IUBio

Modelling the human brain by modelling its evolutionary emergence

Frans van der Walle fw.novoware at wxs.nl
Thu Feb 21 10:37:17 EST 2002


Several respondendents asked for more specific information on the modelling
environment. I was of course aware of this need before I started this
discussion, given a
sufficient interest. I had prepared therefore the following attached files:

1  Syscomm04bionet19.2.wpd. It is a WordPerfect7 file of the first six
chapters of
‘Biography of Man', which is mentioned in my website as the integrated
summary of the
modelling procedure. It refers for many details to underlying documents,
namely parts I
through VI, VIII through X in the series 'The Information System Man'. It
comprises the
‘heart' of the modelling environment; the other chapters discuss
consequences of the
modelling environment for a number of subject areas, such as: language
(still rudimentary),
psychology, psychiatry, politics, crime, law and AI. I must stress however
that these
applications to the functionality of the present case of Homo sapiens
sapiens has functioned
also as inspiration for the evolutionary analyses. As Mat rightly observes:
‘the evolutionary
process is critically dependent on unpredictable and largely unknowable
environmental
conditions at those early periods of several 100 million years ago. I
formulated this
‘modelling design problem' as follows:
     'Man', and in fact every presently living entity is the result of a
chaotic procedure,
called evolution. If we could repeat that procedure, the result (i.e. Homo
sapiens sapiens)
might very well be quite different'.
   My statement that modelling of the present brain is only possible by
modelling its
evolutionary emergence is therefore in itself true but should be ‘upgraded'
by stating also that
the present characteristics of Man's brain should be considered as well as
‘aiming point' in
the evolutionary modelling, in case more than one possible modelling
extension presents
itself. As a result the various parts I through XI of the series 'The
information system Man'
were compiled largely in parallel. The additional chapters and the various
underlying parts I
through XI comprise therefore also (often more detailed) modelling
information. However the
abovementioned file comprises already some 450 pages text; one has to limit
oneself to
digestable 'consumption' efforts!
2  BLOSBFIGGRAF.wpd It comprises the newer figures to which the text of
'Biography of
Man' refers. It is an MSWord97 file
3  BLOSBFIG.tot It comprises the majority (some 90) figures and
illustrations for
'Biography of Man'. As this research project started some 15 years ago, it
is in an older (16
bits) version (5.1) of WordPerfect, that can not be converted to a newer
version. If someone
has trouble in printing this file, let him send me an email with his postal
address; I will send
him/her a printed copy.
4  BLOSBLiterature.doc. It is an MSWord7 file of all literature references.
5  BLOSBTerminology.doc. It is also an MSWord7 file; it comprises the
terminology as
used in the modelling definition. It mentions definitions for notions that
have in daily use
often a less sharply defined meaning. An example is e.g. the notion
'consciousness', which is
often heatedly debated without any definition; it results often in endless
and (according to me)
senseless discussions. In my terminology it has a very well defined meaning
as a specific
characteristic of an information handling system.

The aim of the modelling procedure is to define a model for the real life
entity 'Man', seen as
an information handling system, that is reasonably isomorph with the
characteristics of that
real life entity.
My own opinion about the result of this modelling effort is that it would be
a miracle if more
than 50% of the modelling statements were later found to be 100% true; for
the remaining
50% of the modelling statements I expect that some need for modification,
update or even
reject is quite possible as a result of confrontation with other 'knowledge
carriers'.
I wellcome of course any critical comment; I hope the scientific community
will say:
   'At long last we have an (nearly) all embracing theory for the
functioning of the human
CNS (brain + spinal cord). Let us 'tear it to pieces' in order to see: Where
is it correct, where
is it wrong and where has it to be upgraded/modified etc.'

>From my point of view I am especially interested in critical comments on the
following
modelling issues:

