(C)1995 Lee Kent Hempfling All Rights Reserved
Let us say for the sake of argument that your car is broken. Drat the bloody thing. Something is
not working right. A noise is coming from the front end and the lights are dimming when the
engine idles.
You need to be assured of arriving at your destination. You need to get to work. So on the way
there you stop by every service station you see and ask about the noise and the dimming
headlights. How much will it cost to fix? What do the attendants think is causing the noise? The
one question you do not ask is ... "Do you understand how a car works?"
A prerequisite to understanding how to fix a car would naturally be understanding how it works.
Yet you do not ask that question as you assume the answer when you pull into a service station.
Service stations are run by people who know such things. Service stations are in business to
know more than the average Joe, to know how to fix the problems associated with driving today's
modern vehicles. Why would you question a simple given fact?
Now let us say, as we continue our sake of argument, that you had a slight problem with your
thinking. You occasionally made really non logical decisions. The problem was becoming so
prevalent that it bothered your ability to earn an income so you sought professional help.
You need to be assured of keeping your job once you arrive there in your still broken vehicle.
You need to be able to work. So on the way there you stop by every so-called professional office
advertising anything at all to do with the brain. How much will it cost to fix your problem? Will
your insurance cover the expense? What do the good doctors think is causing the problem? The
one question you do not ask is "... Do you understand how a brain works?"
A prerequisite to understanding how to fix your non logical thinking problem would naturally be
understanding how logical thinking works, how the brain works. Yet you do not ask that question
as you assume the answer when you enter the office of a professional psychiatrist, psychologist,
social worker, neuroscientist, or the like. After all these people would not have graduated with
big degrees if they did not understand, would they?
The sad fact is that none of those professionals knows the slightest bit of how a brain performs
it's function of thinking. Not one profession understands that which does the understanding. If
that were the case with all auto mechanics would you ever trust one again? Come to think of it,
can you trust one now?
If the auto mechanic were to begin searching for the cause of the noise by listening carefully,
identifying a general location, identifying a similar sound and then drawing from experience to
identify the culprit you would be impressed and the noise would stop. But when the mechanic
began to investigate the dimming headlights by probing the illuminated spot on his garage wall
you would know something was amiss.
Something is amiss in the search for intelligence and the culprit is the lack of it's use.
Now don't rant and rave and write hate letters and declare the statement to be an indictment of
the brain community. It is. However, don't do that. It's not good for you. Assuming the reader to
be knowledgeable of the current states of affairs, I mean states of the art of neuroscience and
epistemology the indictment stands.
Consider this. Laboratories are set up all over the sphere experimenting with animals in a search
to understand emotions. Searching for the 'pain' center. Searching for the location of 'fear'.
Searching for places. Searching for 'where'. Well that will tell us where the service stations are. It
might tell us which service station is open for business. It still will not get the car fixed.
From 'where' a function is estimated to be coming from or performed at deductions are then
made as to 'how' the function is performed. Wouldn't that be like figuring out how our car works
by determining where a service station is located? Such as considering cars to be fixed better by
service stations located in clean, high priced rental districts and located closest to a parts store.
It still won't get the car fixed.
Perhaps service stations that have interconnecting tunnels between them work together to do a
better job. Perhaps those interconnecting tunnels shuffle used parts to be passed off as new
parts but never mind that. Proximity is paramount. Interconnection is paramount.
When our thinking problem happens (when we observe something nonlogical) we know when.
So then we have who, what, where and when. Could we ever understand 'why' without knowing
'how'?
If we were back at the auto repair shop we would be amazed at a mechanic who began to
measure the tensile strength of the glass covering the headlights. What was he doing? He was
experimenting of course. If the spot of light on the garage wall continued to dim and increase
again in strength it must surely be on account of the light source. And that light source seemed
to be coming from the glass there on the front of the car. If he could experiment with that glass
perhaps he could determine what was making the glass make the light as it were. Ridiculous we
say. But......not so if you happen to study the brain.
You see, no matter how much further advanced in knowledge the search for the cause of things
becomes, it rests on the assumptions that what is being searched for is indeed a cause at all.
How many things can you imagine coming from the human brain? Would your list include things
like emotions, ideas, language, mathematics, spatial perception, motor movement and the like?
Which of these items is a cause? Which is not?
It is very understandable that humans would look at what they can observe and determine that
what they see is something that can be seen. Love for instance. An emotion. It is the cause of
many things. It is the root of many problems and the root of many joyful moments. But what is
love? Is there a love center in the brain? Science says there is a pain center. An emotional
center. But emotions are just that. Emoted events. The word first appeared in 1917 as a
backward derivative..from the word 'emotion' . Emote.. means to give expression. To express
something. To represent... To convey...So what is an emotion? The result of conveying or
expressing something. It is a result.
A result is a consequence of.... Something obtained by a computation or process. So the
something that is being expressed in an emotion is a process or a computation going on inside
the brain. It is not a cause on it's own. There is no such thing as an emotion center. There is no
such thing as a pain center. Just because back in the dark days gay men used to have to go to
the downtown bus depot to find partners does not mean buses are gay. It does not mean that is
where gay men came from.
