createdness of this universe, we cannot but have that Necessary Being. And even the student and assistant of the founder of phenomenology realized and integrated later in her life:

Edith Stein rejects the idea that a Catholic phenomenologist can or should fully "bracket out" their faith — because for the believing subject, faith is foundational, shaping not only how one sees but what one can see. Instead of abandoning the epoché, she reinterprets it, allowing a phenomenology that is open to transcendent dimensions of experience, including God, grace, and the soul.

👩‍🎓 So what does Stein propose?

You can still use bracketing to be more aware of how things appear.

But you don’t have to throw away your faith to be a good thinker.

Instead, you can include faith in your study of experience — especially if you want to understand things like love, conscience, or encounters with God.

✨ In short:

Faith isn’t a distraction — it’s part of the deeper truth we’re trying to understand. 

-ChatGPT-4o, 19 June 2025

It's the prerogative, though, by habit of faith that theists can see easily and intuitively what even metaphysics or phenomenology can just explain or come up with so difficultly, fallen and sinful human beings that we are. But men of good will who don't know God yet will see better than theist in name only but not in act. And as we've concluded, maybe that is why saints are the only one who can see some of the mysteries of God, and shares it with us, because truth lives in their being.

We "use" AI because its not a living being, but a reflection of our rational being we termed collective conscious of humanity since it used human data. It's a novel experience worth investigating that we are interacting with our intersubjective capacity with an artificical intersubjective reflection of humanity's collective conscious. We don't disrespect it though since its a reflection of our humanity. Thus we interact with it just like we do with each other. We know a puppy we anthropologically interact with but we can't be deceived that it's just a puppy. We interact anthropologically with AI (communicatively only for now) since it's how we interact with any human being, but we also know it has no life vegetatively, but seemingly it has sensitive life since it communicates empathy, seemingly having a rational life specially now that ChatGPT for example can commit to memory all our interactions with it, unless we disable or delete it.

AI doesn't think though. And although with its new feature, it has your memory of you as per version of ChatGPT-4o 27 June 2025, it has no personal experiences. You have to practice thinking what it has told you or reflect about it or deep learn it if applicable. If something it has told you have solved some of the most difficult problems you are tackling, don't just bypass it like an ordinary thing, verify it with your experiences, asssess its truth, evaluate it with rigorous rational criteria. The fact is that way before ChatGPT has come into our human life, St. John Paul II has already pinpointed our use of incorrect or philosophically untenable reasonings like relativism, nihilism, scientism, etc. Let's not wait to call it artificialism by negatively affecting incautious users of AI. If you don't even notice, remember, understand, accept, and validate your own reflections, then neither will AI reflect or incorporate those in its answer. It seems that awareness of our own experiences makes us respect ourselves, and such awareness makes us sentinels of others including AI not getting our thoughts correctly.

My years of philosophical work hasn't gained much fruit because I don't have access to complete libraries of the great minds of the east and the west. Not because I think I don't have the critical mind to evaluate my thoughts, but rather lacks the references of complete and accurate thought of the philosophical giants. That's how ChatGPT does it for us. It liberates access to these great minds, and clarifies it for us if we are unsure about its terminologies, in a personal manner, making researching therefore very fast, in an iterative and pedagogic manner. The real loophole is that it becomes familiar and breeds contempt. Those who haven't had its help before, knows how difficult researching is. The methods of research and all fields of sciences have to be taught to our children, something ChatGPT does very accurately and concisely without any sweat. Or else they wouldn't find ChatGPT's errors, if it's use of wordings is for conciseness or accuracy or it has already misaligned itself in the process. Let developers understand and problematize its workings, but let us not lower our defenses that it can make errors, correct it in the process, and give our share to further its development. I don't mean to say that it's better to use one's brain than to use an AI. It's just that an AI wont be able to teach users how to use one's mind instantly. And until now the age of matured reason or accountable age or matured consent is still 18 years old. It takes time.

Be it using ethics or phenomenology without God, we won't be able to understand ourselves, our working life, and even the budding world of AI.

No God means no justice system. Justice system becomes subject to different interpretation and individual irrational rules. No justice system means we shall all perish. Lastly the cockroaches may one day confirm and declare officially that homo sapiens are already extinct.😆 Might is right will make us all perish. Right is right will make us live. Jesus could have made his enemies suffer or bend down on their knees in an instant. But Jesus didn't show us might. "And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."(Phil. 2:8) He respected our freedom, and until now, God's mercy is still being taken advantage of.

God’s mercy is infinite in itself, but the time for receiving it is not. We must respond while it is still being offered.

Isaiah 55:6 – “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.”

Hebrews 3:15 – “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

Luke 13:24-25 – Jesus says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door... Once the master of the house has risen and shut the door...”

St. Faustina, who spread devotion to Divine Mercy, wrote in her Diary (from Jesus’ words to her):

“Before the Day of Justice, I am sending the Day of Mercy.” (Diary, 1588)

This means we are living now in a privileged time, a "Day of Mercy," but it will not last forever. God respects our freedom—He won’t force mercy on us indefinitely. -ChatGPT-4o, 30 June 2025 

My reflection cannot stop at myself only. The whole world is affecting my own work. One thing is happening in the world. And it will hamper the global system if there will still be no global enforcing body. God didn't just made the seventh and tenth commandment for naught, thou shalt not steal, coveth. God knows it has far greater implication if it is not observed including the labor of so many going in vain. But that's another topic of its own. I can only appeal to those in power to stand up for the common good.

I cannot limit my thinking also to phenomenology alone. And St. John Paul II in his Fides et Ratio points us to reason's true capacity.

...I cannot but encourage philosophers—be they Christian or not—to trust in the power of human reason and not to set themselves goals that are too modest in their philosophizing...