* Can the experimental results of Singer (1995) for the neocortex, of Winson
(1990) and
Isaacson et al (1975) for the hippocampus and of Usrey (1999) and Pauluis
(2001) for other
brain entities as thalamus and basal ganglia indeed be interpreted as
justification for the
modelling statement that (a group of at maximum 8) sensory observations
is/are transferred
blockwise over the brain's feed forward / backward network in 200 msec
intervals, each
separate sensory observation taking some 25 msec within the 'block' of 200
msec?
* Can it indeed be inferred from the analyses in 'Biography of Man',
chapters 3 & 4, on the
emergence of single- and multicell life forms in evolution that this
transfer procedure could
be a simplified version of the ethernet cs-ma-cd protocol?
* Can the statements by Miall et al (1996) and by Whiting (1984) indeed be
interpreted to
mean that the activity urge component of the awareness item, as recalled by
the brain from
memory, is specified as the intended, future, goal to be attained and not as
a specific action?
* Can the experimental results of Cools et al. (1981&1984) and others indeed
be interpreted,
as done in section 5/4/0 of Walle (2000-1), to mean that arbitration /
mediation between some
awareness items with conflicting output urges takes place in the form of an
if . . , then . . , else
. .statement with and/or additions, that unifies these separate, and
possibly conflicting,
awareness items into one more global statement, transferred in parallel as a
200 msec
information block, in which the original awareness items function as
arguments in that if . . ,
then . . , else . .statement?
* Is it indeed justified to model the brain's memory storage procedure via:
* A first short term (days to weeks) storage of all, complete, awareness
items in one segment
of the hippocampus,
* A transformation of this short term storage during REM sleep into a
condensed storage of
most important items in another segment of the hippocampus with a much
larger storage
period of several months,
* A continuous re-insertion, by the hippocampus, of stored awareness items
into the stream of
circulating awareness items, leading to a continuous abstracting and
globalizing / prototyping
procedure, that is used to update the 'information sieve assemblies', in
temporal-, parietal- and
prefrontal cortices, via McClelland's(1994/5) 'interleaved learning'?
* Can it indeed be justified from the evolutionary analyses of Walle
(2000-1) that three
separate mediation / arbitration procedures are active in parallel in the
brain; one centered in
the superior colliculus according to the results of Cools et al (1981&1984),
which constructs
an if . . , then . . , else . .statement from a number of awareness items,
one in the prefrontal
Broca area (indicated as B4) and the third one in another section of the
prefrontal cortex
(indicated as E4)? Is it a reasonable assumption that the two prefrontally
based arbitration
centers construct more global, prototyped, derivations of the corresponding
arguments from
conflicting, parallel, if . . , then . . , else . .statements; the resulting
lower number of
prototyped awareness items being arbitrated again in the superior colliculus
into one, or a
smaller number of, higher level, if . . , then . . , else . .statement(s)?
* If the above modelling structures are indeed, more or less, confirmed by
this further
analysis, does this indeed justify the modelling explanation for the
phenomenon of infantile
amnesia as presented in section 7/1/3 in Walle (2000-1)?
* Do the available neuro-anatomic data indeed justify the modelling
postulate that the block
transfer over the feed forward / backward network takes place largely in
parallel, as discussed
in section 6.6 of Walle (2000-1)? Is in these, in parallel operating,
transfer sections the above
mentioned block transfer period of 200 msec then indeed reduced to 25 msec.?
* Does this, in combination with the above mentioned statement on the output
urge
representation as a goal to be achieved, justify the discrimination of the
brain's information
handling in:
* A deep structure component in the higher brain regions, handled in
parallel and on the basis
of a goal to be attained and:
* A surface structure component in lower brain regions and especially in
brain stem and
spinal cord, in which:
* Information transfer takes place largely serially and:
* The goal to be attained is translated into a specific series of actions?
* If the previous statement is found to be (predominantly) true; what is the
correct
relationship with the notions deep- and surface structure in language
science?
* Does this further analysis indeed justify the various statements in Walle
(2000-1), especially
in sections 5/5/7, 6/5, 6/6 and in chapter 10, on the common deep structure
of very diverse
human activities, such as represented by language-, music- and physical
skill execution?
* Can the above mentioned set of transfer- and manipulation procedures
around sets of
awareness items indeed explain the existence in Man of a universal,
genetically inbred,
language acquisition facility, as proposed by Chomsky (See also Pinker
(1997); the language
instinct)? Can the analyses in section 6/5 of Walle (2000-1) on the gradual
integration of
incomplete awareness items into complete ones be re-interpreted as part of
the inbred
language instinct facility, along the lines as given in section 6/5?
* If the previous statement on the deep- and surface structures is found to
be (predominantly)
true, does this mean that the human lexicon, especially for multi-linguals,
has to be assumed
to be located in the lower brain / CNS entities as brain stem and spinal
cord and not in the
cortex? If yes, does this mean that the 'lexicon' for deep structure
awareness item components
in the higher brain regions is represented by some universal language for
items in goals to be
attained? Does this mean also that any true (multi-lingual) lexicon for
language terms is
represented by the translation routines in brain stem / spinal cord from
parallel deep structure
items into sequential surface structure output strings; the choice for a
certain output language,
and therefore the specific translation routine, being then represented by
some parameter
specified in the involved awareness item? Does this explain the ease by
which multi-linguals
can switch between languages in the course of a discussion?
* Do the research results enable a confirmation / update / (partial)reject
to be made of the
modelling of human behavioral characteristics as expressed in chapter 6 and
in figures 33 and
37 in Walle (2000-1)? Can these judgments be formulated into the
specification of a more
refined research effort, aimed specifically at a final modelling of these
human behavioral
characteristics, both functionally and implementationally?
I look forward to your comments.
Regards,
Frans van der Walle

Note: I tried to send this message with the attached files (10 MB); the
server refused andf I presume I surpassed some limit. Anyone who wishes to
receive these files, please send me an email.
Regards,
Frans van der Walle





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