Just because you go to an ice cream store to get ice cream does not mean that is where ice
cream comes from. It is not normally made where it is sold. You go to a gas station to fill up your
car from a tank underground but that is not where gasoline comes from even though it comes in
a round about way out of the ground. You see old men playing checkers on the front porches of
quaint little town stores yet that is not where little old men come from. You see what you see is
not always what should be seen.
Every pet lover will tell you their's is smart. It's smart enough to go sit by the cookie jar when it
wants one. It's smart enough to scratch on the back door when it wants to go outside. It's smart
enough to make it to the bed before you do so it gets the big pillow. It's smart enough to be used
to trace so called pain centers and emotion centers in laboratories yet to science it is not smart
at all. It's almost like admitting that there is a process going on inside one form of brain might
entail admitting there is a process going on inside other forms of brains and that might mean
animals are more than just instinctive creatures acting out of inborn habit only to stimuli based in
basic intuitive needs and survival tactics. It might mean admitting the brain actually does
something instead of simply housing a collection of areas dedicated to doing something humans
perceive as what humans do.
After all, if humans do them how could lower forms of animal life do them. Aren't human's better?
Aren't humans superior? Why do we consider superior and better to be traits that require inferior
and worse complimentary states? Go figure.
So it is with the study of the brain. 100 Billion or so neurons tied with a whole bunch of more
connections that seem so immense and complicated it's no wonder man considered the brain a
neural soup bowl. Alphabet soup. After all isn't it language that sets us apart from the other
creatures? No. It is not.
It is the uniquely different yet strikingly similar arrangement of neurons that act upon the signals
processed within them that function as a complete processor with millions of parallel pathways.
The syncronicity of those computations make a wonderfully complex system, simple. The
understanding of that which does the understanding will allow us all to finally understand just
about everything.
THE PROBLEM
When using terms like "The Problem" neuroscientists will automatically recall the problem as
they see it. That would be the "binding problem". Precisely how does the brain keep all of it's
separate inputs and computations in a single frame of mind so to speak? Which in turn keep
things in order. Binding all of the functions of the brain into one brain. One mind.
But the "binding problem" is not THE problem in reality. Consider a common definition of a
neural network program. A program that is software written to mimic the function and
organization of neurons. Biological neurons to be specific. The program is made up of units and
links. The links each acting like dendrites are supposed to act and the units acting like neurons
are supposed to act. The program "learns" by making connections. Making connections stronger
or weaker and thereby model brain functions.
"Learning" is then defined as the accumulation of input and how that input effects other input. But
is that "learning?" A neural network program has no idea what any of that accumulated input
means. It just knows it has it because to not have it would mean it would not know anything. So
then perhaps only the programmer knows it has it. After all a program is nothing but an elaborate
set of rules established in limits and continuously played and replayed. Programs have limits. It's
part of the programming process.
So then THE problem might possibly be...."Does anybody have any idea what a neuron actually
does?" Of course you will get the answer a person of today would expect. A neuron is a kind of
switch. A neuron is a processor of data just like a computer. Hold it. There is nothing like a digital
computer in my brain. My brain offer's itself options. If it did not I could not offer this assessment
to you. Your's does not act like a digital computer. You are reading this and comparing it with
what you already are aware of and weighing sense with nonsense. There is no computer that
can make sense out of anything as sense is made from previous sense.
It is interesting to note the work of Steven Thaler of McDonnell Douglas, St. Louis. Thaler has
constructed a neural net and according to the article has allowed it to function as it dies. He has
another neural net program watching the death and taking notes. He has in effect accomplished
a wonderful thing he has no idea about. He has purposely looked at a program and renamed
something every amateur and professional alike has known and called by very many names. He
has been observing a bug at work and calling it science. In any other endeavor his employer
would have put a stop to it. But in brain research and computer science anything called
intelligent by anybody deemed worthy of being listened to is hooked upon and accepted as
scripture of the knowing elite.
Hogwash. Thaler is now claiming his neural net is capable of consciousness yet there is not a
single professional willing to agree with any other on the definition of that term. I would prefer to
travel to my neighborhood grocery store and pick up a bottle of Quaker State Motor Oil. The
Intelligent Oil. Or perhaps the Intelligent Mop. Or the Intelligent inanimate object of the week. At
least in that process one would know when one's leg was being pulled.
THE PROBLEM remains. The brain's workhorses , the neurons, accomplish a task. They are not
there to mimic a digital computer. Had this international intellectual discussion of brain function
been consummated some 100 years ago there would have been no reference to a digital
computer. There was none. There would have been no reference to simple switches. There
would have been theories of chaos in the head. Religious and spiritual entities fulfilling every
action of man and his dark side being controlled by demons possessing his body physically.
The theories would all come to rest on the most typical of all scientific answers. "Oh my gosh we
don't know, so let's call it.... chance, or a product of evolution, or perhaps we can call it
uncertainty or ......" Comments and theories like those were fine until someone finally said... "Ah,
come on guys, just admit stupid is as stupid does." With apologies to and a big .....Thank you
Forest Gump.
THE PROBLEM remains. What does the neuron do? It accepts signals from across a synapse
sent in from another neuron and traveling over a dendrite or some such drivel. That would be the
same as our auto mechanic friend's explanation of how a car works. "It get's told by the guy
drivin it by his movin the wheel after he was told by his old lady what to do and it does it." Ain't
science grand?
