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MIND AND BRAIN
NOTES
By "matter" we understand a metalanguage shortcut to
the physical concept of discretized, integrated high density
areas of Gravity/Inertia Field. Inverted commas stress its
contrast to the common so called materialistic usage of the
term, which denotes a meaningless reified abstraction void
of physical sense and absent from physical vocabulary.
Concurrent physics sees phenomena in the general form of
C/D polarity of continuous/discrete aspects. In order to
comply with the common usage we shall use "matter",
indicating with inverted commas its meaning of discrete
aspect of involved phenomena.
In the context of the C/D polarity, mind and brain are
respectively continuous and discrete polar counterparts, the
P-Equivalent aspects of the phenomenon "reflection".
Let us stress that our posited mind-brain relationship has
nothing to do with any metaphysical dualism, but is an
entirely physical instance of the fundamental physical
C/D polarity.
In "STRUCTURES OF MIND" we have correspondingly defined "mind"
as continuous background support of sensual events and thus
a synonym of "awareness" as defined in "TIME, AWARENESS AND
EVENTS", better fit for structuring and for the currently vital
"mind-brain" Problem.
Now, brain with its neural network is clearly a scientific
abstract model justified, as all abstractions, by its capacity
to coordinate particular "neurological" events-observations.
One of the most persistent, most deeply enrooted illusory
"transcendental reifications" consists in considering brain's
neural network as a "real object" in the "World out There".
One of the most noxious too, because, once reified, it's
often promoted to the utmost foundation of the phantasmagoric,
illusory, transcendental "reality".
Information Processing
In the present chapter we shall substitute for "reflection" its
technical synonym "information processing".
Information Processing may be schematized with help of three
entities: Processor, Input and Output. Input, a set of
Receptor devices, feeds the Processor which generates Output,
a set of action Trigger devices, fed partially back to the
Input as the cybernetic feed-back..
Within this schema and in an arbitrary - not preprogrammed
or memorized - situation, action involves the perceptional-
motor coupling, i.e. relating all Receptor/Trigger couples,
in order to select those pertinent to the particular act.
Now, discrete "material" Processor cannot exceed 2*10e47
operations per gram and second (Bremermann's limit[*] (BL)).
Enormous as it may seem, it turns out to be negligible.
2*10e47 is a small number when compared with processing rates
that one would need to carry out certain search processes.
For example, Minsky gives the number of all possible move
sequences in chess as about 10**120.
Conservatively estimated Input and Output of an advanced
organism contains 10e6 devices each. Supposing simplest 2
state devices, relating Input with Output requires
R=2**(2*10e6) operations. Its Log=602060, indicates R to be
1 with 602060 zeros.
On the other hand BL for a kg (roughly the mass of the brain)
is about 2*1e50 or 1 with 50 zeros.
Dividing R by BL we get about 1 with 602010 zeros seconds
as the lowest limit of time required by discrete "material"
brain to relate conservatively estimated input and output of
an organism. The practical "synaptic" limit[**] is by about
34 orders longer, because the neuron structure of the brain
is much courser than the atomic granularity implied by the BL.
Thus, Morphogenesis, behavior of living Organisms, Human
complex scientific and social Projects clearly require some
additional agent different and incomparably faster than the
raw discrete "matter", let alone the neural brain.
MIND, BRAIN AND THEIR INTERFACE
Mind
The chapter "STRUCTURES OF MIND" postulates a Structure
homomorphic with the "Three Worlds" of Ref1, encompassing
three faculties: Sensorium, Imagery and Symbolism, accounting
for mind's functions, such as perception, imagination,
cognition, symbolizing, inference, reflection and
understanding.
Brain
Brain's structure pertinent to information processing
encompasses specialized cells called Neurons and their
interfaces called Synapses. A neuron consists roughly of
several dendrites, of a cell body and an axon. Dendrites are
receptors of electric impulses which travel through them to
the cell body and make it "fire", sending electric impulse
further down the axon till axon terminal.
Axon terminal lies close to dendrites of neighboring neurons,
separated from them by synapses.
A synapse consists of:
1. a presynaptic ending that contains neurotransmitters,
2. a postsynaptic ending that contains receptor sites for
neurotransmitters and,
3. a synaptic cleft or space between 1 and 2.
Neurotransmitter is a chemical released by impulse reaching
the presynaptic ending at the axon terminal and travelling
through the cleft to the postsynaptic ending in vicinity of
a neighboring neuron's dendrite. Neurotransmitter reaches the
dendrite and triggers an electric impulse that travels down
to the cell body of the neighboring neuron which in turn may
fire.
This network structure of neurons-vertices and synapses-edges
allows millions of neurons to "talk" with each other.
However, it would imply so far chain reactions in which a
single impulse will fire the whole network rather than create
any local pattern.
That's why we have two sorts of neurotransmitters: activating
and inhibiting. The receiving neuron "counts the votes" and
decides to fire in case of sufficient "activating majority"
or else to stay idle.
