Hegel vs. GPT-3

... this quote ... was used by Scott Alexander in his Nonfiction Writing Advice as an example of entirely unreadable abstract paragraph.

It isn't unreadable. Hegel is arguing with concepts from previous philosophies which he presumes the reader already knows and understands well. If one begins reading him possessing the prerequisite knowledge one can understand him just fine. Besides, this is a point in the middle of a long discussion, so he already presumes the reader understood the previous points and is connecting the dots.

Great philosophers are great because they notice something no one has noticed before and are thus the very first person in History to try and express that. They have no tool for doing so other than everything that was said before, which, by definition, doesn't include what they're trying to say. So, on top of trying to say something utterly, absolutely novel, they must invent the language and semantics with which to say it by repurposing words and concepts that aren't appropriate for the task. Eventually (measured in decades to centuries) students of that philosopher figure out better ways to express the same novel notions he pioneered, and cause the learning curve to become less and less steep. In the extreme this is so well done, and that philosopher's ideas and terminology gain such widespread adoption, that language itself adapts to the way the philosopher used it. And then everyone is talking from within that philosopher's terminology, and wondering, when they read the original work, what was the big deal with someone who was all about stating, and badly at that, mere truisms.

If philosophers wrote presuming their readers have no philosophical knowledge at all, and under the requirement that all words they use must retain their current, commonsensical meaning, every sentence of theirs would balloon into an entire book. The philosopher would die of old age before having presented 1% of what they wanted to say.

Did you spot the original? If not, you can read it directly from here.

The original is not in English. If you take the first three sentences of the opening quote, they match to one sentence in the the German orignal that Hegel wrote. It removes all the fun of reading Hegel where you have to think about how the subclauses of a sentence relate to each other.

The original for it is:

Das Gute ist die Idee, als Einheit des Begriffs des Willens und des besonderen Willens, in welcher das abstrakte Recht, wie das Wohl und die Subjektivität des Wissens und die Zufälligkeit des äußerlichen Daseins, als für sich selbständig aufgehoben, damit aber ihrem Wesen nach darin enthalten und erhalten sind, - die realisierte Freiheit, der absolute Endzweck der Welt.

Get's turned in English into:

The good is the idea, or unity of the conception of the will with the particular will. Abstract right, well-being, the subjectivity of consciousness, and the contingency of external reality, are in their independent and separate existences superseded in this unity, although in their real essence they are contained in it and preserved. This unity is realized freedom, the absolute final cause of the world.

In German, you have do decide whether to read that as:

Das Gute ist die Idee, ((als Einheit des Begriffs des Willens und des besonderen Willens), in welcher das abstrakte Recht, (wie das Wohl und die Subjektivität des Wissens und die Zufälligkeit des äußerlichen Daseins), als für sich selbständig aufgehoben, damit aber ihrem Wesen nach darin enthalten und erhalten sind,) - die realisierte Freiheit, der absolute Endzweck der Welt.

Or:

Das Gute ist die Idee, ((als Einheit des Begriffs des Willens und des besonderen Willens), in welcher das abstrakte Recht, (wie das Wohl und die Subjektivität des Wissens und die Zufälligkeit des äußerlichen Daseins, als für sich selbständig aufgehoben), damit aber ihrem Wesen nach darin enthalten und erhalten sind,) - die realisierte Freiheit, der absolute Endzweck der Welt.

Reading Hegel in English is essentially reading him in easy mode.

I was able to correctly identify it without even reading the initial paragraph. I have some brief exposure to Hegel's philosophy having read A Very Short Introduction to Hegel and having read a few philosophical articles about him. Nonetheless, I haven't read him directly and I don't have any knowledge of his philosophy of right and wrong. One of the paragraphs had a claim the wrong way round and the other paragraph seemed kind of fluffy.

However, if I'd been shown the original paragraph, then I might have had more trouble differentiating it. That's not surprising - presumably Scott chose that paragraph for a reason.

Hegel seems to be saying that one can become an incarnation of a moral ideal. I imagine quite a few people in the rationalist and effective altruist communities have attempted this... 

Like Scott, I won't advice any human to end up sounding like Hegel.

Unless this is regional variation in English, it's advise or advize. (The second one may trigger 'autocorrects'.)

Two of the following paragraphs are GPT-3 output. The other one is the actual following paragraph from the Philosophy of Right. Now you can play this little game:

Easy mode: Carefully re-read the initial paragraph, check it against each one of the following, and guess which one is from actual Hegel.

It'd be an amusing trick if GPT coughs up (actual) Hegel when prompted with Hegel.

I. "The idea is freedom": weird. "At home in one's right": doesn't parse. "To be at home everywhere": why would one's right be everywhere? "It is a power": overly trivial. Probably not Hegel.

II. It seems to be saying: Well-being as a property of isolated individuals is not valuable; well-being as part of an integrated whole is valuable. "Right" is a universal good, "well-being" is an individual good, in line with normal moral philosophy. It's a coherent thought, the different sentences relate to each other and are compatible with each other. Probably Hegel.

III. Particulars are more abstract expressions? That's backwards. Saying the Idea can only be realized in an individual contradicts Hegelian monism, as well. Probably not Hegel.

(I've read some amount of Hegel but not closely)