On Computing the Brain and Mind

More or less Abstract

Here we look at many facets or aspects of the brain and mind to understand meta-information and regular information and any information as it relates to the brain and mind. We break the brain and mind up into disciplines, concepts and anything else that comes along. We are free in the Sandbox to explore the brain and the mind. Anything goes as long as we are making sense of working out the brain and mind . . .

Definitions

When defining the title ‘On Computing the Brain and Mind’

It is important to have in mind some definitions of the three most important words in the title: Computing, Brain and Mind. I do not want to use any specific definition - by this I mean I want to keep flexibility in the conversation especially to begin with. The idea is that we are trying to make sense of how we work out the brain and mind. Everything in the definitions is valid to use.

≡ Computing and compute, from Google dictionary:

► Computing as a noun is the use or operation of computers
- in a sentence looks like this: “developments in mathematics and computing”.

► As a verb, compute is to reckon or calculate (a figure or amount)
- in a sentence looks like this: “the hire charge is computed on a daily basis”.

► Informally, compute means to seem reasonable; make sense
- in a sentence looks like this: “the idea of a woman alone in a pub did not compute”.
:diamonds: synonyms for compute: calculate, work out, reckon, figure, enumerate, determine, evaluate, assess, quantify, put a figure on; add up, add together, count up, tally, total, totalize; measure; tot up; cast

:diamonds: Origin: early 17th century: from French computer or Latin computare, from com- ‘together’ + putare ‘to settle (an account)’.

≡ Brain, from Google dictionary:

► an organ of soft nervous tissue contained in the skull of vertebrates, functioning as the coordinating centre of sensation and intellectual and nervous activity.

≡ Mind, from Google dictionary:

► the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

For the sake of our exploration it can be said that brain and mind are synonymous.

Two of many questions

How is it that we work out what the brain is doing?
How is it that we work out what the mind is doing?

We are not necessarily here to answer these two questions as there are many more questions . . .
. . . these two questions set for us a theme to work with . . .

Initial Topic - Scanning - A Dirty Intro

Here a dirty intro is to be taken as an intro written on the fly with no hardcore thought put into it . . .

Scanning the brain in order to understand its ability to process patterns of information.

From Google dictionary: to scan is to look at all parts of (something) carefully in order to detect some feature.
- in a sentence looks like this: “he raised his binoculars to scan the coast”

First we must understand that scanning is not just about technology - in this context we are looking at something with care to detect a feature. Although previously I have mentioned flexibility, so any of Google’s definitions will suffice. There is quite a bit of inference going on to say the least - to say this is done without errors is quite silly. The inference is made on the following: Cutting up the neocortex - delightful, brain scans(neuroimaging) - there are at least ten we could choose from. Interestingly the idea of neuroimaging goes back a long way and its life actually starts out in blood circulation over 120 years ago but anyway. PET and fMRI scans are very useful. EEG has added much data despite its spatial limitations - there is no substitute for cutting the brain up. Obviously microscopes(optical and electron based) give plenty of visual data.

A little bit of psychological data can go a long way to get started.

Philosophically we have been asking many questions about the brain and mind for a long time.

By scanning data whether by computer or making sense with our minds we are able to make many conclusions by looking for correlations in available data.
We are also able to create metadata that can be graphed for visual reference.

Let the ambiguity begin . . .

:laughing:

gib

I am a bit unorganized at the moment but we should be able to make more sense of this as we go . . .

Most certainly brains as computers - although the second part leaves room for thought, I am certainly all about computers not making mistakes.

The lecture sounds interesting - is it available on video?

Do you think causation is important when looking at the brain? I do . .

There certainly is an explanation for the brain. I am just getting warmed up so please be patient.

gib

The conversation kind of reminds me of plugging in a video camera to a television and the facing the camera toward the television . . .

  • you get an infinite amount of televisions . . .