Is it possible at all to ever know how we know? It might help if we can all agree on what it is that
knowing is. According to William H. Calvin, University of Washington School of Medicine,
science will never agree on a universal definition of intelligence or consciousness. Both words
he refers to as open ended describing them as referring to the 'high end' of our mental life. He
asserts that we confuse those words with more elementary mental processes such as the stuff
we use to recognize a friend or tie a shoe. Although he goes on to admit that such simple
mechanisms are probably the foundations from which our abilities to handle logic and metaphor
evolved. But hold on just one more second.
What simple mechanisms? Where did they come from? Did they evolve from even more simple
mechanisms? If that were the case all it should take to determine where intelligence comes from,
what the brain actually does is to trace back the simpler mechanisms until we finally reach the
most simple. But then Zenos paradox would interrupt and whoops there goes the whole process.
There is no original mechanism. Could there ever be? Wouldn't a mechanism be comprised of a
process? Then couldn't the process be identified and it studied and it tested and the
mechanisms come as they may? Of course. But would science ever see that? Doubtful.
If you were to take a fishing trip on a small river with a neuroscientist and our mechanic friend
and the boat tipped over who would rescue the others? It wouldn't be the neuroscientist, he
wouldn't put his foot down. Why should he there is no bottom. It would be the auto mechanic who
would stand up and laugh then tell you to stand up too. It's called wading he would say. But there
can't be a bottom. Water exists without required support yells the neuroscientist. There is no
process. Either there is a bed or there is not. He does not see one so there is not a bed. So who
drowns? No one. It's a family article.
Understanding intelligence takes some. I have found after talking with all sorts of individuals that
there is an overwhelming apathy in the matter. Words are used by so many people to mean so
many different things it's hard to get anyone centered. So let's understand what intelligence is
not.
Intelligence is not the result we see as emotion. It is not the result we see as language. It is not
the result we see as any form of output from any living creature. Is it then input?
There are some people who will tell you that consciousness is determined by the things that do
the observations of the world around us. That's like saying a car runs because it has a gas tank
spigot hole where you put in the gas. Which brings me to one of my favorite stories.
One day an old man walked along a path and met up with a hip inner city young man who was
carrying a transistor radio on his shoulder and bouncing with the beat of the music that was far
too loud for the old man's tastes. The old man was a neuroscientist, since retired, and not in the
greatest of moods so he hauled off and knocked the young man on the head with his cane. The
transistor radio fell to the ground with the young man and they both sat motionless. Yes, the old
man was pleased. He had stifled the noise maker and his machine.
As he began to walk away , pleased with himself he thought there might be something to learn
from the episode. After all he never knew why people would dance without a partner. He never
knew why people would carry a heavy box on their shoulder to cause deafness in one ear. He
never knew why those boxes made that noise.
So he sat down on the pavement , resting his elbow on the young man's side and commenced to
examine the box. It was heavy. It was big. So it must be a better box than other's that make the
same noise. It was over designed according to the neuroscientist's personal tastes but he would
live with the chrome as a form of evolutionary protective armor. Perhaps it was put there to ward
off or threaten old men. Didn't work though. No sir, not with him. He was a retired scientist.
The box was heavier to one side so there he knew he had to operate. He carefully pulled apart
the covering and after considerable strength (it was dead anyway who cared if he broke
something going in) he identified a portion of the contents which contained small parts. He knew
the big round pliable magnet backed things were of no consequence they only held the noise
they didn't make it.
He looked closer and closer at the collection of small parts and he began to notice there was an
over abundance of a certain type of part. A quick glance at the inside back cover and a
schematic identified the parts as transistors. The transistors were connected by the means of
thin lines of metal stuck to cardboard looking slabs. Just then the young man woke up. Boy, oh
boy, was he mad. His stirring alerted the old man who quickly pulled himself up and ran off into
the wilderness.
Some days later the old man was dreaming and he dreamt about those transistors and how they
were connected to each other. When he woke up he decided to connect a bunch and see what
kind of music it would make.
I wish I knew what had happened to the old man. It doesn't matter though. He did the same thing
computer programmers do today. The same thing neuroscientists do. He assumed the transistor
was a causative entity and by putting them all together he could do what he saw them do before.
Undoubtedly he wrote volumes. He amassed research grants and built expensive laboratories to
duplicate something he had no idea how it did what it did or how it worked or what it was
supposed to do.
So THE PROBLEM still eludes solution. We have been so dutifully emersed in building the boat
we have neglected to find out what makes it float. We just assume it does.<BR>
Starting in the right direction to solving THE PROBLEM might be accomplished if we can identify
thinking. Pondering. Calculating in an organism. Processing input. The act of processing input.
Reasoning would be the evaluation of that input so thinking would have to precede reasoning or
is it the same thing? Not the same thing.
Do computers think? Most people would say no. But they do process information and they do
ponder on it through programming instructions. They calculate. But they have limits based within
the programming. So let us then define thinking as calculating, processing or pondering without
limits or pre determined rules.
That would mean all living organisms with a brain would then think. Plants can't think. They are
limited. But the limits put upon a snail versus a cat could only be the depth or intensity of the
thinking which would not limit the thinking just the amount thereof.
So, since thinking is a process then would it not be considered ponderable and perhaps even
logical that a process must have rules by which to produce outcome? Of course. But those rules
must be without limit and without predetermined outcome or they would be limits and
unacceptable. Ergo... the idea that the neuron performs a function to the signal it receives. It
doesn't just accept it at different levels of intensity and discharge it on to it's fellow neurons to do
likewise in a never ending mishmash of clanking and mental hodgepodge.
But don't tell that to a neural programmer. They will tell you...."Of course the neuron does
something. It decides what dendrite to send the signal out through." So then a potentiometer
would not have one input and one output and vary a signal it would have numerous inputs and
numerous outputs and always send the signal out where it belongs based on what had been
passed through earlier. Huh?
There must be sense here somewhere. There is. Look at it like this. You put gas in your car. The
car's parts pump the gas into the carburetor where it is mixed with oxygen and ignited to cause a
fire, who's pressure is passed on through the moving parts to be deposited on the transmission
where it rotates the tires and you go, vvrrrooooom down the road. Of course that's all controlled
by the guy driving the thing being told by the wife where to turn and how to go but our mechanic
already explained that.
In the brain the input receptors send a signal that varies by what is actually inputed to a place in
the brain where that single input is then sent to the first assemblage of neurons where the signal
is split to form numerous inputs and they are each sent on their merry way to the neurons where
they are processed with previous input. Huh?
Observational Illusion
Some people call it magic and make a living at it. Scientists call it theory and make a living at it.
The major difference between the two is that magicians admit what they do is illusion.
A case in this point is oddly enough the concept of survival of the fittest. It is a fact that creatures
that do not survive do indeed become extinct. It is also a fact that because a creature survives
does not mean it was intended to or was designed to be extinct if it did not indeed choose to
survive.
Natural selection is another term given to the process of survival. Survival is seen as the
purpose of life. To live. But isn't there something peculiar about all of this survival theory?
Doesn't the notion of survival indicate a defensive posture? Does not an offensive posture
expect survival while a defensive posture only hopes for it? Of course. To science though the
survival idea is to do things by instinct that ensure or otherwise help the survival regimen. Such
as: How many times have you seen a person squint their eyes when they are warding off an
attack? Have you seen a chimpanzee do the same thing?
There sure is enough evidence on film of both.
Science will look at the chimpanzee and determine that such eye squinting is a survival tactic to
protect the eyes. And therefore it must be logical that humans, who came along much later in the
evolutionary tree squint their eyes for the same purpose. Suppose then that you were a student
of body language. A person squinted their eyes while you observed them and you assume they
are protecting their eyes or otherwise assuming a defensive posture.
What would your reaction be to find out they were not being defensive at all but were in fact
pondering or thinking deeply upon an potentially offensive act? Ah.. you would say. And that
would be that because a human can think. But that chimp. He just protects his eyes. Wrong.
What you did was observe in both cases. The result was an illusion in both cases. Your
assumption of the intentions of a motion or movement were based upon a generalized precept
that is itself based in illusion.
Observational Illusion. It's the horse being called a cart because it carries things. It's the building
being called a home because people live in it. It's the apple being considered fresh until the
worm is found inside. It is the theory leaving to chance or chaos the beginnings of what will
become order by itself without a process. It is science today.
The brain is perhaps the best example of observational illusion based deductions. Science looks
at a result and calls it a cause. Example:
Little Johnny walks into the Los Angeles doctor's office and complains of a wart problem. The
doctor searches everywhere and there is no wart problem so the doctor assumes little Johnny to
be lying. The doctor asks of Little Johnny where his mother is and little Johnny responds.
"Warafay." The doctor is then determined that not only is Little Johnny lying he is also rude and
obstinate and in serious trouble so he calls for help. Little Johnny is taken into custody by the
police who ask him his telephone number. Little Johnny shrugs and then replies
"Winditwormeplease". The police call the local hospital who picks up Little Johnny who is
diagnosed as very mentally ill and finally tracks down his mother who is in Cleveland and is
visiting a sick relative and finds out what is really wrong with little Johnny.
Can you tell? Every person along the way determined the problem to be Johnny's attitude or his
mental condition. Little johnny, says his mom, only has one problem. If those people would have
looked for it they might have understood it. When Little Johnny lets out a long and foul smelling
noise a nervous nurse smacks him.
So little Johnny gets hit because he went to the doctor to solve a problem. But the problem
turned from what he had complained about to what the doctor complained about. Little johnny
with the fart problem got smacked because he always said and "f" where he meant a "w" and
vice versa.
Stupid story. I agree. But it's science at work. People look at results and consider them causes
and base opinions and theories and lives and careers on them. As long as the illusion is kept up
nothing goes wrong. Until along comes someone who points out that the things people have
been studying are results and the whole shebang goes down the tubes.
All those things of study. Emotions. Feelings. Perceptions. Language. Concepts. They
are all results. They are all caused by a cause. That cause is the process of thinking. Before we
can examine that we must define a few results for what they are and not by the observational
illusion they have become.
Learning:
If you were a computer you would "learn" by making your memory more complete. If you were
human you would learn by making your memory more sensible. One is quantity the other quality.
So it is not surprising that science has chosen quantity to base it's judgement of learning
processes. That makes their human memory sensible.
After all big is better is it not? A person's intellect is judged by the amount of input he has
retained. Take an IQ test. If it were not for basic inputed memory no one would pass one yet
alone score high. Yet it is the process that makes the memory sensible that constitutes learning
and not the memory. No test in existence tests the process.
Length is considered better the longer it is unless it's the length of the trip home or the distance
to the nearest ice cream parlor. The length of time it will take to "discover" or "understand"
something is directly relatable to how important or difficult it is. How many years will it take to
make vision human like in a computer? 10, 20? How long will it take before science masters the
duplication of the human brain. 20? 30? Years? Weeks? Of course not weeks. That would mean
it was not difficult. If some person can figure it out it must not be possible and therefore a hoax.
That is why the goals of science no matter how reduced they are to be achievable are never
reached as doing so is just not ever conceivable.
Philosopher Patricia Churchland quoted in IN THE PALACES OF MEMORY: How We Build the
Worlds Inside Our Heads By George Johnson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
regards the brain as an evolving ''Rube Goldberg machine,'' where the mind can
take various indirect actions to convert perception into memory. What results
is a ''brain'' and ''mind'' that are interdependent.
Rube Goldberg machines were cumbersome, odd and complex. Three criteria for the bewildered
human to determine some form of mysticism about them. They must be good they don't make
sense. And then through the evaluation of Churchland we come to address the mind.
The brain is that which does the learning. The mind is what? What comes to mind, sounds better
than what comes to brain. It only sounds better because it has sounded at all where the other
has never been used and therefore sounds weird.
The mind is the collective term used to denote the encompassing results of the brain. That
would mean that the brain does something to make results. It must mean it is too difficult to
understand.
Israel Rosenfield of the City University of New York writes, "Just as we cannot know the role an
actor is playing by studying the basic electrical patterns in his brain, no analysis of the circuits of
a computer can tell us whether the computer is playing chess or predicting the weather." But no
one sits back and dismisses a computer as chaotic. No one dismisses a computer as a Rube
Goldberg contraption. No one assumes a computer's results to be it's purpose. It's purpose is to
compute. Garbage in, garbage out so they say.
So learning is then what? Learning is once again defined by those who consider themselves
learned for one thing. For another it is not the addition of more memory. It is in fact the result of
the process of thinking upon that which has been inputed to the brain. Learning is making use of
the process of the brain. It is the result that gives rise to the study of epistemology. The
questions of how we know what we know.
Language:
What sets man's intellect apart from the rest of the creatures walking on this planet? Besides of
course, the obvious scientific criteria of bigger brains and upright walking and the ability to have
emotions (which is an observational illusion based in arrogance). It is most often cited as
language. The complex assembly of rules that make up the uttered noises we perceive to have
meaning.
Why do we have language and other creatures do not? Why do I speak in English and others
speak in Spanish? That would not apply though would it? I speak with my mouth using language.
So do people who speak Spanish. Heck, they're people. On the other hand, my wife's cat Tooter
can look at our dog Auggie and without so much as a single word she can convey a thought, a
feeling, a gesture of meaning. But we wouldn't dare call something as rudimentary as
conveyance of meaning, language. Would we? Why not?
Humans are if not many things arrogant above perhaps all else. Unusual sentence structure.
Conveyance of meaning in illogical fashion. Yet language as it was consummated by a human. It
is understood by humans no matter how much re-reading is necessary to grasp the intended
result of understanding as a sentence utilizing grammatical rules (alright destroying them) and
arranging syntax and all sorts of limits and structure. No animal could do that. So who says we
are?
Walking down a long straight away road is a fine young man looking all of 16 years of age. He
bumps into a wall and screams at the top of his lungs. No one hears him and so he winds his
way home to tend to his wounds and think deeply how since no one was there to rescue him, he
made no sound. Yet he was there to perceive the sound. So he made sound. Should a tree fall
alone in the forest it would not matter that it's branches would vibrate just as the boy's ear drum
did. No human was there to hear it.
What made him bump into the wall? Huh? You were fixed on the obvious conclusion made
weren't you? That of the tree falling in the forest and the boy making a noise only he himself
heard. When the intention was to determine the cause of the collision.
Was that language at use by a human or was that the rambling of a dog? Watch it how you refer
to me I'm not through with this article yet.
The point being that humans observe humans. They make observational determinations
regarding communication and then determine that since other forms of life do not fit those
determinations they are not communicating. They do not have language as long as humans do
not understand it.
The language used by dogs is made up of noises and gestures and looks and stares and all
sorts of body language and head positioning. It has no human like qualities. But then again since
science is not yet convinced (and won't be until a dog gets a big arrogant pet -degree) that dogs
even think, how could it ever be convinced that humans are not the only creatures that
communicate?
Language is that communication. If humans did not have the tounge and the mouth ability to form
'complex' noises there would never have been the result of the determination that there is such a
thing as vocal language. So which came first science...language or the intellect to call it
language?
In fact language is the same as motor movement. It is the same as the signals being sent to my
fingers to type this piece. It is the result of an input that has been learned through the process of
the brain. Vision goes in and motor movement goes out. Hearing goes in and language goes
out.
Part of the difficulty of accepting something other than emitted noises from a human mouth as
language is the perception problem again. A for instance would be today's fixation with false
entertainment illusions. Illusions that are in themselves even false. A large curved picture area
gives the illusion of filling the sense with sight. A deeply processed stereo signal gives the
illusion of filling the sense with sound and an over active bouncing and moving seating
arrangement gives the illusion of motion.
The motion must be that large to compensate for the totally fake illusion of the two dimensional
world surrounding a three dimensional creature. The senses are tricked into feeling consumed
by the event because of the intense movement.
If the movement of the chair or seating arrangement were that violent in "real life" the person
riding it would be quite ill indeed as the perception would be in three dimensions thereby making
the movement ever so much more intense in effect. One side balances and compliments the
other to permit the fake illusion of butter. It's like artificial margarine. What? Margarine is already
artificial butter.
Language is not that confusing. It is not the all encompassing singularity of the human race of
creature. It is the human form of communication. No different other than perhaps quite fluid and
more expressive than that of a chimpanzee's screams than any other form of communication. I
still can't understand Spanish. That does not mean from my perspective that people who do are
less intelligent than me. It does not mean from their perspective that I am less intelligent than
they. Although the belief of either is one very good basis for bigotry. Another word for stupid. And
a misuse of communication.
How a memory is recalled:
First let us come to an agreement of what a memory is. If you listen carefully enough you will
hear the wisdom of the scripture: The memory of the just, blessed. (Proverbs 10:7) as memory is
the result of evaluated input.
Science has been baffled about how memory is recalled. How do we all of a sudden get an
almost complete picture of an event that took place years before? It is the result of another
evaluation.
Input from receptors is compared to previous memory in an on going and continuous process
that drags up the slightest comparison and matches it with things that may on the surface not
seem to make the slightest comparison. How could a broken window in your car bring up the
memory of a lousy golf game years earlier? Did the rock that hit it resemble a ball? Was it seen
just long enough to be considered round? Isn't a golf ball round? Didn't both events make you
feel upset and bothered? Whoops. A comparison is made and you sit and wonder about that
game while trying to keep your mind on looking up the glass repair company's phone number.
Of course a picture of a golf ball is not at all the same as the picture of a rock but once again
observational illusion gets in the way of understanding. The brain does not take pictures. It takes
parts of pictures and each part is broken down even further. A single receptor in the eye sends a
single signal to the brain where it is split into parts. Each part is compared to memory in stages
and it is perhaps one of those parts that was the same value as the golf ball. Put that with the
comparison of the evaluation of that evaluation and perhaps only one part of the rock compares
with one part of the ball and the concept of being upset is matched and you are still pondering
that game. It is this comparison upon comparisons that results in a thought striking out of the
blue. Or the gray as it were.
One result of those comparisons of seemingly unlike connections is emotion. Pleasure is the
direct physical result of numerous very similar comparisons. Love is the direct emotional result of
numerous similar comparisons. Like things tend to concentrate and they do so in complimentary
fashion to each other. Likewise dislike things tend to be drawn to each other. The human will
attempt to find comparisons in dislike things and may indeed do so which results in lust being
called love and relationships being built not on matches of comparisons but on wished for
matches.
Thought. It is one of the mystifying aspects of the brain. Thought. The closest result to the cause
that has yet been identified by science. What is thought? I include it here under the sub heading
of memory as it is the comparison process of that memory with new input that constitutes
thought.
Comparison of memory with memory without new input is called a dream. No room here for those
things. Although if one were to 'think' about that it would become self evident.
I remember reading somewhere, please forgive my lack of comparison to this event herein
mentioned, that thinking about thought is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. An interesting
prospect. Yet simple to examine. What is the purpose of nailing jello to a wall. To get it to stay
there. So who says the wall needs to be vertical? You see the process of thinking about thought
is clouded with all of the comparisons previously made about it. Nothing original can come from
comparisons based in observational illusion except new illusion. So things just get muddier. But
when the context of the thought of thought is changed to be perhaps something like... maybe...
thought is the result of a process?...... Then such thought might be possible to examine without
previously inputed observational illusion. Well, it could happen. It could.
In his book FLUID CONCEPTS AND CREATIVE ANALOGIES Computer Models of the
Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought By Douglas Hofstadter and the Fluid Analogies Research
Group..Basic Books. Hofstadler writes..''Those people who are interested in results will begin
with a standard technology, not even questioning it at all, and then build a big system that solves
many complex problems and impresses a lot of people. Those people who are interested in the
more abstract questions about the nature of intelligence and creativity will spend a lot of time
seeking the essence of those phenomena and then trying to model that essence with maximal
fidelity. The results may be harder to appreciate, because they are likely to be far less flashy.''
Indicative of a smart man looking at a magic trick and calling it an illusion. It makes me wonder if
Douglas Hofstadter would do that to magicians if given the chance.
