Fish 'n' More 2/fishmore-publicdomainlibraryvol.ii1991xetec.iso/disks/disk411.lzh/Mind/Mind.lzh/KnowSelf

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Know Thyself:  The Mentifex Design for Artificial Intelligence

(1981)

Standard Technical Report Number:  MENTIFEX/AI-5

by Arthur T. Murray
   Mentifex Systems
   Post Office Box 31326
   Seattle, Washington 98103-1326 USA

(Not copyrighted; please distribute freely.)


     Once  we  know  all  there  is  to know about the workings of the human
brain, we will have a choice of several  obvious approaches  to the  task of
teaching students  the essential workings of the mind.  We could teach about
the brain-mind in terms of how  it  evolved  through  the  eons,  or  how it
develops in  the life  of the  individual, or  how it  functions in a mature
specimen.

     This article  presents  the  author's  model  of  the  workings  of the
brain-mind, not in terms of sweeping generalizations but on the ultimate and
unambiguous level of the switching-circuit logic  of nerve  cells.   You are
invited to comprehend this mind-model - to refute it if it is erroneous, or,
if it makes sense to you, to use  it in  fulfilling the  ancient imperative,
"Know thyself!"  Either way, you the sovereign mind are offered something to
react against, and possibly a revelation of your inmost mental nature.

     Of three obvious approaches to explaining the mind  inside the  brain -
evolution, individual development, and static functioning in maturity - this
author chooses the third route and seeks to describe your mature mind as you
read and comprehend this article.

     The  other  two  approaches  -  evolution  of  the mind in the species,
development of mind in  the specimen  - would  inherently contain directions
for  the  starting-place  and  the  order  of  presentation of all essential
details about the brain-mind.  In both cases, we would simply describe how a
single-cell creature turned into a brain of one hundred billion cells.

     But let's  take the  hundred billion cells and find an obvious point of
departure for describing a model of  the organization  and function  of that
purposive web  of cells,  the brain.   Let  us approach  the function of the
evolved, mature mind from the obvious starting-point of  sensory inputs into
the mind.

     This article  leads you  through a  functional model of the brain-mind.
Although the brain is perhaps the most complex structure on earth, it  is no
more  than  a  three-dimensional  arrangement  of flows of information.  The
information-flows are arranged in such a way as to achieve consciousness and
thought.

     Each flow  of information  is along  one of the dimensions of the mind.
If you are to comprehend this mind-model, you must understand each dimension
and also  the very  concept of dimensionality.  The dimensions play a double
role in this article:  firstly as the building-blocks of the mind for you to
comprehend both one by one and as a grand edifice, and secondly as the chief
arguments to convince you of the validity of the mind-model.

     Dimensionality  is  the  quality   of  being   dimensional,  of  having
dimensions.  The mind is not a seething lump like an anthill, but a strictly
dimensional structure.   Although  the brain  is curved  and convoluted, the
mind inside  the brain  is rigidly straight (like a taut string or a beam of
light) in all its dimensions, and orthogonal through ninety degrees wherever
the information  in one dimension changes its direction of flow into another
dimension.

     Although the mind exists within the brain, the mind is  not a material,
physical being.   The  mind is  a structure  composed purely of information.
The physical structure of the brain  determines the  informational structure
of the  mind, but  these two structures are not identical.  Put it this way:
The brain holds information, and information holds the  mind.   The brain is
organized physically, but the mind is organized logically.

     The dimensionality of the mind is crucial to its logical structure.  In
some parts of the mind, information must be kept apart, while in other parts
of the  mind information  must flow  together.   The dimensions  of the mind
serve the purposes of isolating and combining information.

     The first dimensional component of your mind is the straight and linear
record  of  its  sensory  input,  in  parallel  with the straight and linear
"keyboard" of its motor output.  Please examine the "mind-diagram" appearing
with this article.

     A polarity exists between the mind and its environment.  An environment
to develop in is just as essential to the mind as a brain to exist in.

     A  second  polarity  exists  between  our  sensory  perception  of  the
environment and our motor manipulation of the environment.

     These  two   polarities  -  organism/environment  and  sensory/motor  -
constitute  sufficient  logical  differentiation  for  the   genesis  of  an
informational loop.

     Your mind sits at one end of the loop and contemplates your environment
at the other end of  the  loop.    Your  environment  is  the  whole cosmos,
including your  body, brain, and mind.  Your mind starts out as tabula rasa,
"a clean slate."  As your mind develops and fills  with knowledge,  it tries
to mirror  internally the cosmos which it perceives externally.  Who can say
which is the agent  - the  cosmos organizing  minds, or  mind organizing the
cosmos?

     Your mind  starts out  as an  empty, but  vastly capacious, link in the
loop.  Information starts in the  environment  and  flows  in  one direction
through the loop:  through your senses into the mind, and from your mind out
through the motor nerves to the environment.

     It takes a while for your neonatal pathways  - sensory  and motor  - to
communicate internally and thus to close the loop with the environment.  The
sensory and motor pathways develop in parallel along the temporal dimension
of the mind.

     Although your mind is  constantly thinking  and acting  in the present,
its existence stretches off into the past.  Every thought which you think in
the present, shapes your mind for the future.  Your mind is  the sum  of all
its past reality.

     It is  critical to your comprehension of this mind-model that you think
of the sensory and motor pathways  as flowing  in parallel,  but in opposite
directions, along  the temporal dimension of the mind.  When we go on now to
examine in detail the sensory-input system, you must  keep in  mind that the
sensory  and  motor  systems  develop  and operate side by side in lock-step
fashion.

     A human brain has the  five  commonly  acknowledged  senses  of vision,
audition  (hearing),  the  tactile  sense  (touch),  gustation  (taste), and
olfaction (smell), plus a few other senses such as the sense of  balance and
the somesthetic sense.

     According  to  this  mind-model,  all  the senses feed into the mind in
parallel in a flat array like a woven rug.  For each sense, be  it vision or
audition or  smelling the flowers, there is a flat channel of perception and
memory flowing along the time-dimension of the mind.

