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If any genuine “free will” exists, it is at the level of the “I-ness” of a system, the decision making routine, that it comes into play. Before we dive into the technicalities of this issue, let’s first try to brainstorm on what can be understood by “free will”. Although intuitively we “know” what “free will” is, just as we know what consciousness is,it is extremely hard to define it in words. Let’s try to build an ontology “free will” by reciting its features and by drawing the borders of this concept from the notions of what it is not.

I followed a very interesting discussion on the issue of free will and whether it is needed in AI, which I will neither repeat nor summarise here, but a number of striking concepts of which I will use in this essay. I do not claim to have come up with those concepts myself nor do I claim to be an expert on the issue, but I believe that I can add some interesting concepts to the discussion deriving from Ben Jacob’s “Bacterial Wisdom”, “Global Brains” and “Societies-of-Minds”. I will also propose to incorporate an artificial functional mimic of “Free Will” in a Webmind such as the AWWWARENet (Artificial World Wide Web Awareness Resource Engine Net).

A number of concepts stood out above the noise of the aforementioned discussion, which I’ll mention here as features (and non-features) of the “free will ontology”:

“Choice, override, randomness, unpredictability, (non)determination, chaotic, (non)causality and evolution”.

Indeed, for a “Will” or decision-taking routine to be “free”, it must be able to override those possible decisions, which are “causality-determined”. In Goertzel´s Webmind the discriminating faculty is the AttentionBroker routine). In the AWWWARENet, the AttentionBroker presents its conclusions, what course of action is to be taken as being the most rational, as having the highest probability of success, to the I.I.I (Identity,Initiative and Illusion generating routine). In as far as the system has an “override” function, the system appears to be endowed with a faculty of “choice” to an outside observer of the system.

The need for a random-picking faculty arises, when the AttentionBroker present the I.I.I-routine with more than one equally likely options i.e. options with identical priorities.

The issue becomes more poignant, when due to a scarcity of resources or time imposed resource constraints not all options can be carried out simultaneously or worse are mutually exclusive i.e. some must be sacrificed at the expense of others.

Which one to choose if they have all equally preferable numerical outcomes of a resultant vector of the pros and cons and the only differences are to be found on a qualitative level?

It goes without saying, that the advantage-disadvantage summing includes attributing preferential weighting of long term advantages over short term disadvantages.

A rational/causal decision for the system will try to optimise the chances for survival of the system in the long term; short term repairable damage can then be tolerated as a temporary sacrifice.

People cannot be blamed for not understanding about any secret differences that exist between the meanings of eternal, infinite and perpetual. For thousands of years scholars have written complicated theories about that issue and many great thinkers were executed, imprisoned, or placed into exile for their efforts. Nonetheless, the matter has now become one of global human survival concern. Simple explanations, instead of complicated conspiracy speculations, are long overdue.

The molecule of emotion was discovered by Dr Candace Pert in 1972. Because of that discovery we can see why these secret differences have caused so much emotional chaos throughout history. The molecules evolve emotion by increasing the speed of their molecular movement. As well as evolving emotion, they also evolve the functioning of the endocrine system. This is essential for maintaining a healthy adaptation to a perpetual change of environmental reality. Platonic-Fullerene medical chemistry has now been rigorously established from the fractal logic of the ancient Greek Science for Ethical Ends. Based upon the physics principles of Sir Isaac Newton’s unpublished Heresy Papers, the new chemistry reveals the electromagnetic difference between aesthetics and ethics. The former functions within an entropic quantum mechanical environment to produce cerebral recognition of evolving survival information through the process of quantum biological entanglement.

The molecular speeding up process can be shown to be obeying a property of fractal logic belonging to the functioning of an infinite universe. Accepted modern science realises that fractal logic can extend to infinity, but it is unable to associate that process with the living process. This is because the existing general understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, now governing all accepted science, holds that all life in the universe must be destroyed when the universe descends into a thermodynamic Armageddon. Under entropic law, it is just as impossible to make a perpetual motion machine as it is to make perpetual peace on earth. Newton’s heresy was to balance mechanical decay with an evolving infinity, belonging to his infinite universe theories.

By revealing the secret confusion in society between concepts of eternity and infinity we become free from the merciless entropic yoke that has been imposed upon civilisation by entropic law.

The process of universal change is obvious, infinity becomes definable as perpetual change, while eternal religious lore imposes upon civilisation a fixed fictitious Armageddon of universal entropic death and destruction. Once again, science has been contaminated by the Church as it was when the earth was forbidden to revolve around the sun. All life sciences were forced to be only about a species moving toward total universal death and destruction for the religious objective of providing a fictitious redemption for an immortal soul deemed unfit for an infinite evolutionary purpose.

The whole of the typical spiritual life may be boiled down to a continuum between faith and wisdom, and another competing continuum – fear and folly. The higher continuum is embellished of the Spirit; the lower, of the flesh. These two spiritual continuums of living are, of course, highly interactive with each other, and they’re also highly dynamic as they ebb and flow through life.

Imagine these two continua as lines spanning both good and evil as they’re experienced or felt by us spiritually. One we desire, the other we flee from.

Before we get into a study of these two continua, we need to understand a spiritual paradox.

A SPIRITUAL PARADOX

The goal of faith is to grow in strength to rely on God – a thing contingent upon weakness – and to realise, also, steady growth in wisdom.

Yet the experience and outcomes of faith and wisdom – as seen by the Faith-Wisdom Continua – seem diametrically opposed. One we draw on to get us through trials. The other we want to sustain – the place of Wisdom is the panacea of all volitional humanity.

The paradox becomes telling as we consider the vast disparity between difficulty at one end and comfort at the other. But both are spiritually disposed.

Likewise, fear is the activator of faith or anxiety; we choose for one or the other. Folly is a different ‘animal’ altogether; it has been tripped up – as a consequence – of poor decisions, usually based in a flawed morality.

Faith and fear are less to do with our will as they attend, at times vicariously, through circumstances; yet, what we do with them is due our will entirely. Wisdom and folly, conversely, are highly contingent in our will – we decide; we’re consequently found wise or foolish by these choices.

THE FAITH-WISDOM CONTINUUM

This Faith-Wisdom Continuum is where we always want to be as believing persons.

We experience peace and joy here, whether via a vindicated faith in our leaning on God in difficulty, or through our enjoyment of blessed consequences for wise living. Wisdom is its own reward.

Faith is required at one end, in weakness. Wisdom is the product at the other end of, usually by virtue of long held faith.

The faithful eventually ‘arrive’ (however fleetingly it seems) at wisdom. Faith is the spiritual recipe for cooking the meal called Wisdom; one is the cause, the other, an effect.

But, in another paradox, wisdom is not an ultimate destination in itself – not in this life. We never truly ‘arrive’ – hell’s trick is the pride to believe we have or we can.

But these are also polar opposites – by virtue of our seasonal positions in life. We can neither afford to take times of relative comfort for granted, nor blame God for difficult moments.