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FREE WILL - HAVE WE GOT IT?

He isn't a total moron but something is urging me to call him one. The technology is remarkable, even if it seems to be being used to do an endless series of pointless party tricks to show it has the intellectual capacity of a 3 year old child. The producers have also given their child-like creation the ability to write computer code and access to a vast repository of knowledge on the internet.
That seems like the proverbial recipe for disaster. Millions are said to be "playing" with chatGPT at the moment... but the problems will arise because the 'bad guys' will be pouring over it with the intention of exploitation for personal gain, financial, political and psychological.

So we, as individuals, need to decide for ourselves what we think are the dangers and whether we will, or will not, be bothered to do anything...
The alleged threat being the potential elimination of the human race, is obviously an "extremely serious one" that if it is correct shows just what a staggering absence of intelligence is being utilised with regard to the misnomered Artificial...ermm, Intelligence...(?).

The fact that many of the people involved in the implementation of this technology are themselves saying the dangers are genuine is good enough for me to be personally mildly terrified. Terrified because those involved in its creation are busy making this creation in the image of its creators, exceptionally clever and exceptionally devoid of intelligent behaviour.

Intelligence and wisdom are not orders of magnitude above cleverness, they are totally different catagories of action. They cannot be created or manufactured, cannot become a product of computer code.
So are you waiting for me to provide you with a definition, state what I "mean" by intelligence?

I have already stated that intelligence is a behaviour. Behaviour is the way in which actions occur. Intelligence can only be recognised after the event. You cannot state that you will act with intelligence, only that what you did was an intelligent course of action, was being the operative word. Manufacturing nuclear weapons was not an intelligent thing to do, making the decision not to manufacture them would have been. After that decision (to not manufacture) was taken, an intelligent action would have occurred. Intelligence is not something that can be pre-defined.

Unfortunately branding the term Artificial Intelligence as a misnomer does not reduce the fact that constructing machines or bestowing algorithms with abilities that take cleverness to extremes, especially without the wisdom of intelligent behaviour may be a highly dangerous course of action.

So a question to ask is what "brings about" intelligent behaviour?

Unfortunately the term has a well established base and a bunch of followers who will neither change their use of it nor agree with my disputing its meaning. It would demean their egotistic desire to be the fathers and mothers of a race of super-"intelligent" cyberbots. (I feel I should apologise for my cynicism. though not for the point being made). .. THERE IS A LOT TO BE FEARFUL ABOUT.

To return then to what will become my central question - what "brings about" intelligent behaviour?
I feel this is a topic that more than ever needs the dismissal of preconcieved ideas and wishful assumptions, though some "disagreeable" axioms may be required to initiate exploration. The most dominant notions at the heart of humanities attachment to language are the currently accepted Laws of Logic. These have seeped so deeply into the collective psyche that even those who have never heard them or given them consideration utilise 'the laws' as axiomatic elements of general conversation, and the scientific community make their assumptions and presumptions in the belief that the Rules of Logic are sacrosanct.

First a brief look at existing "rules" then a fresh start. They are rules rather than laws as there is no threat of punishment for trying to break them.

The dominant formalization of these rules perhaps comes via Aristotle, who formulated three laws of logic:

(1) The law of identity.
(2) The law of non-contradiction
(3)   The law of the excluded middle.

As alread noted, these are rules, guidence as to how our language in particular is utilised rather than directives for behaviour. This is a crucial point to be clear on. The "laws of Logic" are not something anyone is obliged to accept simply because there appears on initial consideration to be no examples of where the do not apply.

The need to understand the relationship between the rules of logic and the nature of intelligence is critical to seeing the falsity in the concept of artificial Intelligence and the likely futility in trying to make mechanical sentience through computing technology.
The three rules listed above, identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle (which claims there are no alternatives to something being either true or false, no middle separating the true and the false). Proponents of the foundations of logic belief they are supplying a fundamental foundation upon which to build an explanation for the whole of existence, or at a minimum "the whole of existence as we know it".

THE WHOLE OF EXISTENCE AS WE KNOW IT. This phrase carries an element of Donald Rumsfeld's unknowns about it.

The belief that we know where to start when talking about existence is ladened with assumptions. There may be "unknown unknowns" we have not realised are staring us in the face, maybe quite literally, that we are oblivious to either through ignorance or design.

To clarify this somewhat, every individual should have to answer the following question:-

HAVE YOU EVER EXPERIENCED ANYTHING THAT TOU WERE NOT AWARE OF?
LOOK AT THIS QUESTION VERY CAREFULLY AND DO NOT ASSUME YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS ASKING.

Everything you see, hear, taste, touch or smell is a sensory experience, a product of the senses. All thoughts, all dreams, all hallucinatory experiences, everything you have ever experienced is known via the senses. This is not something you give a second thought to, but perhaps you should. Do you think it is so obvious that it is not worth commenting on? You may have given it no thought, ever, and now you are asked to look at your own experience and may want to dismiss it as a statement of the obvious, not worthy of further consideration. Are you already looking for examples of experience your senses are not involved in, to prove this claim wrong?
See how easy it is to ignore the obvious and get distracted. Sensory experience does not always come from what you may regard as an external world. You sense your thoughts and feelings, emotions, fears, headaches and pains, physical and psychological. Doctors, academics, teachers and scientists have divided such matters into specialisms and study many of them in isolation dividing them so thouroghly that we cease to see them for the unity, the united whole that they are. We are utterly dismissive of the 'obvious fact' that there is a 'you' that observes.

THE AWARENESS OF BEING IS THE WHOLENESS OF YOUR EXISTENCE. IT CREATES THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OF YOUR EXISTENCE AND EXPERIENCE. IT IS NOT PHYSICAL. IT IS NOT MENTAL.

I am saying it is neither physical nor mental, so what is it?

Do NOT ask me, look for yourself, it is your life, your existence, why should it require someone else to tell you what it is? It is what you are, just look at it! To repeat - We are utterly dismissive of the 'obvious fact' that there is a 'you' that observes.

You may well be looking and observing your sense of frustration now. You can grasp the idea that awareness of the world, your experience of the world, is something you can look as an observer. But you are not grasping the meaning behind the claim that it is neither mental nor physical.

Describing awareness as consciousness is acceptable for many discussions on this topic, synonyms are an integral but confusing aspect of language. Unfortunately the terms mental and physical are not so accomodating and generate enormous confusion in relation to consciousness.
CONSCIOUSNESS creates mental and physical events, AWARENESS allows for their perception. Consciousness and awareness are analagous to the ocean or the atmosphere, both supporting a multitude of lifeforms but neither requiring their contents. Remember I just said this was an analogy, and a simple one at that, do not get too excited at seeing its flaws and limitations.

The statement above - ONSCIOUSNESS creates mental and physical events, AWARENESS allows for their perception, clearly requires elaboration, not least because you either do not understand it or have chosen to deny its truth value. Stating that consciousness creates mental and physical events is a concession to the fact that we need to use language to speak of these matters. A deeper meeting with consciousness as an active direct experience will bring with it an understanding that is beyond verbal or written explanation. This is something that has the ring of mystery or superstition, or maybe mumbo-jumbo about it, a convienient ruse to offer explanation where non is actually available. But only AWARENESS of CONSCIOUSNESS can reveal that it is creating, as opposed to being mental (or physical).

It is time to turn to the potentially "disagreeable" axioms mentioned earlier.
You do not have to agree with these statements, simply accept, as you would be expected to do with the opening axioms of a mathematical proof, that the stated axioms are a required and integral part of what follows.

THE AXIOMS OF PRELOGIC

(1) Existence does not require content.
(2) Consciousness is the fundamental primative of existence.
(3) Awareness of existence is Life.

Precisely what you understand by the word "existence" is probably not very "precise". As a commonly spoken word it shares with many other words a loose and imprecise definition and a standard assumption that "you know what it means".
Knowing what things mean, and all participants in a conversation are expected to have broadly the same understanding of terms used, is the common presumption, but is rarely the case. We are adept at using words in the right context without fully understanding their meaning. In the case of EXISTENCE we need to explain the word without reference to the content of existence, that is to say, to distinguish how existence can be, independent of objects of existence.

The concept of planes of existence is often heard but rarely, if ever explained. The spiritual community speak of them as if the meaning was self-evident. It is not.

Implicit in the term existence is a single word question - where? If something exists it needs somewhere to exist, somewhere to be.
This is a subtle and nuanced point that needs slow and careful consideration. Do not think you simply understand what is being said, it is most likely you will bring your current ideas into the explanation, trying to fit what is said into your personal paradigm.

Consider first the space and time that provide the "where?" for our existence.
Your body and the objective world that surrounds it have their "where?" in space-time. Space-time is a home for things and stuff.
Unfortunately, as time seemingly passes, understandings change. Today you may hear the phrase "space-time is doomed", a catchy reference to the latest findings in mathematics that space and time can apparently be shown not to be as fixed and fundamental as may have been assumed. The more spiritually inclined have been pointing this out for centuries but without some "Scientific" evidence or mathematical backing have been simply ignored. There now seems to be good reason to support the idea that space-time is not a fundamental aspect of reality but a product of our personal interaction with the world to provide us with a perceived and perceivable experience of that world.