前生，前世，怎么说英语呢？a former life, a previous life

acb

至少两个常见的说法，a former life, a previous life, 在《红楼梦》里，薛蟠打死了人，贾雨村听取了以前的沙弥的建议，说两人前生有仇。
"Then Your Honour has it put about that you have a gift for the planchette. You have an altar set up in the court and a planchette board installed on it and you issue an open invitation to any members of the public who want to to attend a séance. Then you say, 'The spirit control gives judgment as follows:
"'The dead man, Feng Yuan, owed a debt of karma to Xue Pan from a former life and "meeting his enemy in a narrow way", paid for it with his life. The sudden, unexplained illness which struck down Xue Pan was caused by the vengeful ghost of Feng Yuan come to claim its own. Since the tragedy was entirely due to the behaviour of the kidnapper, the kidnapper should be dealt with according to the full rigour of the law; but apart from him, all other parties are exonerated...' and so on and so forth......

但是有趣的是，ChatGPT会建议使用“a previous life”， 它的解释是：
"A former life" is grammatically correct, but it may not be the most appropriate phrase to use in this context. The phrase "a former life" is often used to describe past lives in the context of reincarnation or past-life regression therapy. However, in the passage you provided, the term "a former life" is used to describe the relationship between Feng Yuan and Xue Pan in a previous existence.
In this context, a more appropriate term might be "a previous life," as this phrase better conveys the idea of a past life or existence without suggesting a specific belief system or doctrine.

再问，回答说：
"A former life" is grammatically correct, but it might not be the most accurate phrase to use in this context, as it could be interpreted as referring to a previous lifetime in the sense of reincarnation. In many spiritual belief systems, the concept of a "former life" refers specifically to a previous incarnation of the same soul.
If the intention is to convey that Feng Yuan and Xue Pan knew each other in a previous existence, a clearer phrase might be "from a previous existence." This phrase is more neutral and avoids connotations of specific spiritual beliefs.

再询问，它又纠正了下自己说的：
"A former life" is grammatically correct, but it might not be the most accurate phrase to use in this context, as it could be interpreted as referring to a previous lifetime in the sense of reincarnation. In many spiritual belief systems, the concept of a "former life" refers specifically to a previous incarnation of the same soul.
If the intention is to convey that Feng Yuan and Xue Pan knew each other in a previous existence, a clearer phrase might be "from a previous existence." This phrase is more neutral and avoids connotations of specific spiritual beliefs.