     The nerves from the sense-receptors travel  to the  brain.   Inside the
brain,  the  sensory  information  from  vision,  and  perhaps other senses,
undergoes the pre-processing  of  feature-extraction  before  it  enters the
mind.  In feature-extraction, basic patterns are discriminated to reduce the
work-load and  hasten the  operation of  the conscious  mind.   In the brain
there operates a principle of rendering automatic (and subconscious) as many
things as possible.

     After the information in any one sensory pathway has reached  the brain
and gone through all required feature-extraction, the information enters the
mind by entering the  permanent memory  channel for  that particular sensory
modality.   Short-term memory and permanent memory are identical in terms of
physical location, but they differ with respect to the associative processes
which  catalog  the  memory-traces  and  control  their future accessability
through recall.  In other words, short-term memory is not a function of
location, but rather of associativity.   This assertion  is supported better
by the  large-scale mind-model  than by any local arguments which may appear
in this topical discussion of memory.

     The distinction between preliminary portions of the brain  and the mind
itself is  based upon a functional demarcation line beyond which information
is free to flow not  just  along  its  original  dimension  but orthogonally
sideways out into other dimensions of the mind.  In other words, the mind is
circumscribed and defined by its own dimensionality.

     It is important that you now  comprehend  both  a  specific  design for
memory  and  a  general  concept  of  memory.  It is axiomatic that whatever
macroscopic information can be transmitted can also be recorded.   To record
information  during   transmission,  one  simply  captures  samples  of  the
information at a rate  quick enough  to catch  all instances  of significant
change in the information.

     The  brain-mind  records  the  informational  content  of  each sensory
channel by routing the  information  through  what  is  both  a transmission
channel and  an extremely  long series  of engram-nodes.   Once each sensory
information-flow passes the demarcation-line into the  mind, the information
in each  sensory channel  floods the transmission "fibers" of that permanent
memory channel. Each fiber  in  the  memory  channel  is  like  a  series of
millions of   nodes.   Within  the particular memory channel for each sense,
there are  thousands  of  the  nodal  fibers.    Your  oldest  memories were
deposited  and  permanently,  unchangeably  fixed  in the first nodes of the
lifetime-long memory channels.  At each moment of  sensation and perception,
all the  simultaneously occupied  nodes among  all the memory fibers of each
memory channel irrevocably fix their contents.  The group of  nodes fixed on
parallel fibers  at one  moment in  time is like a "slice" of memory of that
moment in time.

     You start out with your sensory nerves and  pathways going  through any
required feature-extraction and then feeding into immensely long channels of
tabula rasa memory.  Your myriad  moments  of  experience  are  deposited in
densely packed "slices" of and by simultaneity.

     Each sensory  (and motor)  memory channel is like a flat ribbon flowing
across the logical surface of the  mind.   The memory-ribbon  is composed of
thousands of  nodal fibers.   The  first experiences go into the first nodal
slices.  Subsequent experiences  have to  travel through  all the  slices of
previous experience  to reach and occupy fresh nodal slices, which will then
be filled and fixed with the experience of the moment,  before serving  as a
bridge to all future moments.

     Although  it   is  critical   for  you   to  understand  the  essential
characteristics of the permanent memory channels  in this  mind-model, these
essential  characteristics  are  not  introduced  here all at once.  Advance
notice can be given, however, that each sensory memory channel  serves three
main  purposes,  simultaneously  and  everywhere  along  the memory channel:
transmission, memory, and comparison.

     Each sensory memory channel is like  a pipeline  full of  nodal fibers.
The  nodal  fibers  are  already  there,  genetically  provided and ready to
receive engrams of memory.  The pipeline is gradually filling up with memory
slices all  through your  lifetime.  The memory-slices are so densely packed
that you could live to be over a hundred years old and not run out of fresh,
unused, tabula  rasa memory  locations.  The gradual fixation or consumption
of memory-slices is like a slow burning fuse, so long  that it  takes over a
hundred years to burn to the end.  Even if you did run out of fresh
memory-spaces in  your old  age, you  would still function as an intelligent
mind with full retention of your many decades of old  memories and  with the
loss of  only your  ability to  remember each passing moment of the present.
You could still speak, for instance, several languages and do  anything else
that  you  learned  to  do  before  your  tabula  rasa memory ran out.  This
assertion is another one which ought to be judged in the light  of the total
mind-model.

     The flatness  of each  memory-channel matters  to the brain, but not to
the mind.  The  serial order  or arrangement  of the  nodal fibers  does not
matter at all.  Note that the information recorded in a flat slice of memory
is certainly  not  "flat"  information.    The  flat memory  channel for the
tactile sense  of touch  contains a  sensory mapping of the whole surface of
the body.  The flat auditory memory channel  contains a  mapping of  a broad
range  of  frequencies  of  sound.   The flat visual memory channel contains
two-dimensional images in a one-dimensional series of fiber-nodes.  The mind
does not  know and  does not  care that  the images are flat.  When the mind
associatively  recalls  an  image-slice,  the  one-dimensional  memory-slice
springs to  life as  if it  were the  two-dimensional image seen through the
eye.

     We are really getting into the dimensionality of the mind when we bring
in the idea of associativity.  Sensory information flows into the mind along
the  time-dimension,  but  it  moves  sideways  within  the  mind  along the
associative  dimension.    Every  sensory  memory  slice  is  attached  to a
"concrete associative tag" that is like a fiber flowing at a right  angle to
all the  fibers in  the flat  memory channels  of the time-dimension.  These
concrete associative tag-fibers are not shown  in the  mind-diagram, because
they would  completely black  out the mind portion of the diagram.  They are
called "concrete" (as opposed  to  "abstract")  because  they  coordinate by
simultaneity all  the sensory  memory-slices of "concrete" experience.  They
are called "associative" because they are  the mechanism  by which  the mind
associates a  memory-slice in one sensory modality with memory-slices in all
other sensory modalities  and  even  in  the  same  sensory  modality.   For
instance, they are the mechanism by which you might associate the sound with
the image of a dog, and vice versa.