Man Vs Nature:
There are many things that man has been able to do that nature has not seen fit to do but there
is one that permeates. Man has taken a look at his own brain and decided that
he can make one stronger by making it faster. Computers are if nothing else quick little
mechanicreatures. Stupid. But quick. And after all there is very little difference between
something that is faster and something that is bigger. Both would seem superior and superior
must mean better. Maybe not but bear with me.
Looking at the brain with no comparison of something that seemingly accomplished a very
similar task is not possible today. Years ago, before computers, the knowledge of how the brain
might do what it does was not even a consideration. Too many taboos. Too many ritual rights
and wrongs. Not too many inquisitive mannerisms that were not challenged by a shaky religious
system. And man was just beginning to understand the stuff outside his head.
Now that man has taken a giant step to seriously examine what is going on inside his head he is
doing it at a time when the computer is the boss. A computer makes computations. So does the
brain, we think, so when we begin to build a replica of the brain it has to be in a computer.
Maybe not. A computer uses a collection of switches that are either on or off. So then our replica
brain must do the same thing. The neuron must do that. The synapse must do that. Maybe not. A
computer gives us the results we want by the instructions we give it and the goal we have
already established as the only outcome. Literal computation. So our brain would then be a
simple thing to replicate by programming it to think. Maybe not. Even the world's fastest and
largest computer has not the slightest idea of what it is doing. It just does it. It is a machine.
Research into artificial intelligence is interesting to note in passing. The term itself is a guarantee
of failure. Artificial intelligence is not intelligence it is artificial. It is impossible to make something
artificial if one is not able to understand the natural first. It would be like building a replica of the
White House without ever having seen a picture of it, let alone a blue print. You build a building
that houses a President, his family and a bunch of offices. I'd be interested in seeing the
outcome of the one.
Artificial intelligence is a justification of a programmer's wildest ideas. After all if you were a
computer programmer and you wanted to construct a replica of the human brain you would use
what you knew how to use even if it's not at all the process used in the real thing. You just don't
know what the process is.
If it barks and bites and poops in the yard it must be a dog. If it has bark, gets bitten and drops
things it might be a dog. Or a tree. Or , oh who cares, lets just call it a dog and sell it before
someone finds out we have no idea what a dog is let alone a tree.
Douglas Hofstadter's point that the flashy draws a crowd is quite true. Programming is after all a
task not a science. And a task can do anything it wants to get money for doing the task.
So man tries to make the giant jump ahead and makes determinations of HOW the brain MIGHT
work. Since some of the outcomes (results) of the programmer's efforts seem to resemble a
result from the brain it is passed off as legitimate. When in fact the smoke and mirrors are
abundant and they really should be selling popcorn and cotton candy with each expert system
and neural net program.
This brings me to the all encompassing point of consciousness. How does it occur? What is
consciousness? Where does the "I" come from? How do we know that we know? How do we
know that we even care to know? What in the world makes the brain so special that a computer
program with all of it's lines and codes and gosubs and if-then statements will never, ever
duplicate it? It's consciousness. No program can accomplish true consciousness as it is the sum
of the parts. Although the parts are great and the sum is the results of those parts it takes the
parts in all of their processing and timing and equality to make the sum. Without limits.
CONSCIOUSNESS:
From the scientific observation of man's knowing that he knows yet not knowing how to the
uniquely religious concept of free will permitting a man to destroy himself by his own choices of
belief, the concept of consciousness is far from being universally defined.
There is the subconscious level of actions we take in instant response to outside stimuli and the
conscious response we make to an internal decision based in internal motivation. Are they the
same? Does the involuntary yanking of a hand from the flame entail the same consciousness
definition as the placing of the hand in the flame? Does the brain's process involve levels of
action or does the whole as observed by a relative position of freedom require definition based in
only the observation?
There is no reason to assume that we need to arrive at an agreeable definition of consciousness
in order to further discuss it here. The discussion will arrive at it's own definition. The answers to
these questions will be self evident. The awareness of how we know will be in relation to the
ability to know, that we know at all.
The Sub Conscious Brain:
It's a term used routinely to describe those things we do and those things we think about that do
not require or stem from a decision to think about them. It is the process that takes place in the
background of our minds. That second voice, so deep in there that it seems to sometimes not be
there yet just will not shut up. The reason a totally blank mind is not possible.
The sub conscious denotes less than the conscious. The conscious denoting then the intended
outcome brought about by an intended action.
In reality it's both unintended and quite intended. That which we perceive to be subconscious
activity is in fact the brain's first level of memory interacting with it's counterpart in new input. We
see. Yet we also perceive. They are not the same thing. The sight takes place through the input
of the eye's receptors. The perception takes place in the comparison of that input with previous
input. It's that first step at making sense out of the outside world.
The activity takes place in all of the senses and results in our initial awareness of the existence
of other things. The operative word being 'other'. This is as far as is needed for most living
creatures. All they need to be aware of is the presence of the 'other' creature. There is no need
to be aware of their own presence. There is no need for a cow to be aware of itself. It is aware of
other cows and through that awareness takes it's place in cow society without difficulty as it can
not and does not vie for a greater position among cows. All are perceived to be 'other than' and
therefore equal to.
The subconscious is directly linked to the motor functions of the living creature and results in
actions being taken based upon acquired behavior and acquired input. The result is then
assumed by man as all encompassing instinct as it does not consider the host creature in the
action. So it would not in us either if there was not the second level of consciousness.
The Conscious Brain:
As inputs are directly effecting outputs in the subconscious in relationship to that which is
perceived as being 'out there', the second level of consciousness, the conscious brain is busy
evaluating that action. Humans have the unique ability to evaluate the action based upon the
awareness of self as well as the awareness of the 'other' creatures. Inflicted with only the
awareness of self results in being totally self consumed and a person who does not consider
others. A fete not possible in the lower animal species.
In the conscious brain the result of that first memory's comparison to input which has been sent
to the second or mid level memory is compared with the third level of memory which is then
compared in the same process with it's own result in a tap dance act of grand proportions. The
ability to be self aware and therefore capable of original thought and original curiosity based in
perceived and potential outcome and the ability to assume based upon previous untested input
is brought about by a simple and logical progression of the human brain's processed data.
From input receptor (the senses) to the first comparator and on to the second memory the data is
then compared to the third memory and the result sent to the third memory.
It's that simple, yet that complicated. It happens in such a fashion for each input receptor all at
the same time, staggered by a clocking assignment sequence order and overlapped with senses
from the same type. And...out pops the question... why?
A concept unknown to any other form of living creature. Why. There is not a dog alive with the
slightest interest in why a bone would be enjoyable. There is not a cat in the entire universe with
the slightest interest as to whether or not it's tail was sticking out from under a rocking chair and
why your computer can't tell it's a cat. Cats are curious but only about what is. Not about why
something is. It is precisly the 'why' of issues that gets the cat. Not the curiosity of what.
The concept of free will, the concept of a man's ability to make his own choices is a result of the
awareness of self and the ability to ask and be conditioned by the answer to 'why?'.
Consciousness then......what is it? It's a two fold process, both of which act together to form a
single perceived output of consciousness. The sub conscious and the conscious, each with it's
own duties, functions and actions and reactions working together in no other creature except
man to control his life. To give him the ability to answer the question 'why' as well as ask it. For
to ask it requires the ability to answer. One can not be without the other. Yet one can obscure
the other. As it has.
Consciousness then is also a result. A result of the logical process of the brain. The human
brain.
One example of this is in the awareness of pain and emotions and feelings. Another example is
the awareness and evaluation of the process of thinking itself. First the pain.
Why is it after just a few hours the physical pain is gone? The emotional pain may linger for
decades but the physical pain is gone. You might say it's because the cause of the pain, the
hurt, the cut, the injury is no longer causing pain. Ok. Then what is pain?
Now there is an interesting subject indeed. On one hand pain can be defined as a chemical or
biological intrusion or severance of nerve endings or the like but that would be to define pain by
it's cause. Not by it's action. The cause is the injury of course. But the pain must then be defined
as something other than what it is. Pain is a foreign signal to the process of the brain. Being
foreign it is not able to be stored in memory and therefore there is no recollection of it minutes
after it is gone.
Don't confuse the physical pain, the signals of the brain's process that exceed it's storage and
processing ability resulting in intrusive physical discomfort with the emotional result of that pain.
Emotional pain. Emotional pain remains as it is a result of normal processing of brain data and
therefore very hard to identify. Something that happened to cause a physical pain leaves a mark
not only on the skin but on the brain as well.
It is that mark of injury that stays with you in life. Each time a similar event occurs your brain will
bring up that injury. Not the pain of it but the result of the pain of it. The emotional result. And it
goes through comparisons that only used a part of that pain memory. So therefore the mere sight
of a snake can inflict emotional pain on the human when that pain is not based in reality only on
the comparisons used to describe a snake many years before. Religion has lent it's hand to the
infliction of emotional guilt by reading a spiritually inspired story of a snake in a garden as a
literal story of a snake in a garden and connected that snake to the worst nightmare of all. The
devil. Snakes have not fared well.
So it is with the evaluation of the way thinking takes place. Science has looked at the brain's
outcome. It's results. And they have labeled them. Each label has brought with it a series of
conjecture, which upon other conjecture results in assumptions based in accumulated error and
it all turns out to be a serious miscalculation. Add to that the interesting fact that the brain is an
animate organic entity that accomplishes it's tasks by the means of chemical and biological
processes and it is no wonder that science has become lost in the old professor's syndrome of
examining the transistors in hope of understanding where the sound is coming from.
The process that takes place is a process of it's own. The tools it uses to carry out the process
are not the cause of the result. Bad tools can effect the outcome, good tools only make it
possible. There is no museum where Norman Rockwell's brushes sit on a high pedestal. He was
the artist not the tools. There is no hall of honor for pens and keyboards and paper. Yet the
music that sits on that paper, inscribed by those pens opens the hearts of millions. There is no
reasonable excuse to continue to look at the brain as a collection of results. It is that which uses
the biological and chemical processes that causes the results we see as the mind.
Now aren't you glad our friend the auto mechanic is not the one working on your brain?
SOURCES:
As They Lay Dying. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN May 1995 Volume 272 Number 5 Page 24.
The Emergence of Intelligence. By William H. Calvin. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN October 1994
Volume 271 Number 4 Pages 100-107.
