Discovering World Stories with LLMs as Pattern Detection & Relevance Engines

Something I loved to do when I was a kid and then as a young adult was to compare patterns of stories and myths from around the world and across time. I enjoyed the writings of folklorists and cultural anthropologists, and the ways in which novelists and poets would weave the narratives together. Since discovering LLMs, I have been using their powers as pattern detection and relevance engines to discover new old narratives and their relationships.

Nouwen's Return of the Prodigal Son

I start with Henri Nouwen's book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, because of the depth in which Nouwen explores the three main characters in the parable. Nouwen first identifies strongly with the younger, rebellious son who leaves his father's house to squander his inheritance in a distant country in which he wanders in spiritual exile. When famine strikes and he's left to feed pigs, the son hits rock bottom and decides to return home. His father runs to him and embraces him before any words of repentance are spoken, and celebrates his return. The elder son, dutiful, obedient, judgmental and resentful, questions the father's unconditional love. He's perplexed by the celebration thrown upon the younger son's return, feeling unappreciated for his steadfast loyalty. Nouwen finds himself in this elder son too, entrapped by spiritual pride and self-righteousness in having been religiously observant. By identifying with both the younger and elder sons, Nouwen can transcend them to become the father offering his unwavering love to both.

Nouwen's book explores struggles with loneliness, the desire for acceptance, the quest for a deeper spiritual life, homecoming, compassion, affirmation, and reconciliation. The deeper we go, the more we see patterns, not least for me, during these "days of awe" prior to Yom Kippur, the cycle of error and redemption. That is when I go beyond myself and beyond any one person, however, and look for patterns and stories with which I am less familiar.

Wiinabozho and the Windigo (Ojibwe)

A story of Wiinabozho, a trickster in Ojibwe (or Chippewa) stories, in which he tricks and redeems a Windigo involves themes similar to Nouwen's story: cultural assimilation (perhaps into European culture), return, and acceptance. A man from Wiinabozho's tribe becomes a Windigo, a malevolent cannibalistic spirit that can possess humans and terrorize them in winter, after being influenced by outside forces, leaving his people, forsaking their ways and becoming greedy (perhaps he acquired gold bars like Senator Menendez).

Wiinabozho hears the cries of his people suffering from the Windigo's terror. He sets out to save the man after consulting with the animals and spirits of the forest, gaining wisdom and formulating a plan. Using his shape-shifting abilities, Wiinabozho transforms himself into a rabbit to lure the Windigo into a false sense of security. The Windigo, starving as always, pursues the rabbit. Wiinabozho leads the Windigo across forests and rivers, finally arriving at a clearing where he has prepared a pit filled with stakes, in which he traps and wounds the Windigo. But Wiinabozho also knows that the spirit's heart is made of ice, and so he builds a great fire beside the pit. With more incantations, he extracts the Windigo's icy heart and throws it into the fire. The heart melts, and the man is restored to his senses. The tribe is initially wary of the man, who had left them and caused much suffering. However, they eventually accept him back, attributing his mistakes to the Windigo's influence rather than his character.

The Windigo, like the prodigal and elder sons, is far from heroic, and Wiinabozho, like the father, undergoes no fundamental transformation; he merely assumes the form of a rabbit. Let's go on to one more story in which a good figure, now the protagonist, remains true like the father and Winabozho, and where his willingness to allow redemption proves transformative.

Prince Dighavu and King Brahmadatta

Prince Dighavu appears in the early Buddhist Pali Canon. He is the son of King Dighiti and Queen Dighayu, rulers of the kingdom of Kosala. Their rule is just and fair, but eventually, they are overthrown by the richer neighboring King of Benares, Brahmadatta. They escape, and for a time live in hiding in a potter's house. Later they are captured by Brahmadatta, who has them bound and orders them to be killed. Prince Dighavu finds them on the way to their execution, whereupon his father Dighiti imparts this advice to Dighavu:

Don't, my dear Dighavu, be far-sighted. Don't be near-sighted. For vengeance is not settled through vengeance. Vengeance is settled through non-vengeance.