     A single associative tag governs a whole memory-slice and associates it
with  all  the  rest  of  the  mind.    It  may  look  as  though there is a
tremendously unworkable ratio of the vast information that  can be contained
in the  slice to  the unitary,  off-or-on information that can flow over the
tag, but it will be argued in this article that the vast  information stored
in any  sensory memory channel flows sideways to the core of the mind solely
over aggregates of these unitary, off-or-on "concrete associative tags."  In
other words,  each lifetime-long  permanent sensory  memory channel is quite
isolated unto itself and does not  flow  at  its  end  into  some  region of
further  or  final  processing  of  the  sensory  information.  Wherever the
sensory memory channel comes to an end, it just stops.  Let us hope that the
end of  our tabula  rasa memory channels is so remote that we never reach it
in our natural lifetime.   (In  an artificially  intelligent robot  we might
recirculate the  memory channels  by looping  around and  erasing the oldest
memory-slices just before reaching  the end  of the  first full  loop of the
memory-slices.)

     Each sensory  memory channel  is isolated  unto itself,  except for the
associative tags which lead  away  at  right  (orthogonal)  angles  from the
time-dimension of  the memory  channel.  Over an associative tag, you can go
from one sensory memory  channel  into  the  memory  channels  of  all other
senses.  For instance, you can go from vision to audition, or from olfaction
to vision.  But you can go only at a right angle; you can not cross directly
by associative  tag from  a present  memory-slice to  one laid down years or
even minutes ago.  Each associative fiber that interconnects all  the senses
is a  guarantee of simultaneity.  The associative tags are laid down at each
successive moment of the fleeting  present,  and  they  can  never  after be
disconnected or  altered.   As the poet says, "The moving finger writes, and
having writ moves on."

     You must have a thorough comprehension of the  sensory and  motor plane
or "grid"  of the  mind before you study the two levels of superstructure by
which mankind achieves rational intellect.   You can  maintain that thorough
comprehension  as  we  examine  the  three  levels  of  complexity which are
operative at the peak of the human central nervous system.  The three levels
to be studied are:
     1.  The sentient plane of the sensory/motor grid.  (The interface
         between the external world and the core of the mind.)
     2.  The abstract core of the mind.  (This core brings a central nervous
         system to the level attained by "smart" mammals, such as dogs.)
     3.  The linguistic spiral in the abstract core of the rational mind.

     It is  important to  go level by level so that you see clearly what the
mind is capable of at each level and what is still lacking.   You  should be
certain to  understand the  situation at each lower level before you study a
higher level.  As  with a  ladder of  evolution, each  level makes  sense by
itself and without reference to any higher level.

     So far  we have  discussed the  sensory input part of the sensory/motor
grid, which is the flat two-dimensional substratum of the mind.   It remains
only to  explain the  role played  by the motor-output side of the grid, and
then you should have a sufficient  comprehension of  the first  of the three
levels of the mind.

     Let us  call this  sensory/motor grid  at the  lowest level of mind the
"sentient grid."  If we were to examine an animal or automaton that had only
such a  "sentient grid"  at the  summit of  its central nervous system, that
creature would be severely limited in its capabilities.   It  would have the
power  of  brute  sensation,  and  its  repertoire  of motor behaviors might
consist of many reflex  and  instinctual  actions  which  it  would  be able
crudely  to  link  with  sensory  inputs  as triggers for the initiation (or
cessation) of motor activity.  Now let us examine the motor memory channels,
in accordance with the mind-diagram.

     The motor  memory channels are the polar opposite of the sensory memory
channels.  The motor memory channels contain memory  slices not  of external
experience, but  rather of internal, dynamic activation of themselves.  This
difference is critical for your understanding  of the  sentient grid  at the
bottom level  of the  mind.  Motor memory is not passive, it is dynamic.  If
you make associative access to a motor memory node on a motor  memory fiber,
you unavoidably send out a signal to contract a muscle at the destination of
the associated motor nerve.

     As you examine the mind-diagram, notice that the  sensory memory fibers
flow in  parallel with,  but never  touch, the motor memory fibers.  Yet the
sensory side of the mind controls  the motor  side of  the mind.   "Concrete
associative tag  fibers" flow between the sensory and the motor sides of the
sentient grid.   As  was  discussed  above  with  reference  to  the sensory
modalities,  concrete  associative  tags  flow  at  a right angle to all the
lifelong memory channels.  Just as  the memory  fibers are  all in parallel,
likewise  all  the  associative  tags  in  the  flat  sentient  grid flow in
parallel.   By  flowing  in  parallel,  the  associative  tags  preserve the
historical record of each successive moment in time.

     If  a  central  nervous  system  did  not  have  memory  as a record of
experience (and  as an  enabling mechanism  for learning),  then its sensory
nerves would  have to  lead directly  to its motor nerves.  No variations of
behavior would be possible, and the  whole organism  would be pre-programmed
genetically to respond to stimuli always in the same way.

     When evolution introduces memory channels, it is essential to buffer or
separate the sensory and motor systems so that they do not fuse together and
so  that  what  intercourse  occurs  can occur with great discrimination and
precision.  Therefore, the sensory and motor channels  do not  meet head-on,
but rather they attain a close proximity and then flow in parallel.  At each
successive moment in time  and  experience,  the  sensory  and  motor memory
channels have  the possibility  of becoming  linked by  nodal fusing at both
ends of  the particular  concrete associative  tag fiber  which was provided
genetically  for  that  moment  in  time.    The  whole lifelong tapestry of
experience has a fresh, new, blank, concrete associative tag fiber  for each
moment of experience, like a corduroy road made out of logs.

     But just  how do  the associative cross-tags link up sensory experience
with motor dynamism?  Why do we call it motor  "memory," when  no experience
is recorded there?

     The motor  memory channel  is like  a giant  keyboard of  a piano.  The
purpose of the motor memory is not to record events, but to cause them.  Or,
we could  say that  the purpose of the motor memory is to cause an event and
then remember how to cause it again.

     In the infant organism of our  sentient being,  a mechanism  of "random
dynamics" permits  various motor  nerve cells to fire spontaneously.  When a
motor  nerve   fiber  in   the  motor   memory  channel   fires,  it  causes
muscle-activation.   Then information  starts flowing  in the sentient loop.
While the infant organism randomly moves  its limbs,  it experiences aspects
of that motion through its sensory apparatus leading into its sensory memory
channels.  At each moment in time during  the random  motion, nodal fixation
at  both  end-regions  of  a  concrete  associative tag fiber is associating
passive sensory engrams with dynamic motor engrams.  Before long, control of
the  motor  apparatus  ceases  to  be  random  and  spontaneous.    Instead,
associative control passes over to the sensory side of the sentient grid.