Repeating the same pattern, kind of like my television example. Computers are great to compare the brain to. My main interest is as you put it internal information processing. I agree for now when you say: we are modeling the design after what we see going on inside our minds (introspection). How much the brain is like a computer is interesting because the architecture is quite different but the operation is rather similar.

Heads up - I will likely answer some things more than once to cover different perspectives.

I suggest we model the system on our mind rather than the brain. Hopefully this will become evident in the next post.

gib

I am warmed up now - time to get more in depth into this exploration . . . I am really going to go for this - like crazy. There is no time like the present for me or even yourself to really run wild with concepts, ideas, thoughts, words or whatever about the brain or mind. Do not feel obligated to answer everything - there is going to be a lot - believe me - feel free to only answer that which interests you or all of it. I will happily read and respond to everything you type.

Sandbox is a playground . . . as Arcturus Descending says. There are probably going to be some breaks in logic - because I am going to get the thoughts out as quickly as possible - that is what questions are for - to clear up any mishap I might introduce. There might be spelling mistakes and bad grammar - I will happily get over that if you are happy to ignore it and press on. I really like the idea of just going like crazy.

We have with certainty designed computers. They do model parts of the brain in specific ways. I am going with the mind rather than the brain - why? because no matter what the mind can still be differentiated from the brain - even if only abstract. Two forms of logic - soft logic - hard logic.

The rendering art and running video games I will leave aside for the time being and I will return to the specific ways of doing mathematics and solving logical problems. One challenge in AI has been to model the game GO - perhaps you have heard of it - it is incredible for a couple of reasons - eventually you shall see how they relate to this conversation:

We were able to model Chess in the 70’s or 80’s(don’t quote me on that). As you are probably already aware you can play Chess against the computer. Many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to require more elements that mimic human thought than chess. Chess has on average 37 legal moves per turn compared with 150 to 200 average legal moves for GO.

I added this for a little historical context - to read the whole article which is actually quite lengthy click here.

Now if we were to consider how the computer models GO compared to a brain I think that we would find the two very different. Our mind however would be similar and just a bit slower. I am still claiming that computers are a result of the mind and not the brain - but this can get ambiguous of course.

Neurons themselves are quite a bit different to logic gates or even combinations of them. These gates are the AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR, EXOR and EXNOR gates. Digital circuits are of course modeled using combinations of logic gates. When we are building a computer we are building a mass of gates - in many ways different to the brain. We can put software on the hardware. We have to do conversions from binary all the way up to English with many layers in between - these are called abstractions.

The mind sits on top of the brain as the software sits on top of the hardware - then there is the case of firmware of which analogies can be made:

Hardware - > Instinct
Firmware - > Mood
Software - > Emotion

Hardware - > Brain
Firmware - > Instinct
Software - > Mind

Or however else one wants to divide things up . . .
. . . obviously it is these divisions that we work with when we discuss these sorts of things . . .
. . . the divisions are a matter of convenience and . . .
. . . standards are just divisions that we agree upon . . .

Despite Go’s relatively simple rules, Go is very complex - so with some relatively simple logic rules we are able to build a brain, which is complex - however the mind is a completely different kettle of fish. To get at the mind we must first enter through the brain. The brain is something that we are able to take out of the skull and sit on a bench ready to chop up. The full brain sitting on the bench is intact - a logic circuit. Plasticity - huh - totally estimated the wrong way - thoughts and memories et cetera are able to be interpolated and interwoven - id est a new circuit is not created for every thought or every memory as is suggested by plasticity.

Go possesses more possibilities than the total number of atoms in the visible universe - all in a 19×19 grid of lines - the brain is a lot more complex, obviously, so it possesses more possibilities than the total number of possibilities of Go. Why do I make such a big deal about the mind then? The mind sits atop of the brain - simple - the mind possesses more possibilities than the brain through its ability to interpolate thoughts and interweave memories. Why then through out our life do we not come up with thoughts and memories that are more than the total number of atoms in the visible universe? A good question to leave unanswered I think.