While freely stretching an arm, the triceps contracting
neurons will get activated, while those of the biceps
inhibited in order to relax the opposite bending force. In
controlled stretching both activations and inhibitions will
be precisely measured out to achieve the desired action.
Neurons are connected so that when they fire together, they
"wire" together, to form stronger synaptic connections. This
is the brain's dialectic counterpart of mind's learning
faculty defined above.
Brain-Mind interface
We have seen that discrete "material" processor of the size
of human brain would need about 1e600000 seconds to process
the Information involved by a simplest action of an advanced
organism. This is a hypothetical limit of what the evolution
may reach in another billion years. The practical limit of
brain's neural network by itself is about 1e900000 seconds.
Consequently, the discrete "material" brain, including its
neural network structure cannot account alone for human and
living organisms' behavior and needs for it the association
with the continuous mind..
We must look for some polar interface, whose continuous and
discrete aspects can interact respectively with continuous
mind and discrete brain supporting mind/brain covariance.
Field suggests itself as a continuum, whose discrete
singularities are sources "generated" by firing neurons.
Many Neurologists see field as mind itself. We cannot accept
it, because we see mind on the one hand as synonym of
awareness, observing, but not observable and, on the other
hand not as a polarity, but as a continuous aspect of the
polarity mind/brain. Polar, observable field may only function
as a transformation interface.
Another, more complex and rather exciting theory proposes
Field generated hologram as interface to mind, or mind
itself. Hologram has many striking features, starting with
totality being in each part. Some Neurologists claim that
memories are not stored in any specific location in the
brain, but appear to be distributed over the whole brain,
much as any portion of a holographic image is distributed
over the whole structure. Suppressing a part does not change
anything in the image, else than making it fainter.
The dynamic TimeSpace of the holographic image is homomorphic
with our Imagery structure and may interface with it.
Again, like in the case of Field, we might see the hologram as
a possible interface, but not as mind itself.
We shall just mention here a rather poetic theory of
pan-hologram based on "holographic paradigm". A small group
of researchers sees "real universe" as a holographic blur of
frequencies and the brain also as a hologram which selects
some of this blur's frequencies and transforms them into
sensory perceptions. In this "ocean of consciousness" we
would be the "weary rivers that wind somewhere safe to sea".
There is a striking affinity of this paradigm with religions
of the East which have long upheld, that the physical world is
Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical
existents moving through a physical world, this too is an
illusion. Most, if not all protagonists of the paradigm are
attired by eastern beliefs, include the paranormal in their
inquiries and some report about shamans making instantly
disappear and reappear entire groves of trees.
Let's note that so far we have justified the need of some
covariant continuum with consideration of the processing
speed. Another necessary justification is provided by the
Morphogenesis. Whether we consider it from the point of
view of Haken's Synergetics or Thom's Catastrophes, it
consists in ordering a continuum.
Final note
Brain and mind structures described above are models
satisfying all model requirements, including falsifiability.
Brain-mind interface, perhaps the most exciting area of
inquiry, produced so far only theories, i.e. deductively
consistent structures lacking factual falsification.
References:
Ref1: Popper and Eccles "The Self and Its Brain"
(Springer International) Page 327, Fig E5-7, etc.
[*]BREMERMANN'S LIMIT
No discrete "material" system whether artificial or living
can compute more than 2 x 10e47 bits per second and per gram
of its mass.
This limit refers to a self-contained system where the power
supply is included in the "matter" and where "computation" is
defined as the transmission of information over one or more
channels within the system. Recognizing that computation
requires energy for changing physical markers and for
recognizing such changes in subsequent steps, the limit is
obtained from Einstein's relation between energy and "matter",
E=mc2, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which specifies
the inaccuracy or noise in the measurement of energy.
Current computers as well as the brain are far from
approximating this limit because they don't utilize atomic
events for the storage and transmission of information.
Ref2: Bremermann's paper
OPTIMIZATION THROUGH EVOLUTION AND RECOMBINATION*
H. J. Bremermann
Part I. Limitations On Data Processing Arising From Quantum
Theory
Part II. Evolution Processes and Optimization
Part I is pertinent to the derivation of the limit and to
its implications for the Mind-Brain issue.
[**] BRAIN'S COMPUTATIONAL POWER
The total computational power of the brain is limited
by several factors, including the ability to propagate
nerve impulses from one place in the brain to another.
Propagating a nerve impulse a distance of 1 millimeter
requires about 5 x 10-15 joules. Because the total
energy dissipated by the brain is about 10 watts,
this means nerve impulses can collectively travel at
most 2 x 10e15 millimeters per second. By estimating
the distance between synapses we can in turn estimate
how many synapse operations per second the brain can do.
This estimate is only slightly smaller than one based
on multiplying the estimated number of synapses by the
average firing rate, and two orders of magnitude
greater than one based on functional estimates of
retinal computational power. It seems reasonable
to conclude that the human brain has a raw computational
power between 10e13 and 10e16 operations per second.