     In the mature organism, all motor activation occurs  across associative
tag  connections  laid  down  in  the  past,  and  present  associative  tag
connections are made solely for the purpose of  re-affirming or  updating or
strengthening sensory-to-motor connections made in the past.

     This   immediately   previous   statement  offers  an  explanation  why
motor-learning time in infancy is crucial to the development of motor skill.
During infancy,  the organism  has the benefit of the random and spontaneous
firing of its motor control elements.  The sensory side of the sentient grid
seizes  upon  these  random  firings  and  takes  control  of  them.  Once a
particular pattern of sensory memory  has  taken  associative  control  of a
particular pattern of motor memory, all subsequent uses of that control-loop
are recorded and thus re-affirmed by concrete associative  tag, and  a habit
of routine or skill becomes entrenched.

     Note that  this mind-model offers an explanation for volition, although
the explanation is different for each of the three levels  of mind.   On the
level of the sentient grid, and in the absence of any higher superstructure,
volition consists  of  automatic  response  to  the  stimulus  of  a sensory
pattern.   No leeway  is allowed  in the  response to  a given stimulus, but
varying stimuli are allowed to elicit varying responses.

     Notice something  general  about  this  information-loop  in  which the
sensory and  motor pathways  do not  meet but instead launch into a parallel
race into the future.  Remember, the  interior  of  the  mind  is  trying to
mirror  the  exterior  of  the  environment.    Well, just as things are not
steadfast and "hardwired" out in the environment, likewise on the inside the
associative sentient  grid, by  flowing through time and allowing all manner
of novel associative connections,  can  be  just  as  varied  and changeable
internally as  the environment  is externally.  However, an organism with no
nervous level higher than the sentient  grid is  forced to  learn unchanging
laws from its environment, and such a sentient being is not free to make its
own decisions by letting  logical  data  freely  interact  internally.   The
sentient  organism  lacks  an  abstract  core  of  the mind where the strict
bondage of  stimulus-response  can  be  broken  down  on  the  one  hand and
goal-directedly built back up again on the other hand.

     In other  words, if  you now  comprehend the  associative sentient grid
which is the lowest of the three levels of mind, you are ready to proceed to
the examination  of the  second level  of mind.   That  is the abstract core
which further buffers the sensory and motor memory channels to such a degree
that  the  formerly  ironclad  and  inviolable  principle of simultaneity in
stimulus-response is overruled in one way but kept intact in another.

     The second level of mind is roughly on a par  with the  central nervous
system of  dogs or  monkeys or  horses.  Learning and Pavlovian conditioning
are possible.  The organism can be  so  "smart"  as  to  impress  humans and
generate a sense of kinship.

     After eons of evolution, when an organism attains the second level, the
sentient grid of the first level is still present and  operative in  the now
more evolved  organism.   The sentient grid neither withers away nor changes
significantly in its operation.  Indeed, in the literature about  brains you
will find  a generally accepted principle to the effect that lower levels of
brains are designed to operate rather independently of higher levels  in the
event  of  successive  breakdown  or  impairment  starting  from the topmost
levels.  The principle is that  the higher  level dominates  by consistently
inhibiting  the  lower  level,  so  that,  if the higher level is damaged or
removed, the  lower level  is no  longer inhibited  and functions  in a role
perhaps  of  inadequacy  but  certainly  of the best coping ability that the
impaired brain has to offer.

     The second level of the mind-model is that of the abstract core  of the
mind.   If this second level seems ridiculously simple to you, wait until we
fashion from it earth's most complex mechanism on the third level.   But you
are correct if you deem simple the innovation worked upon the sentient grid
to raise  it to  the second level.  The innovation is so simple that perhaps
you will now deign to consider how easily evolution (which "does not  make a
leap") could have stumbled upon the wonderful innovation.

     In the sentient grid of level one, there are two massive neuronal flows
at right angles to each  other.    The  one  massive  flow  is  that  of the
permanent memory  channels, both  sensory and  motor.  These memory channels
flow along the time-dimension of the grid.  The other  massive flow  is that
of the  concrete associative  tag fibers  which cover in blanket fashion all
the  memory  channels  so  as  to  provide  their  only  internal  avenue of
connection.   Every associative  tag fiber  is at  a right angle to whatever
memory fiber it touches.  A memory fiber  flows through  the time-dimension,
but an  associative fiber is frozen at, and indeed represents, a particular,
concrete moment in the lifetime of the organism.

     The innovation in the second level  -  the  tiny  step  in  evolution -
involves the lifetime-long memory fibers that flow along the time-dimension.
On the merely sentient level, these  fibers are  supposed to  contain either
sensory or  motor memory, because they are connected either to sensory input
or motor output.  In a level-one system, all memory fibers are "dedicated" -
either to  sensation or  to motor  activation - and since the fibers are not
free, the level-one organism is not free.  If evolution had never progressed
beyond level  one, we  humans might still be starfish or barnacles.  But the
step  or  stumble  among  the  dedicated  memory  fibers   was  unavoidably,
beckoningly easy  to make,  and somehow somewhere long ago in the primordial
eons the great escape was made and they got loose!   Some  of the supposedly
dedicated memory  fibers got  away from  their origin  as elongations of the
pathways to the external world.  Getting loose from the external world, they
became creatures of the internal world - and rational mind was on its way.

     The mind-diagram  of this article is actually more descriptive of level
two than of level one or three.  Note the  central core  of time-dimensional
memory fibers which are not attached and not dedicated to either the sensory
or motor side of the brain-grid.  Since these memory  fibers at  the core of
the mind are unattached and undedicated, we call them "abstract" fibers.

     Once evolution  stumbled and  let loose of a few of the lifelong memory
fibers, these formerly dedicated, now abstract fibers turned around and took
over  the  course  of  evolution.    As  the  embodiment  of the negentropic
principle, they became an "abstract"  vault  of  the  mind  and  an ordering
force.   They set  about creating  internal order within the mind.  On level
two they passively accepted order from without, and next on level three they
will actively impose order from within.