This less addresses the second part above. You are right they are tools - powerful and scary tools - but the tools that sit in the driver seat are much scarier. We make many more mistakes than a computer. You can see that I mostly agree with you and no doubt may sense some disagreement - but this is good I think.

What does it take to form an opinion? The mind of course - what do we know about the mind? Itself is complex as is the underlying substrate(the brain). Is our brain a mechanical slave to our mind? It had to be asked because it just came into my mind. We agreed earlier on in the year that we program ourselves and others through communication and information et cetera or something along them lines.

But what does it take to form an opinion?

► Hard logic is what the brain works with.
► Firm logic is akin to instinct.
► Soft logic is what the mind works with.

Does the human mind really render art and run video games better than a computer? Depends on context, perspective et cetera - I think I get the gist of what you originally meant though. Such minute details really are not so important in this type of conversation. Crazy, crazy and more crazy . . .

:laughing:

gib

Now obviously I have split these posts up with good reason, because the responses get quite lengthy.

In another post you wrote: We have to remember that our brains evolved through a process of natural selection, it wasn’t designed on purpose. We get things right and we think rationally only to the extent sufficient to get us by. It’s amazing how often we make leaps of logic and lucky guesses. We infer so much by instinct. For example, I’m preparing a barbecue, I ask a friend: can you go out and get burgers? I don’t need to specify that I mean buy burgers from the grocery store, not kill a cow and gut the meat out of him. How is it that the brain automatically knows the right interpretation? To which I responded: I would suggest the brain does it from pattern matching and differentiation - I would further conclude that this is also how new thoughts evolve - epiphanies. To which you responded:

You are right on here in the way you comprehended what I was saying. There is a separate matching pattern for each food item - so closely related some items are, that the brain gets lazy and interpolates similar items to minimize storage of patterns - interweaves the memory imprint into similar existing imprints - why? we do not know - there is so much room available for storage it is crazy, perhaps that is why we are able to build epiphanies. Your usage of the word evolve is very cool - it is a convergence of sorts.

From one of my other threads - on the topic of emotions(keep in mind this model is in a state of transition):

I have two emotional sets - the first is directed at the self and the second is directed at others.

I like to group my emotional sets in to two basic groups:

► Negative Emotions

► Positive Emotions
From here other emotions are built over time via two more sets of emotions - evolutionary emotions and configuration emotions - by evolutionary I mean that I will attempt to at the very least account for hereditary characteristics, personal evolution is something I am taking into account separate from configuration - by configuration I mean such things as personal, family, social, love, cultural local, cultural national, cultural global and many others.

[b]Evolutionary emotions are those that happen seemingly by themselves . . .

. . . and . . .

. . . configuration emotions happen with the influence of the conscious mind or external sources . . .[/b]
As you can see, we view evolution under a similar pattern. I would suggest the brain is taking a break from following regular patterns when an epiphany seeds the pattern net - I also suggest that Déjà vu, Jamais vu and Presque vu follow a similar logic to seed but I am not sure if seeding is taking place or the seed was already there and some sort of conscious gridlock is taking place. I am still researching mental paradoxes.

The mind is usually OK with this but the brain considers it insanity - that is my current way of looking at it anyhow. Either way it is still novel thinking. True insanity is when the brain and mind are in a semi permanent or permanent state of flux as in an irregularity - there is no rational match between the brain and mind - interesting.

I am pretty certain the neocortex is involved in processing poetry and metaphor. To which you responded:

Pattern matching is definitely the larger part of the puzzle - for now at least - even glial cells are said to offer some processing among the neural net. As you say there are other parts of the brain involved in processing - this is where things are going to get interesting, let us come back to that sometime in the near future.