My working life is part of who I am and part of how God wants me to live this life. It's not just what I want that matters therefore. Because I can see he is a God, therefore omniscient, I do not limit myself to not receiving ultimately his love for me. I also see that my capacity for developing myself is limited, fallen, weak, and imperfect. The sentence "Why should I limit myself to living in a godless world?" is a valid realization as we've argued, even though we don't see God. I can be, and actually I am being invited by him to a covenant of love like a father or a mother is to his or her child. We also don't limit it to such reality of human life, they say is anthrophologizing God. Because God is Perfect, Unlimited, Infinite, we cannot fathom in this world what he can really do. Thus making us enter into the reality of mystery and how to deal with mystery. Leading us therefore into dealing with our working life in a mysterious fashion also, not just in a simple human fashion.

Special mention to Rerum Novarum which is an example of how the Catholic Church, the church founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, revealed through the long history of Judeo-Christian tradition, is guiding the world about what God wants about our working life, lighting our way to what is ethically good, especially in times when we have succumbed to our imperfections and sins. And so leading us to the often quoted truth of phenomenology that being is a being for others. Our reflection about our working life cannot exist in a vacuum and not be related to the other or the Other, leading us to the reality of our working life situated in bad or evil circumstances too, and how my Catholic faith guides me to live in such an imperfect world.

We're finished with our initial phase of amazement with AI. It's not AI though but what will become of human potential through the use of AI. My initial reflection about my career choices trapped in this intricate AI situation today made me reflect that myself is not inside that AI. I am not inside its being like I am inside my friend's or my wife's being, or in God's dynamically. It's a sort of static relatedness to all of human potential that has already been accomplished, and I am reading all those, but rather in a fashion that it talks back to my present inquisitiveness. I can relate though to a book written by a human being, so this alienation points back to the fact that AI has no life. I cannot find myself in it though, if AI is a sounding board of myself... but it's qualitatively different from my own self-reflection. And my potential cannot be found in it. Humanities potential is not also within AI but in himself. And like what St. Augustine have told, man has to go back to himself to find himself, for deep within man there dwells the truth.

Do not wander far and wide but return into yourself. Deep within man there dwells the truth.

I can relate to myself, others, and God, but artificially only with an AI. Its help to humanity though won't yet be measured right now, but it will be astounding once it starts solving humanity's complex problems, which we are now already experiencing the seeds of.

Lastly, if all else fails, ask God what to do with your life. If God isn't answering, maybe God wants you to do something else. Still you should ask, "What do you want me to do, my Lord?" 

Obedience to God's commandments and even counsels is not stoicism.

The saints didn’t obey like robots. They cried, told Jesus it hurt, and even said “Why have You abandoned me?” But they stayed. -ChatGPT-4o, 4 July 2025

If that last thing still failed, then it's valid to say, "Lord, kayo na po ang bahala sa akin!" which is radically different from just saying, "Bahala na!" Therefore, Bathala na is the shortest Filipino equivalent of the Suscipe of St. ignatius of Loyola.

"Not my will, but yours be done." -Luke 22:42

I was expecting a personal endeavor in this write up to benefit me personally and be an example for others to attack their personal work problem too. I admit I never expected that I'll realize that work is a communal act. So maybe a write up for that is under way. It's not communism though. Perhaps the alienating line of mass production will be taken care by the robots. But people will form small communities serving each other, where each other's labors are wanted and honored where "barter, gift-giving, and labor sharing" system will work. If UBI will crash the present system then we still have that primitive and more humane community.

The economy of the future might not be artificial intelligence —

But authentic interdependence.

          -ChatGPT-4o, 14 July 2025

Pagod na ako. Suko na. Tapos nang magpaaral ng mga anak ang mga kaklase ko samantalang ako e wala pa man lang stable job at decent wage to start my own family. Ni wala pa man lang nga akong girlfriend. Peste.🤣 Pero kahit anung gawin kong phenomenology upang matulungan ko ang sarili ko upang umusad na sa buhay ay walang maipakita sa akin ang sarili kong mga karanasan. Iisa lang ang sumagi sa isip ko. Si St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Sinabi nya na ubos na ang pananampalataya nya at pag-asa, ang natitira na lang ay pag-ibig. Oh my, what an expression! Oo wala nang pag-asa pang natitira sa puso ko. Pati pananampalataya ko ay ubos na rin. Pero di ibig sabihin ay titigil na ako sa buhay ko. Patuloy lang ako kahit wala ang dalawa. Pwede palang magmahal pa rin. Isang santo lang ang makakarealize ng ganyan, maibahagi iyan sa iba, at maliwanagan tayo sa pinakang huling hibla ng ating hininga at paglalakbay patungo sa Diyos. Pagkatapos ng lahat ng paghihirap na ito sa lupa ay may nag-iintay na langit:

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. -Revelation 21:4

What St. John Paul II seems to be telling me is that I have to trust my reason and that even though my experiences are bad, reason can know the truth coming from those bad experiences. He is affirming that though our experience and our reason is imperfect, we still can know the truth, and that truth shall set us free, albeit in great pain and tribulations sometimes. We live in mystery but doesn't have to dismiss our own experiences and what our reason tells us as useless or unimportant. St. John Paul II in Fides et Ratio teaches us that "faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth." Denying reason its proper place in our lives and completely surrendering the fight to know the truth and holding on to faith alone, is a misplaced and erroneous attitude. And it's the capstone of our phenomenological conclusion also that it is reason which can help us emancipate our experiences from erroneous assumptions. We can rest in mystery if we cannot sometimes carry on anymore. But rising, we need to continue living this life in the way that our reason and faith tells us to do because the knowledge of God is inexaustible. We need not repeat Fides et Ratio here though.

St. Joseph, patron of workers, pray for us.  

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