     Throughout  this  article,  the  term  "abstract  fiber" refers only to
fibers in the abstract core of the mind.  The  term "concrete  fiber" refers
only  to  the  associative  tag  fibers  which  lie  at  right angles to the
time-dimension of both the abstract and the experiential  fibers.   So there
are  three  types  of  fibers  in this mind-model:  experiential (sensory or
motor), abstract, and concrete.

     When the abstract fibers got loose from their dedication, they  did not
lose their  ability to store memories within their nodes that lie along each
fiber  like  a  chain  of  beads.    They  lost  neither   their  orthogonal
juxtaposition to  the concrete  associative fibers nor their ability to fuse
nodes and thus be tagged by the associative  fibers.   Since they  no longer
had any  direct source of memory data, either sensory or motor, the abstract
fibers could henceforth be filled with memory-data only  by receiving inputs
sideways  from  the  concrete  associative tags, and that indirect, abstract
function is what they fulfill even to this  day.   An abstract  fiber in the
core of  the mind serves associatively as a unifying fiber which crosses all
time-boundaries and interconnects potentially all original  and re-occurring
instances  of  the  experience  of  a  particular  pattern of perception.  A
sensory memory fiber is for  sensation;  an  abstract  memory  fiber  is for
perception.

     In order  to understand  how an  abstract memory  fiber works, you must
keep in mind the two-fold mechanism  of original  association and subsequent
reaffirmation.   The original,  neonatal sensory  inputs to level two of the
mind flow first directly into memory nodes in the sensory memory channel and
thence indirectly,  associatively, via  the concrete  associative tags, into
memory nodes in  the  abstract  memory  channel.    In  a  newly constructed
organism (such as a baby), the first memory deposits are of a very low level
of complexity.  The abstract memory  channel  stands  ready  to  receive and
record  whatever   inputs  are  fed  to  it  across  the  associative  tags.
Therefore, in the earliest moments of  memory, identical  engrams are formed
in the  sensory and  the abstract  memory channels.  At its neonatal origin,
the abstract memory channel mirrors the sensory memory  channels.  Remember,
the abstract  core of the mind is trying to mirror the external world, which
it must perceive through the medium of the sensory channels.

     However,  as  time  goes  by,  each  abstract  fiber  becomes extremely
differentiated from  its neighbors.  The original level of complexity of the
data in the abstract memory channel is on the order of off-or-on, yes-or-no.
This irreducibly  simple logical  content is  the mirrored reflection of the
jumble of data in the sensory memory channels.  The  sensory memory channels
never actually  become organized  internally, but the abstract memory fibers
do become organized.  Order  develops  within  the  abstract  memory channel
through the incessant and potent mechanism of associative reaffirmation.

     Please examine  the abstract  memory channel  from the point of view of
identical contents being held both in the sensory memory channels and in the
abstract memory channel.  Suppose that through the eye a particular feature,
such as a geometric line, has been seen  and recorded,  first in  the visual
memory channel, and simultaneously by associative tag in the abstract memory
channel.  Every subsequent time that that particular  feature is  seen again
along the  same sensory  memory fiber, two important events will occur.  The
one rather simple event is  that  the  sensation  of  that  feature  will be
recorded one  more time  within a freshly fixed node at that point along the
sensory memory fiber where the march  of time  is presently  fixing nodes by
simultaneity across  a wide, associative front.  Meanwhile, as the signal of
the sensed feature travels along the sensory memory fiber and briefly floods
that fiber at every point, the originally fixed node is faithfully doing its
duty as a comparison  device.   By simple  unitary logic,  it recognizes the
(umpteenth) reoccurrence of the signal of the same sensed feature with which
it was originally fixed, or written as an engram.

     The sensory memory node, stimulated by the transient  signal, blips out
a signal  across its associative tag over to the related node on the related
abstract memory fiber.  Now in turn the abstract memory  node, stimulated by
the transient associative signal, blips out a signal which travels down the
abstract memory  fiber to where unfixed tabula rasa nodes are being fixed by
every data-laden moment of the present.  So now we have a  mirror phenomenon
occurring both in the sensory memory fiber and in the abstract memory fiber.
The associative tag fiber of the present moment  fuses across  nodes on both
the abstract  memory fiber  and the  sensory memory fiber.  Thus the logical
content and the "dedication" of the abstract memory fiber are  reaffirmed by
simultaneity in the present moment of perception.

     The concrete associative fiber of the present moment of perception will
fuse with sensory and  abstract  nodes  wherever  two  or  more  signals are
present orthogonally.   Suppose  that the  eye of  the organism is seeing an
image or pattern composed of many features.   Each extracted  feature floods
its own sensory memory fiber within the visual memory channel.  The concrete
associative fiber of the present, which is activated by an internal clock of
the brain,  fuses nodes  with each  feature-fiber that  is momentarily being
activated by the total sensation of the image  or pattern.   Therefore, this
concrete associative  fiber is henceforth irrevocably linked to the group of
features which comprise the seen image.   Henceforth  this associative fiber
can either  recall the  image internally  or recognize  the image seen again
externally.  The concrete associative  fiber  is  now  an  associative "tag"
attached to the image.

     Although the  associative tag may connect to many fibers in the sensory
memory channel, it can connect to as few as one single fiber in the abstract
memory channel.  Thus a single fiber in the abstract memory channel can come
to represent a whole class of fibers in the sensory memory channel,  and lo,
an abstract concept is born.

     If  you  pause  to  think,  you  may  see how it makes sense that often
multiple fibers will be activated in the sensory  memory channel  while only
one or  a few  fibers are  activated in the abstract memory channel.  In the
neonatal period, there may be a releasing mechanism which lets loose of only
a few  abstract fibers  at a time.  Or the abstract fibers may compete to be
the first abstract fiber to be reaffirmed by the associative  tag over  to a
bundle of  sensory fibers  comprising a  pattern.   The main  thing is, each
abstract memory fiber can  serve  as  a  reaffirmative  collection-point for
associations to  a whole  class of similar sensory patterns.  Voila, pattern
recognition occurs.  The abstract fiber is not in the thick of sensation; it
stands aside and is abstract.

     An abstract  memory fiber  (spoken of  in the singular here, although a
gang of thousands  of  logically  fused  fibers  is  meant)  can  become the
physical and logical seat of a concept within the mind.  For instance, a dog
that knows and recognizes its master will have at least  one abstract memory
fiber which  serves as  the ultimate, concentrated association-point for all
memory-information related to  the  dog's  master.    This  assertion  is so
serious and  so evocative  of hasty  disbelief that it is now time to invoke
the force of the dimensionality of the mind.

     The level-two mind has two dimensions, the lifelong  time-dimension and
the simultaneity-dimension.   Within the level-two mind (and the level-three
mind), memory fibers all flow in parallel and only along the time-dimension.

     You know from experience that your mind has held a concept of something
or other,  such as  a concept of the sun around which our earth orbits.  All
your knowledge of the sun is tied to that concept, and that  concept is tied
to the word "sun."  Of course, your conceptual knowledge of the sun could be
broken down into ingredient concepts, such  as  the  concepts  of  warmth or
light or  chariots.   But is  seems as  if you have one unitary point within
your  mind  where  all  the  constituent  concepts  are  subsumed  under the
operative concept  of "sun."  So the dimensionality of your concept of "sun"
is punctiform.   If  your concept  of sun  were triangular  or circular, you
would not be able to focus your mind upon the same pinnacle of conceptuality
each time that you thought about the sun.

     But your concept of the sun is  not  only  unitary,  it  is  also quite
constant over  time.  Just as a point extended through space becomes a line,
likewise a unitary concept held constant over time can best  be represented,
both  physically   and  logically,  as  a  unitary  fiber  (or  its  logical
equivalent, a gang of fused fibers) flowing along the time-dimension  of the
mind.   So the  dimensionality of  a concept  is double:  it is punctiformly
unitary and it is chronologically linear.

     Does it seem ridiculous that  this  mind-model  claims  that  perhaps a
single gang  of fibers  in your  brain holds your concept of a thing such as
the sun, or of your pet  dog, or  of yourself  - your  concept of  ego?  But
think:   the concept-fiber  is operative not by itself, but by virtue of the
myriad associative tags leading from it.  Many concepts are interrelated and
they contribute  to the  composition of  one another.  Conceptual fibers are
associated not  just to  sensory data,  but also  to one  another within the
abstract memory  channel.  Therefore a slice of your abstract memory channel
is  like  a  conceptual  topography.    The  maze  of  concepts  is  like  a
stick-forest of interrelated points of knowledge.  Concepts are neighbors or
relatives  of  one  another  not  by  physical  proximity,  but  by  logical
proximity.

     Your pet dog has a stick-forest of concepts, but, alas! he has no words
(or symbols) attached to them and therefore he can not manipulate them  in a
rational way.   Even though your dog may hear words quite often, he does not
develop the use of words.  Your baby, however, quickly  develops the  use of
hundreds of  words.  How is the level-three mind of your baby different from
the level-two mind of your dog?

     On the third level of mind, rational intellect springs into  being in a
process  whereby  rigid  informational  structures arise amid the hodgepodge
informational milieu which was level two.  These new structures arise as the
means  to  express  relationships  among  concepts.  They are to some degree
logical structures and  to  a  larger  degree  linguistic  structures.   The
structures  remove   the  mind  from  the  bondage  of  immediate,  concrete
experience and allow the genesis of abstract thought.

     We can first examine the existence in the mind of a vocabulary of words
solely with  respect to  level two, and then we can describe the level-three
structures which govern these words in linguistic thought.

     Let us discuss the relationship between  word-memories in  the auditory
memory  channel  and  image-memories  in  the visual memory channel.  Let us
confine our  discussion  to  concrete  nouns  which  are  readily  linked to
concrete images.

     First  of  all,  the  association  between the two memory channels is a
two-way street.   Activation  of the  image can  evoke the  word in auditory
memory, and  activation of  the word can evoke many images in visual memory.
Notice  that  "word"  here  is  singular,  but  "images"  is  plural.   This
difference obtains because a single word can serve as a control-symbol for a
whole class of images.

     For instance, if you see any  one of  many varieties  of dog,  the word
"dog" can  come to  mind in  your auditory  memory channel.   If many people
listening to a story hear the word "dog," they will probably summon up quite
varying images of dog to instantiate the concept of "dog."

     Humans with words as control-symbols have an extreme advantage over the
level-two minds of animals.  The  word  attached  to  a  concept  makes that
concept utterly  and fluidly manipulable within the ratiocinative structures
of the mind.  Even though  the word  is an  extended string  of phonemes, it
behaves logically as if it were a unitary point.

     Indeed, in  the level-three  mind, each  word is  attached to a unitary
point, namely the abstract conceptual fibergang associated with  the word in
the abstract memory channel.

     In  a  level-one  mind  that  contained  words, there would be a direct
associative link  between an  image and  a word.   In  the level-three mind,
concrete associative  tags do  not flow  directly between  images and words.
Instead, from the sensory memory channels the associative  tags make contact
with  the  abstract  conceptual  fiber,  which  is the focal embodiment of a
particular concept and which serves as a unifying point for  the development
and linguistic  activity of the concept.  If a linguistic structure is going
to control a vocabulary of words,  each word  must have  a sort  of "handle"
upon it,  by which the word, as a symbol, can be controlled.  That handle is
the abstract conceptual fiber.

     The abstract memory channel is the set of  all abstract  memory fibers.
An "abstract  conceptual fiber" is an abstract memory fiber which happens to
hold a concept (by gathering up  all the  associative tags  of the concept).
Therefore the  set of  all abstract conceptual fibers is a subset of the set
of all abstract memory fibers.

     Thus far in our discussion, a concept has a tripartite existence within
the brain-mind.  Firstly, the word exists as a short string of sounds within
the auditory memory channel.  Be aware that no word  will exist  at only one
memory location  within the  auditory memory  channel, but  rather each word
will be  recorded there  in hundreds  or thousands  of historical instances,
depending upon  how frequently the word is used.  Furthermore, be very aware
that, since  each  instance  of  the  word  is  the  same  string  of sounds
(phonemes), all  instances of  a word within the auditory memory channel are
logically equivalent.  Since the  auditory  memory  channel  is  not  just a
transmission-channel,   and   not   just   a   memory-channel,  but  also  a
comparison-channel, any one instance of a word can quickly be  compared with
all other  instances of  the same  (or even  a similar) word, so that a word
existing in thousands of spots within the auditory  memory channel functions
as if  all the spots were interconnected, as indeed they are.  To illustrate
this point, think of  the  word  "dog"  and  how  you  can  conjure  up many
different images of "dog."

     The second  part of  the tripartite  existence of  a concept  is at the
abstract conceptual fiber for the concept.  The abstract conceptual fiber is
the main  and focal  seat of the concept within the mind.  From the abstract
conceptual fiber, thousands of concrete  associative  tags  flow  across the
sentient  mind-grid  to  make  reference  to and control word-engrams in the
auditory memory channel.  If you hear (or  think) a  particular word through
your auditory  memory channel,  that word  instantly gains access, across at
least one of the concrete associative tags, to the abstract conceptual fiber
for that word so that your understanding of that concept is activated within
your mind.  Likewise,  if, in  the interplay  of concepts  within your mind,
that  particular  concept  fiber  is activated, the following scenario takes
place.

     From the activated  concept-fiber,  thousands  of  concrete associative
tags flowing in parallel are activated in parallel.  Only one of them has to
reach the word-engram in your auditory  memory channel  for that  word to be
activated  and  flow  through  the  channel  to  the present-most end of the
consumed portion of the tabula rasa channel.  In all likelihood, many of the
tags will  gain access  to the  word, but,  since it is the same word in all
instances,  your  mind  will  hear  just  one  standard  production  of  the
constituent sounds of the word.  Note, however, that the parallel activation
of thousands of concrete  associative tags  serves, by  sheer redundancy, to
make for  an extremely  reliable mechanism  for the internal recall of words
during verbal thought.   Note also  that your  auditory memory  channel is a
self-perceiving channel.   Although  word-engrams are controlled en masse by
the abstract conceptual fiber outside of the auditory memory channel, we are
consciously aware  of the words only as they flow within the auditory memory
channel.

     The third part or area of the tripartite existence of  a concept within
the  mind  is  spread  out  over  all  the sensory memory channels which are
associatively connected to the abstract conceptual fiber of the concept.  If
the concept is evocative of images (or sounds or smells or feels or tastes),
then from the abstract conceptual fiber many concrete  associative tags will
flow  out  orthogonally  over  to  the sensory memory data which the unitary
concept represents.   An  abstract  conceptual  fiber  may  be associatively
connected to  many visual images, not all of which are necessarily identical
or even similar to one another.  Remember,  a word  is always  the same, but
most images  will have  at least minor differences.  Such a state of affairs
is fit and proper, because a word is an unchanging symbol, while an image is
just a variable slice of the rich pageantry of experience.

     An abstract  conceptual fiber reigns supreme as the unitary point under
which or towards which all  the  constituent  information  of  a  concept is
subsumed.    The  abstract  concept  develops  or  grows by the accretion of
concrete associative tags over time.  The abstract  conceptual fiber  is not
itself a  symbol, but it is often attached quite fixedly to a symbol, namely
a word in the auditory memory channel.

     The abstract  conceptual fiber  governs both  the word  attached to the
concept and  also the sensory data associated with the concept.  An abstract
conceptual fiber can have concrete associations not only to sensory engrams,
but also  to other abstract conceptual fibers.  This ability of a concept to
exist within a network of related concepts allows the genesis  of such truly
abstract and intangible concepts as our notions of "honesty" and "courage."

     Remember that  all the abstract conceptual fibers flow in parallel in a
flat plane along the temporal dimension of the mind.   Logical relationships
among abstract  conceptual fibers  are determined  not by physical position,
such as contiguity or proximity, but solely by interconnection over concrete
associative tags.   Thus, although the fibers lie in a flat plane across the
surface of the brain-mind,  their associative  interconnections can generate
the analog  of superstructures  or hierarchies among the abstract conceptual
fibers.

     To discuss  the psycholinguistic  nature of  language, we  must for the
first  time  in  this  article  introduce  the  notion of the control of one
abstract conceptual fiber  over  one  or  more  (i.e.,  thousands)  of other
abstract conceptual  fibers.   Up until  now we have discussed how one fiber
might influence another fiber, but not how one fiber would dominate another.

     The ability of a nerve-cell to require the summation of multiple inputs
before firing permits some fibers to control others.  In that portion of the
abstract memory channel which we may henceforth call the "linguistic cable,"
some abstract  fibers gradually take on the role of governing and dominating
whole classes of other fibers.  For purposes  of simplicity  and clarity, we
will discuss here only two linguistic classes of words:  nouns and verbs.

     As an  infant learns  nouns, he  or she  also subconsciously assigns an
abstract fiber in the "linguistic cable" to the  control of  the whole class
of nouns.  As each new noun is learned, a concrete associative tag is bonded
from the general noun-control fiber over to the abstract conceptual fiber of
the particular noun.  From the noun-fiber in turn a concrete associative tag
goes to the engram of the word in  the auditory  memory channel.   Gradually
the noun-control  fiber latches  on to  a burgeoning  "family" of nouns, all
segregated conveniently as a class so  that they  will remain  distinct when
other parts of speech are learned.

     Suppose that  the infant,  seeing and  recognizing an  object, wants to
name that object in a blurt  of  speech.    The  "wanting"  is  actually the
build-up of logical tension within the abstract memory channel.  The general
noun-control fibergang  is activated  by the  confluence of  all the logical
tension stemming  both from the perceived object and from the internal state
of  the  infant.    This  general  noun-control  fibergang  sends  a blanket
semi-activation signal to all the nouns in the vocabulary of the infant.  In
a way, all the noun-fibers are being invited to activate  their word-engrams
in  the  auditory  memory  channel.    But,  because  of  the multiple-input
requirement, no noun-fiber can fire  solely  on  the  basis  of  the blanket
semi-activation  signal  going  out  to  all  nouns  as  a class.  Only that
noun-fiber will fire which is already  or simultaneously  semi-activated, so
that the  two semi-activations cause full activation, and a recall-signal is
fired over to the word-engram in the auditory memory channel.