After his parents' deaths, Prince Dighavu gets their guards drunk so that he can burn them on a funeral pyre, and after then mourning them in the wilderness, he returns to his homeland. He apprentices himself to the royal elephant master, and gets up early to sing sweet songs and play his harp harmoniously for the elephants. The King notices his music and brings him in first as a musician and then an attendant. In due course, in recognition in part of always getting up earlier and to bed later than the King and doing everything the King wants, he becomes a very trusted advisor and the King's charioteer on a big game hunt. Dighavu drives so fast that they leave the royal followers far behind, so the King, weary, lays down for a nap, and does so with his head in the lap of the always-obliging Dighavu, who by the way is carrying a sword. When it comes to existential decision points, Hamlet has nothing on Dighavu.

Then the king awakens suddenly from a dream that he is running away from the son of the King of Kosala who is chasing him with a sword, at which point Dighavu grabs his head and the sword and does his best Inigo Montoya impersonation, but he is stopped as before by his father's teachings. At this point in the story the two engage in a negotiation:

So King Brahmadatta, dropping his head down to Prince Dighavu's feet, said, "Grant me my life, my dear Dighavu!"

"Who am I that I would dare grant life to your majesty? It is your majesty who should grant life to me!"

"In that case, my dear Dighavu, you grant me my life and I grant you your life."

Touched by the young prince's wisdom and adherence to his father's principles, the King both honors the deal and repents. He offers Dighavu his kingdom back, and GPT-4, perhaps hallucinating to satisfy me, indicates that Dighavu declines, choosing instead the life of a spiritual seeker. Both of the two sources I used for verification, on the other hand, report an outcome more satisfactory to a Windigo, in which the King gives Dighavu all his father's stuff (army, elephants, horses, chariots, territories, treasuries and granaries), plus by the way his own daughter. In either case, it ends well for Dighavu according to the authors' lights.

Dighavu's story is of the abandonment of revenge, forgiveness, filial piety and the adherence to parental guidance, even in the face of suffering and potential for retribution. Brahmadatta could be played by the younger son, the elder son or the Windigo. But kids, don't try it at home; now more than ever the safe bet is to go with Omar Little's rule that "if you come at the King, you best not miss." That's why it's good that not only are there still stories, but we can find them better and make more comparative sense of them with our new pattern detection and relevance engines.

Epilogue: One Way to Bring Out the Patterns

I resurrected another myth with GPT-4 and its Advanced Data Analysis, the myth of the structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss in his 4-volume Mythologiques. All the rage in the mid-20th Century, I don't think it is read any more for some good reasons, but since it is one way to breathe life into myths -- which Lévi-Strauss regarded as "good to think" -- I thought I would share how GPT-4 with Advanced Data Analysis can perform an analysis like this:

1. Mythemes: Lévi-Strauss starts by breaking down myths into their smallest units of meaning, termed "mythemes." These mythemes serve as the building blocks for narratives and are analyzed to uncover hidden connections.
2. Grouping: The identified mythemes are grouped together based on their relationships and functions within the overall mythic narrative. This enables a layered understanding of myths at different levels of complexity.
3. Binary Oppositions: Central to his methodology is the concept of binary oppositions like life/death or culture/nature. He postulates that such oppositions are not just elements of particular myths but are essential structures of human thought.
4. Comparative Analysis: Lévi-Strauss doesn't limit his analysis to a single culture or myth; instead, he seeks to compare myths across cultures to identify universal structures. This comparative aspect adds a dimension of universality to his studies.
5. Deep Structure: By analyzing these elements, he aims to uncover 'deep structures' that govern human thought, which are reflected in myths. These deep structures serve as insights into cognitive patterns that are fundamentally human.

Applying this approach to the central mytheme of forgiveness and redemption in the three stories leads to results like these: