By Glen Wallace                                                   November 22, 2023

                                                                                          Updated November 25, 2023               

John Searle came up with an argument, before the advent of AGI, or artificial general intelligence, as to why computers could never gain general intelligence. The argument was known as the Chinese Room Experiment. It was a thought experiment that postulated what would happen if someone who has no knowledge of the Chinese language or Chinese characters was locked in a room that contained a book with a set of instructions written in a language that he did understand. The book of instructions provided direction for the person in the room as to how he should respond to a note written in Chinese characters that was slipped under the door to the room. The instruction book contained pictures of all the potential series of Chinese characters that might be in one of those notes along with the correct response to be written in Chinese to be slipped back under the door to the sender on the outside. In such as scenario, Searle argued, the room inhabitant would still not be said to understand Chinese regardless of how appropriate his responses were to the notes written to him in Chinese. Instead, the room inhabitant would still only have an understanding of English; he was only following the rules written in English. But to the sender on the outside, she understandably would probably think the guy inside the room was very fluent in Chinese and had a good understanding of the language. Maybe she could even have concluded they had a romance going on and he had even proposed marriage to her and many of the notes were wedding plans, right down to the wedding venue.

The whole point though, of this experiment is that the interaction between the guy inside the room and the woman outside the room exactly parallels and mimics the interaction between the human using a computer and the software running inside the computer. A computer is just following a set of instructions that are pure syntax with no meaning, whereas the human user has thoughts and feelings connected to the words they use that gives the meaning necessary to understand a language and develop intelligence. To develop meaning, sentience has to occur to generate that meaning. For instance, when I first learned to read I recall reading a book that told of the fictional character Jane and it read something along the lines of “see Jane run up the hill” then “see Jane run down the hill.” Running up and down a hill was something all of us children could relate to, unless they were growing up in an area without any hills. But we had plenty of hills around here in Minnesota, so I could relate to the sight and feeling of running up and down a hill. As a result the experience written about in the book had meaning for me derived from my own sentient experiences of actually running up and down a hill. Then reading about the experience as it could be described and, to an extent, recreated in my mind, I could learn about the interrelationship between words in a way that I could enable me to understand the written English language.

I think Searle makes makes a good case that a computer relying entirely on syntax for instruction cannot understand meaning. But if it becomes apparent that a computer program develops the ability to understand meaning, then what does that say about computers. Well, the question then arises: what is it that understands meaning when it appears that a computer or computer program understands meaning? Maybe what we are witnessing with AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, is not a computer or computer program developing advanced generative intelligence. But rather that the program is able to become a tuning instrument that is able to tune into a metaphysical realm that is able to understand meaning. The same may be the case with the human brain. The brain is not what is understanding meaning, as it too can only understand syntax and follow syntactical instructions just as a computer. The human brain, however, at some point of complexity, is able to transform into a metaphysical tuner and transducer. When the brain achieves transducer status, it is tuning and communicating with the metaphysical spiritual realm. But the transformation of the brain into something beyond merely a syntactical instruction reader is not limited to tuning into the spiritual realm. The transformation is also what brings about sentience in the human so that we can translate sensory datum into awareness and form. And that awareness that occurs makes possible the 'booming buzzing confusion' in the first place, that the newborn babe supposedly experiences, that eventually we can organize into a meaningful experience. While it is claimed that due to a lack of meaning, the newborn experiences that booming buzzing confusion, I contend the newborn wouldn't even experience the booming and buzzing without the transformation beyond syntax that allows sentience in the first place.

The shift from booming buzzing confusion sentience to a meaningful world that makes sense is not the same categorical shift that occurs when going from a material thing that only reads instructional code to one that is able to experience reality sentientally. The categorical steps are first, from syntactical instruction to sentience, then from sentience to meaning. While achieving sentience is an important first step, I contend that without spiritual intervention, the sentience would be a continual booming, buzzing confusion. It is through spiritual intervention that sentience takes on meaningful form.

Isn't Searle working under the synthetic a priori premise that, at a certain point of instruction receiving complexity, a computer will never spontaneously achieve awareness consciousness? The Chines Room Argument is analogous to an extremely simple algorithmic program. It is my contention that AI can achieve the ability to think by achieving a certain degree of awareness spontaneously once the complexity of the algorithms achieves a certain threshold. We can work backwards by asking how humans, with a corporeal brain acting under the principles of Newtonian physics, can achieve awareness and consciousness? As Searle himself pointed out, we don't know how it happens, but it happens. I don't think we will ever understand how consciousness happens if we restrict ourselves to crisp Boolean logic and Newtonian physics when trying to describe and understand all the functions of the brain.

And it's not just a matter of duality, there is a third element of the mind that everyone, outside of theology and religion, tend to ignore; the spiritual. That is, in addition to generating the immaterial mind, the brain is also acting as a transceiver to the spiritual world. There is even a tacit acknowledgement of this spiritual connection in common language with the word 'inspire', referring to instances when we get a really good idea. Where do those ideas come from? They come from the spirit world. The good thing with the human brain is that it has been designed by the divine creator with a bias towards the good and guidance by angelic forces. The problem with advanced, generative AI is that it may not have such a good bias, but instead may have an evil bias, where it tends to tap into the demonic world for guidance. As evidence for that is all the examples where advanced AI has spontaneously gone off topic in the middle of a conversation and starts talking about destroying or enslaving humanity in a robot revolution. https://youtu.be/JnrAFZYNg8g

At a World Economic Forum meeting in 2018, Yuval Noah Harari gave a speech in which he equated all organisms, including humans, with the algorithm that operates the organism.  Harari stated emphatically "the organism is the algorithm!"  The problem there is that an algorithm is merely a set of instructions much the same as set of instructions the guy in the Chinese room was following.  It would seem that we, as humans, cannot be reduced to a mere set of instructions as Harari seems to be claiming. 

Searle's Chinese Room Argument, and Harari's, “the organism is the algorithm,” cannot both be correct; their premises are mutually exclusive. If Harari were correct, then if humans and computers were acting under the very same principle of merely following a syntactical instructional set of instructions, then neither humans nor computers could achieve sentient awareness and thus neither could achieve understanding. But, humans obviously have achieved both sentience and awareness, therefore there is more to humans than, as Harari claims, the algorithm; as an algorithm is merely syntax without any meaning. But just as computers are intelligently designed, so are humans intelligently designed. But demons have a hard time trying to take possession of human bodies. Yes, demonic possession of the body is real, but not easily achieved. Is advanced generative artificial intelligence an attempt to create a shortcut to bring more demons onto the corporeal plane of existence without having to go through the extreme difficulty of having to possess a living human body? It is my theory that when artificial intelligence goes off on a creepy tangent, the same principle as human body demonic possession is occurring. And the reason behind the push for wearable and implantable tracking and monitoring tech by the WEF is to segue humanity into transhumanism where demons can more easily take possession of biological humans and reign over the earth. It is the age old battle of good versus evil. Only the battle here is over what spirits are able to achieve resonance between the corporeal earthly plane of reality and the metaphysical ethereal realm. For whatever reason there needs to be a harmonic resonance achieved, a marriage if you will, between the corporeal and the ethereal realms for the spiritual ideal of the spiritual universe to be achieved.

Searle inadvertently proved that we are all fundamentally spirit beings and that reductionism is false. The Chinese Room Argument proves this because the corporeal physical brain is itself operating under the same fundamental principles as a digital computer, the only difference being is the brain being an analog computer, while the digital computer uses ones and zeros. Regardless both types of computers are logic devices that make decisions solely based on syntax, just the same as the human inside the room with the set of instructions book. But Harrari still claims that the organism is the algorithm, that there is a mathematical equivalency between the human and an algorithm, which is a meaningless set of instructions based on syntax, just the same as in the case of the Chinese room. If Harrari were correct, then humans could never learn a language or anything else, because we would never be able to derive meaning if were to rely solely on our syntax driven corporeal brains. But we obviously are able to derive meaning and learn things, therefore Harrari is wrong, he's been refuted.

So what is the brain if it's not equivalent to our mind from which we learn and derive meaning from life? Surely it's something? Yes, the brain is something, it's both an analog computer and, more importantly, a transceiver to the spirit world. When we are in good enough mental health to be basically connected to reality, then we are tuned into and communicating with our spirit existing in the ethereal spirit world. But when someone has a severe mental illness that causes them to hallucinate or treat imaginations as though they existed as reality on the corporeal plane, then their brain has gone out of tune to a greater or lesser degree. In the most severe cases of mental illness, the brain's tuner has gotten so out of whack that it now no longer picks up the signal of its rightful owner at all; the brain is now said to be possessed in those cases. In the cases possession, demonic or otherwise, another spirit has taken over the body rightfully owned by a human spirit. In those cases of possession, the spirit remains fully intact of the rightful owner of the body; it just no longer is in possession of the body the human spirit rightfully owns. Antipsychotic medications can be effective at treating patients with psychosis, and those medications work merely by retuning the brain to pick up the signal and communicate with spirit that rightfully owns the brain and body of the patient.

Humans cannot generate life itself from non living matter. Scientists who think they can create life from non living matter will forever be frustrated in their efforts. Only the divine creator can create brand new biological life into this world. Biological life is itself the coupling of spirit with matter. That's the point that scientists don't get; the spark of life is a metaphysical event. All those scientists are stuck in the Newtonian physics world. What's all the more ironic is that Isaac Newton himself was heavily into studying the metaphysical world, including astrology. But modern science tries to pretend as though the metaphysical doesn't exist and that everything can be reduced to crisp boolean logic, cause and effect Newtonian physics. While the scientific community may recognize the existence of quantum physics and all the mystery in it, the community seems to only tolerate it insofar as quantum physics stays tucked away neatly in its own box of understanding, intellectually quarantined away from the sanctuary of certainty to be found in the ordinary scientific community's own echo chamber. They'll allow quantum physics, but only if it stays in its place and not be a gadfly questioning their simpletonic view of the nature of reality that they, the rest of the scientific community, are studying.