     Remember, the infant is seeing an object out  in the  real world.   The
perception of  that object  causes associative  links to  filter through and
semi-activate the one noun-fiber within  the  whole  class  of  nouns.   The
desire to  speak a  word causes  the general  noun-control fiber to send the
blanket signal to all the noun  fibers.   The two  semi-activation signals -
the blanket  one and  the specific  one - meet in the appropriate noun-fiber
and cause it to fire a recall-signal over to the  word-engram stored  in the
auditory memory  channel.  In this system, if the infant has not yet learned
the most appropriate word for the perceived object, he or she will blurt out
some   nearly   appropriate   word   which  bears  the  closest  associative
relationship to the perceived  object.   The word  chosen by  the infant may
sound funny to adults, but it makes sense within the mind of the infant.

     In  like  manner,  an  abstract  control-fiber  for each part of speech
governs all the members within the class of that part  of speech.   When the
infant goes  on from  learning nouns  to learning  verbs, likewise a general
verb-control fiber governs all available verbs.

     Once  we  clearly  make  the  point  here  that  one  abstract  gang of
control-fibers for a particular part of speech can govern all the members of
the class  of that  part of  speech, we  then have  finished the fundamental
description  of   level  three  of  the  mind  and  we  have  described  the
part-of-speech building-blocks  which  make  up  the  sentence-structures in
natural human languages.

     If we  describe a  particular human language, we move from the internal
domain of genetically provided, universal deep  features of  the level-three
mind out  to the  external field  of cultural  tradition.  We see the innate
ability of the human mind to segregate or classify various  parts of speech,
and we  see the  cultural ability  of the mind to concatenate part-of-speech
control-fibers into sentence structures.   The  combinatorial  power  of the
linguistic portion  of the abstract memory channel allows many influences to
affect and determine the  dynamic operation  of sentence  structures.  These
influences  can  include  considerations  of  number,  logic, time or tense,
emotion, and so on.  Any semantic consideration  that can  be conceptualized
(preferably  subconsciously)  can  be  represented  as a control-fiber which
figures in the composition of sentence structures within a natural language.

     This article  does  not  attempt  to  formalize  the  representation of
natural  language  within  a  machine  mind.  We avoid such formalization by
means  of  utter  simplification,   and   then   we   leave   the  elaborate
formalizations to the expert professional linguists.

     Our utter  simplification of  human language  consists here in treating
language as if it had only two parts of speech:  nouns  and verbs.   We want
to simplify language so utterly that the reader will, on the one hand, grant
that noun-plus-verb is the  essential core  of human  language, and,  on the
other  hand,  comprehend  how  this  design  for a mind generates utterances
consisting of noun plus verb.

     Therefore, instead of formalizing  an elaborate  design for  one of the
natural languages,  we ask  the following common-sense questions.  Is it not
clear that a mind which can grasp the concept of the doer of some action and
then link  that concept,  expressed as a noun, with another concept, that of
the action itself expressed as a  verb, has  performed the  basic linguistic
feat  which  is  both  representative  and  definitive  of  human linguistic
achievement?  Is not everything else refinement and enhancement?

     This design does not beg the  question by  declaring an  easy system of
syntax and  by ignoring  semantics.   The foregoing bulk of this article has
laid   the   semantic   groundwork   for   proposing   that   part-of-speech
control-fibers are  the semantic building-blocks which the mind concatenates
into the sentence-structures or syntax of a human  language.   This informal
simplification of language is meant as a common meeting-ground for a view of
language and a view of the brain-mind.

     Each abstract-memory control-fiber gang for a part of  speech becomes a
node  on  a  sentence-structure  of  concatenated  nodes.    The  nodes  are
concatenated by a spiral of linguistic habituation.  Just as  an associative
tag  fetches   a  word  stored  in  the  auditory  memory  channel,  another
associative tag attached to the end of the stored word  sends a  signal back
to the  sentence-structure reporting  that the  task of one node is complete
and that now the next node should go into operation.   Thus  dynamic control
of the  semantically driven  process of  sentence-generation shifts back and
forth between the abstract memory channel  where the  syntax is  stored, and
the auditory  memory channel where the words are stored.  This shifting back
and forth, although it happens in  the  flat  plane  of  the  mind  grid, is
extended over  time and is logically complex enough to be the flat analog of
a spiral winding through time.

     Each use of  a  sentence-structure  reaffirms  the  habituation  of the
sentence-structure.  Any typical node in the sentence-structure can be added
or deleted by the habituational device  of practice.   The  associative tags
which  operate  under  the  (short-term)  domination of a sentence-structure
exercise their own (long-term)  domination  over  the  sentence-structure by
reaffirming and  habituating it.   Change  is caused  from without, but then
each subsequently identical loop  of  the  spiral  takes  hold  of  what was
initially change and habituates it into a long-term structure.

     The  concatenated  nodes  of  sentence-structures  within  the abstract
memory channel reach over, so to  speak,  via  associative  tags  and string
together words  and morphemes  within the  auditory memory channel.  We hear
our own verbal thought within our auditory memory channel.

     When this system of  generating  sentences  is  worked  in  reverse, it
comprehends  sentences  by  decoding  all  the  associations  among concepts
conveyed by the linguistic  sentence-structure.   In the  comprehension of a
sentence,  new  associative  links  are formed among the abstract conceptual
fibers in the abstract memory channel of the  receiving mind.   The sentence
is  recorded  both  as  an  episode  in  experiential memory and as a slight
rearrangement of the associative links among  abstract conceptual  fibers in
the abstract memory channel.

     In this system, an incoming sentence does not have to be believed.  The
entrenched,  pre-existing  associative  links  in  the  receiving  mind  can
withstand and overwhelm the links asserted by the linguistic structure of an
incoming sentence.

     This design seeks to explain how a multi-lingual  speaker can  keep his
or  her  languages  apart  and  avoid  running them together while speaking.
Since the vocabulary items are all segregated down at the  deep levels, they
remain segregated at the highest level, that of the particular language.

     If  you  build  an  artificial  mind,  do  not try to program it like a
computer.  Build it, turn it on, and commence teaching it.