From a response to Arc in another thread: I was reading on ScienceDaily that "Poetry is like music to the mind . . . "
. . . here are a few select snippets from that article:

Just for the hell of it let me add three comments from that thread:

encode_decode: I like to think of it in terms of the mood being a pond and the emotion being a stone that is thrown into the pond eventually the ripples make it back to the edge of the pond.

Arcturus Descending: I liked that analogy. I have often thrown pebbles into a pond and watched the interplay between that pond, pebble and ripples. It is quite beautiful to see and it points out the effect which one single action can have on everything which surrounds us.

encode_decode: Well thank you - I like your response. If the stone is going to the depths of the pond - I wonder what is in the depths of the mood. All this talk about mood and emotions requires one to dig deep.

I find that if I have put an extreme amount of thought into the post when I write it - then I have to spend some time decoding my own writing.
To which you responded:

To say that, you are implicating you and I in being writers of on the fly content - and I do not think that is necessarily true - I think there is some partial truth sure. Right now I am writing thoughts on the fly - actually more or less throughout this whole thread I have been hovering between long held beliefs and on the fly. Are our thoughts as transient as you indicate with the word ephemeral? Like I have mentioned the brain simply does not make a separate circuit for any thought - this leaves us with weighting in the networks - the more you are thinking about something the more truth is lent to neuroplasticity - lol - sorry - neuroplasticity is great when the brain becomes injured but its truthfulness gets less and less with a healthy mind - remember vicinity and analogy.

Ephemeral thoughts are being weighted for importance - then integrate into the network - if their weight is small then their impact is small - like a small pebble’s impact on the pond leaving small ripples. I am sure this makes some sense to you.

Briefly revisiting the neocortex; think about this for a moment, 3D projection is any method of mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane. As most current methods for displaying graphical data are based on planar (pixel information from several bitplanes) two-dimensional media, the use of this type of projection is widespread, especially in computer graphics, engineering and drafting. Now let us contemplate the dimension of mind - mapping its dimensional products to the neocortex - this can be done in reverse to map the three-dimensional points of the neocortex back to the mind - hopefully I got that right.

The neocortex has six planes or layers, the first four from memory serve the same purpose - or is it the first three - it does not matter right now. When mapping the mind to the brain - or in this case the neocortex - obviously we are only interested in the parts that map - the rest can be discarded for the sake of conversation - so when mapping the mind to the neocortex we are mapping to columns and layers and the grid of columns in each layer - very powerful to be sure.

Ah, the last two paragraphs I just wanted to add in for the hell of it, however what you said before: We get things right and we think rationally only to the extent sufficient to get us by. It’s amazing how often we make leaps of logic and lucky guesses; well the neocortex can do that by itself and that is exactly what it does.

:-k

An aside . . .

I want to touch briefly on similar thoughts - you know, analogies and such - to do this I want to use an orthogonal array to demonstrate. Remember I was talking about projection and interpolation. We have already pretty much defined projection so lets not waste anymore space and just define interpolation:

From Google dictionary, noun: interpolation; plural noun: interpolations

  1. the insertion of something of a different nature into something else.
    - “the interpolation of songs into the piece”

:diamonds: Mathematics
the insertion of an intermediate value or term into a series by estimating or calculating it from surrounding known values.
“yields were estimated using linear interpolation”

  1. a remark interjected in a conversation.
    “as the evening progressed their interpolations became more ridiculous”
    We can use the following array as a 2D plane - what we are really interested in is how interpolation is going on.
    Remember we have projected a small part of the mind(which is obsessed with 1’s and 2’s) onto this array:

[code]
Hello world!

I am output from a 2D array . . .

1  1  1
2  2  1
1  2  2
2  1  2[/code]

Notice that the four ordered pairs (2-tuples) formed by the rows restricted to the first and third columns, namely (1,1), (2,1), (1,2) and (2,2) are all the possible ordered pairs of the two element set and each appears exactly once. The second and third columns would give, (1,1), (2,1), (2,2) and (1,2); again, all possible ordered pairs each appearing once. The same statement would hold had the first and second columns been used. This is thus an orthogonal array of strength two.

Regarding the word “strength”; the word “strength” can be replaced by the word “weight” from the previous post. I think what is interesting to note here is that in the array there are twelve slots(3 x 4) and we only need 8 namely (1,1), (2,1), (1,2) and (2,2) - so rather than having all of the original slots we weight down to 8 - a saving of 4. We can discard the last column to be used for something else later in our brains life - plasticity again.
Hopefully you can abstractly see the connection to analogy going on.

An inefficient example to say the least but the brain is a lot more efficient. Interestingly there is a thing called, Orthogonal array testing:

And yes I took the array and the paragraph underneath it from Wikipedia.

The beauty of inefficient examples is that they are usually easier to understand and help us to intuit things more quickly. Oh yes - we are not twisting truths here, instead we are performing mind bending madness - this borders truths quite well . . .

It really is quite strange how, “same” and “different” work when it comes to the brain . . . paradox.

Think additions and subtractions - these are analogies - but how? :laughing: we can see by looking outside of the black box.

8-[

gib

Awesome, we are finally down to a few things I need to answer - again I might answer more than once - just a heads up. I am not going to go too in depth here because there are so many things I want to get off my chest - we were talking about an article I read but this post does have some relation to this thread which is why I have placed it here. Yeah - I am not a huge fan of QM. I have also read some data that points to correlation implying causation - that tells me that there is something up with QM. To which you responded:

I should be able to dig the source up quite easily gib - no problem.

I might be very surprised as a matter of fact but nothing would surprise me these days :laughing: Oh, you are probably better at statistics than I - that might be an important tidbit - I guess we might find out later - it does not bother me if I make errors only that I do not know about them.

Very, very interesting, and to think a good sense of intuition picks up these things in an instant(not literally) when traversing the world and interacting with people. Correlations are just as useful as causation when it comes to modelling the brain as we have seen.

Yeah, this is a great way to explain it. I will dig that article up so you can read it.

OK - I have a lot of other stuff to cover so I will be back later.

:smiley:

From way back when . . .

Before I started taking my medications, my mind was so full of thoughts I am not even sure whether I was making sense to myself - it felt like I was at the time. This post is just my thoughts from a while back - when my mind was a lot more muddled - I am not sure how much this will be worth but I am going to put it here and see what I can pick out from it that may be useful - I will pick it apart over time.

This might be encouraging of dialog. I will try my best to reverse engineer what I mean by the concept of meaning(this was a first pass attempt):

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. {Being able to see similarity in otherwise unrelated topics} Using the knowledge acquired throughout life to compare with newfound knowledge to either instantly get some meaning or with thought, work it out. The total sum of experience from birth to the present. {Just a tool to perform step one} By asking something abstract and only using the accumulated information in ones memory it is possible to derive meaning from anything. {accumulated information being the total sum plus the newfound}

abstract impression = total sum[derivativeSimilarities]/newfound

answer = analogy derived from: abstract impression

integrated answer = answer ∫ newfound

integrated answer = meaning
I imagine this being a driver to our imagination which may lead to the ultimate question/s and answer/s. I am guessing that seeds of meaning initiate when the quotient is obtained from derivativeSimilarities and newfound. Skipping a step or two we can use an integrated impression to drive a question for further knowledge. The propagation of meaning can then be drawn from the answer and question laterally. It also looks like this reverse engineers itself; in some obscure fashion. So that covers the stuff that is kind of baffling me and I think I am making some sort of mistake and that is why I am not getting the result I want.

Classically:

When an equal amount is taken from equals, an equal amount results.

meaning = meaning
Analogy on the other hand is just confusing; how we can somehow end up with an invention based upon some partial derivative knowledge.

If on the other hand I go with my mixing of concepts here, then it would possibly be where the concepts intersect or correlate.

