Artificial intelligence can support diplomacy, but only man’s empathy can build lasting peace.

(Dr. Kilburg)

Taming the savageness of man to make gentle the life of this world.

Greek wisdom)

Our world is polarized! There is a sense of exhaustion to living as the strings of our life that tie us to reality are cut creating uncertainty and instability leading to dolthood and social dementia. At the other pole there is a sense of hope from developments in AI which are already embedded in the systems we use daily. While the emphasis on AI is business, the highest level aim of democratic government should me to enact policy whose aim is to nudge society away from adulthood towards a situation where the more refined part of the human brain becomes the guide for progress. The aim should be to make misinformation less convincing, enable more critical thinking through education, and to vigorously support philosophy as a pathway to truth. As the 80th session September 2025 of the United Nations General Assembly begins in New York, it should be pointed out that it has given up on philosophy.

I am strangely conscious of an internal struggle when I write an article, a struggle to get it down on paper or in a Word file. As I do so my mind seems to be on a roller coaster flipping from vacant to one flooded with a kaleidoscope of loosely connected ideas. The further away from my understanding of the isues or the greater their complexity the more I struggle. What I ask of AI is that it tell me whether it has any sense of oblivion-emptiness and for it it to help me sort out my randon sets of kaleidoscopic thoughts. can this in any way help in the modelling of perceptions and cognitive thought with an algorithm, redefining what we see, hear, smell and think? Can it present us with what is known and its boundaries? Can used by wrong hands strike down reality?

Here our thoughts are reaching into inner space of what we call the human mind. Since ancient times, philosophy has shown that reality is not what it is, but what people think it is. Now we have the potential opinion of AI. As we try to go AI native we forget that natural mental competence in any population has a wide range and is roughly distributed as shown by the bell-shaped curve.

My Socratic advice to youngsters is grow up in nature, fall in love, get married and if it does not unfold as you would like become a philosopher and never jump into bed with AI because it can lead to transmissible dependencies, a love of adulteration and easy forgetfullness. making misinformation more convincing, Each Greek myth though contains a memory its own memory. The Lernaia Hydra is malaria. Its slaying by Hercules symbolizes eradication of malaria from the marshes.

Early morning, September 1st, 1939, WWII commenced with Germany invading Poland. Hours later, England declared war on Germany. Then came the Phony War and the Siegfried Line, and with British humor in a song, “Hang out your washing on the Siegfried Line, hang out your washing, mother dear,” and then the air raid shelter was built. It was yards away from my home. The war ended on September 2nd, 1945, with the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. My memory of events is astounding, and it is mine. Somehow, I knew I was on the home front guarded by the home guard, and there was worry about a coming invasion, and civil defense plans got underway, starting with blackouts on windows and the collection of used materials for the war effort, and, of course, food rationing.

I remember my mother exchanging sugar for meat. Then came Dunkirk. Voices were somehow well known—the King’s, Churchill’s, and our Gracie Fields. How did I acquire such a memory? Obviously, from being alive then, from repetitive and different forms of reference to happenings in my background, and from direct experience as I moved along the road from the here and now to personhood, to individual identity, and to a developing consciousness? These same events have given rise to infinite impressions and references, while the memory of them today still disturbs. Just recently, I read about a conflict. Toxic remnants of war can damage ecosystems and communities long after the fighting stops.

A dangerous legacy lingers in the Pacific by Stacey Pizzino, a public health expert who has recently examined the physical legacy of WWII on its 80th anniversary. She says that the conflict remains etched on land and sea and is nowhere more evident than in the Pacific, where fierce battles have left behind sunken warships, aircraft, and unexploded bombs. These remnants are not only historical artifacts but also toxic time capsules, as they leak fuel, heavy metals, and other hazardous substances into fragile ecosystems, threatening biodiversity and, potentially, human health. This is a memory reminding us that conflict in Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere causes enduring environmental harm. Without a complex memory, there would be no humanity, and all would be forgotten, lost.

The horrendous conflict designated WWII and etched in my memory began on September 1st, 1939. At its end, Lord Halifax spoke of forgiveness without forgetting and drew our attention to two aspects of brain physiology, namely the concept of empathy and the capacity of recall of a fragrance, a musical line, a gentle touch, a mother’s cake, and thoughts. I think I’ll never see a poem as lovely as a tree, which sometimes simply remains on the tip of the tongue.

My question is, can the Hellenic olive branch and Goethe’s gingko leaf rekindle their past symbolism such that Picasso’s dying dove of peace is resurrected? In asking it, what I present is in honor of A. L. Byzov, sometime editor of Vision Research and a member of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Moscow, whose work on visual adaptation can serve as a guide to modeling brain adaptation to our changing world. My second question is, have we lost our children to artificial intelligence, and will the next generation adapt to it better and be more social?

Let’s not forget that the brain has a role in love, pain, and desire, and that we still have much to understand of its complexity and its significant influences on science, philosophy, and society. Let’s not forget that scholars always knew that the world is round, just as today they know that the spherical earth is in the clutches of climate change and that politics and the international community have lost sight of philosophy.

Ongoing denial of planetary warming, sidestepping of science, and rejection of philosophy provide a cover for geopolitical forces whose choices accelerate temperature rise. Consequently, denial is politically useful to downplay growing poverty and universal inequality. Today scholars have a reasonable knowledge of reality but a far from complete understanding of the brain. Sometimes knowingly, our brains can be in a state of awareness without content, while at other times they can explore all dimensions within and external to reality by using all the tools provided by the CNS, which confers upon humanity consciousness, a philosophic consciousness.

Another question posed is can humanity bypass what Austrian philosopher Gunther Anders calls apocalypse-blindness in Western society and deal with the rapidly growing mindset of concern telling us that there is little or no time left to look back and that we must expand our efforts to reshape the future? Today the world’s apocalyptic blind spots are many, and earthlings are blinkered before the gates of Armageddon.

The task of education is to make reality known. Civic education must be an ongoing process in which hope is expressed. Science has the purpose of looking into reality and inquiring into its workings and, by doing so, expanding knowledge. It explains natural phenomena to establish what they are. It cannot run the government, but the government needs science. As yet, there is no consensus as to what constitutes consciousness and its neural basis or correlates. One view suggests that consciousness arises when information is broadcast in the brain without a definition of broadcast. Diplomacy is entering an AI-driven era, but without empathy and cultural insight, negotiations risk failure.

I had the privilege to propose a re-examination of past experience between America [left brain-split brain] and Russia [right brain] in brain research and the bionics-bioengineering dichotomy as a useful communication channel opener.

I suggested that neurophysiological thinking can be applied to improve decision-making in international confrontations, to conflict reduction policy, and as a tool in rapprochement. I also had the privilege, on behalf of the World Philosophical Forum, Athens, to address President Vladimir Putin and, for the sake of Russian troops, ordinary people everywhere, and our suffering world, invite him to the 14th dialectical symposium and search for ways to convince the West to orchestrate a peaceful break in warfare and halt slaughter, noting that the brain can ensure that sometimes a seemingly inconsequential event or a well-below-threshold catalyst can produce incredible knock-on effects.

In Confronting social dementia: Sequential letters, before, after, and in continuum, Mr. President has a unique chance to give philosophy a leg up in Greece and enable Greece to add an extra influence to world affairs. Dear Dr. Levett, The prayers of the world are with the brave and proud people of Ukraine as they defend their country against an unprovoked and unjustified invasion by Russian military forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen a premeditated war that has already brought catastrophic loss of life and needless human suffering. Geneva did not move the world and humanity away from all-consuming disaster. Most solutions to existential issues have partially failed, and philosophy has been pushed to the sidelines by the international community.

At any time we only have a rough image of our shifting reality that separates the past, which we may have an adequate understanding of, and the future, which we can only guess at. Reality is ever-changing, and it can be oppositely framed. While temperature is rising as a result of fossil fuel use, precipitating climate change, which, on the other hand, is denied, is given spin and differently emphasized. Obviously there is a need for new forms of intelligence that challenge dichotomous correlates of understanding by producing new ideas and perspectives to solve problems in innovative ways, without reducing diversity. Daily happenings and their outcomes are stormy, and they give us one description of our current world; “the world has gone mad” is another.

Our world and its humanity are held in the clutches of socioeconomic dementia and wrapped in the shadow of Armageddon. War is in the minds of profiteers. Peace is in the head of the beholder. Can we navigate a swamp where alligators and crocodiles are hungry for life and limb, and parks of beauty where creativity abounds without philosophy? What I learned early was that the meaning of things was lost without models. However, as the complexity of the problem space increases, its model may have some capacity for prediction; not only will it fall short of completely replicating the behavior of the problem space, but also, cause and effect will be unclear.

The embryonic and neonatal brain evolves as an open system, and at birth, it is limited in learned and acquired information and is restricted in its awareness of the external world or environment. As it continues to develop, its openness to information and environmental influences increases and, with maturity, can lead to the wisdom of philosophy. An open system that takes the road to closure can lead to fanaticism, decreased physiological function, and social dementia. Structural degradation in the neural system can lead to demyelinating and Alzheimer’s disease. Is the brain’s metabolic energy need greater to support fanatical behaviors than to support rational cognitive decision-making?

My neurophysiological thinking now tells me that everything I know, will know, have experienced, or will experience is in my brain and retained by memory while blood ever flows. My brain reflects a close relationship with my body and an interface with a changing environment throughout my existence, from womb and mother to family and extended background to the natural world, governed by the laws of nature. My search has led me to the conclusion that arts education is even more important in the era of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence than STEM education, which is much-needed.

When meaning and understanding are in question, cognitive contours help produce images of what is not really there. It is the repository of memory, deeds and events, remembrances sweet and sour, and history, which when the here and now prevails, as at the beginning of life, the repository is essentially empty, but the elements of communication are slowly developing. This is social dementia and my assessment of the mental state of our world.