Right on with the ambiguity in that we seem to use a lot of interpretation to derive meaning. So if interpretation is where meaning lies then there seems to be more than one version of truth. The direction on the other hand may arrive at the definite like 1 + 1 = 2. Mathematically I think it is like a system of equations where each equation or part of the system has the flexibility to be just a little different from its counterpart peers ending with some sort of normalization in the system.

The resulting normalization being the derivative meaning. Do you think that there is a limit to the representations anyway? ; for each individual? ; Meaningful ones I mean! I am thinking that meaning is derived in some purely mental manner but I can see how this could be different depending on the factors involved ending up at such conceptual states like; did the tree in the woods really fall if no-one was there to witness it?

I am guessing that meaning is somehow intertwined with the driving forces of life itself; possibly a bunch of quanta that somehow link. Apparently in the “quantum world” - correlation can imply causation. The question is intended to be of the open type(ambiguous). Maybe I don’t even understand the meaning of the question that I seek the answer to. My attempt at some poorly delivered humor. Maybe the question and answer are circular dependencies.

I am not even sure how much of these thoughts I agree with anymore but I needed to post it so that when I read through this thread again I might interpolate the information into a useful place in my mind. Yes, it is related to meaning as opposed to brain and mind - but meaning is related to brain and mind too.

Hey encode, you’ve given me a lot to parse through here. I may not get to this right away, but I will get to it. Stay tuned…

Do not start with that premise because that is not true and that would lead you towards a wrong direction. Both are different entities and execute different works too.

The methodology of working out is very difficult. There are some certain means of actual physical verification but very demanding in nature, and certainly not within everyone’s reach. Yes, one can get somewhat closer the reality by philosophy, yet not exactly there.

As far as their work is concerned, brain provide collective inputs of all the sense organs to the mind, mind analyze that provided information and if necessary, it asks brain to give command to some body parts as to suit mind.

with love,
sanjay

Hey gib

Thank you for responding.

I am absolutely in no hurry and have no expectations at all - my suggestion is to only respond to that which talks to you - if that is all of it then so be it. If it is none of it then so be it. I am certain that you will respond to some of it though.

I was just so damn inspired that I really went crazy with it.

Man I think the topic of this post is “it”.

:smiley:

zinnat

I do try my best to exhaust as many pathways as possible . . .

Goodness no, that is not my stance - I firmly believe the mind and body are two different things - to me they are connected. That was an invitation for those that believe otherwise - to which they still do not have good proof. The proof that I see is that the brain responds to the mind.

Exactly.

Thank you zinnat. Do we call you zinnat or sanjay?

:smiley:

Taking a computer as an analogy -

body - hardware
brain - firmwere
mind - software
consciousness - computer operator
(shruti/ruh)

with love,
sanjay

Sanjay is my real name while zinnat is a screen one. You can choose whatever you want.

with love,
sanjay

Sanjay!!! I haven’t seen you in these parts for ages. I was told you couldn’t stand Turd so you left. :laughing: Well, I haven’t seen him around these parts in a while, so welcome back.

Encode… stay tuned…

He is just a naughty and silly child to me who thinks very high of himself. I took a pause because of some personal reasons. I had some serious disagreements with my employer thus quit his job. As i have to earn money so i stared trading in stock market as i am familiar with it since long. So, i was busy in all that stuff. Posting at a philosophy forum is a serious thing to me, not a time pass. And, I am not a kind of multitasker by nature and cannot focus on many things at one time thus stopped posting. That is all. Even now i would have to very selective.

with love,
sanjay

You may not believe it, only a couple of days ago I thought of you, was wondering if you would ever return.

Voila! here you are! HA! How strange.

May I also extend a welcome back to you.

I am Aaron - I will call you Sanjay.

:smiley:

No worries gib. I might go have a coffee before I rest - backwards thing to do.

:smiley:

That is fine to me.

with love,
sanjay