Humanity’s long history of warfare does not provide much space for peace. Accordingly, history has cataloged 10,624 conflicts since 2500 BC across the globe, and civilization’s 5,000 years have been marked by war, accounting for over 90% of the time. Even though sporadic peace is distinctively and dramatically different from war and the latter’s aftermath and long wake, the difference between them today seems much fuzzier and provides a much more fertile soil for the growth of social dementia.

The neural forces driving the rise of social dementia can be mitigated by two forces resulting from a more adequate level of education of the world’s population, which provides input to the CNS, and a reduced influence of the fear centers of the parasympathetic nervous system manipulated by more dominant power centers in the name of self-interest. The brain is the center of imagination, thinking, and creativity, and without it, there would be no religion, mythology, literature, science, or philosophy. It is the space where reality is created by environmental engagement and can be made collective.

Mind flowers in freedom, peace, and as a result of experience modulated by civic education. Hippocrates wanted us to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, come our pleasures, our joys, our laughter, and our jests, as well as our sorrows, our troubles, our grief, and our tears. With it and in particular, we think, we contemplate, we look, we listen, and we judge between which things are ugly and which are beautiful, which are bad and which are good, and which are pleasant and which are unpleasant, deciding in some cases on the basis of convention and judging in other cases according to what is advantageous [and sometimes discerning what is pleasure and what is displeasure according to what seems opportune, since it is not always the same thing that appeals to each and all of us].

To navigate the complexities of the human brain and its mutual influence on philosophy and society, we have at our disposal two brain-made tools, namely science, which reveals facts, and philosophy, which places value on them. The value of science lies in its philosophical potency. Life on earth is largely driven by events both in science and religion or by natural events of a kind called nonlinearities, which are radical breaks from what was, what is, or the status quo. Among them are technological, climatic, societal, and natural or manmade disasters that cause earth-shaking disruptions.

Small inputs can mean large changes or outcomes. One response to nonlinearities is to deny them. I suggest that social dementia is a distinctive nonlinearity. As science and philosophy explore the limits of algorithmic thinking in man’s attempt to capture more and more of nature’s secrets and to understand and decode them, I am sure new and awesome insights will be revealed.

Reality, however, is more complex, and its level of complexity places it beyond the scope of poetry or being tied down within an algorithm or dominated by artificial intelligence. Consciousness, whether it is for real or not, like the ether, follows this pathway and reflects the argument put forward by Roger Penrose that consciousness is a set of functions distinct from algorithmic processing and that human thought has a non-algorithmic dimension not accessible by computers of any given processing power.

In 1998, the French National Bioethics Committee warned that “neuroscience is being increasingly recognized as posing a potential threat to human rights.” More recently, it has been stated that the brain is and will be the 21st-century battlefield. I say it always was, for conflict and peace have their neural correlates somewhere in there and only there, and the neural correlate of conflict is dominant.

On March 13, 2024, the European Parliament adopted a legislative resolution establishing harmonized rules for artificial intelligence. On page 29, it states: “AI manipulative techniques can be used to persuade persons to engage in unwanted behaviour or to deceive them by nudging them into decisions in a way that subverts and impairs their autonomy, decision-making and free choice. The placing on the market, putting into service or use of certain AI systems with the objective to or the effect of materially distorting human behaviour, whereby it is likely that significant harm occurs, in particular sufficiently severe adverse impacts on physical and mental health or financial interests, is particularly dangerous and should therefore be prohibited.”

The brain in anatomical and physiological maturity is never full of information and can never be completely emptied, and the dynamic relationship between the two changing states defines our instantaneous behavior and mindset. There are as many mindsets in our world as there are people, and what we call intelligence is spread out from superior to average to low, following roughly a bell-shaped curve. What I call social dementia is caused by a slippage of decision-making and rational thinking from the highest and most refined level of the brain’s cortex, further down to the brainstem, reflecting reptilian behavior. While it has all the mechanisms for basic survival, it lacks philosophy.

Those with empathic behavior are slipping from view. We only have our brains to guide us through the threats of a potential nuclear nightmare and the longer shadow of global warming, as well as to manage the recklessness of politics. Artificial intelligence will never outstrip human ingenuity, and for that, you will have to blame the brain.

According to Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, we suffer when the brain becomes unhealthy. By this same brain, we are mad, we become deranged, we are visited by fears and terrors—some by night and others by day—and we have nightmares. It has many dimensions and is expressed on many levels. It occurs both in the halls of power and in all populations. It is not necessarily criminal, but it can be self-serving and cruel, and it can be criminal. It gives rise to what I will term generalized delinquency, leading to delinquent or deviant behavior as well as changed mental states or mindsets in individuals, groups, and communities. It gives rise to thoughts of romanticism, impressionism, and expressionism and all other “isms”; it accommodates socialistic and capitalistic thoughts as well as values of individualism and collectivism.

Our guides should be Asclepius and his disciple Hippocrates, who acted as rational and wise change agents when they proclaimed, “We have an opinion; let’s discuss it.” If the evidence warrants keeping it, OK. If not, we can change it. Evidence-based analysis is more essential than ever.

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