Opening The Glass Box

8/14/2019 Opening The Glass Box

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This document details some of the most important aspects of my work, in my 27 year pursuit of

answers, about how brains work. I hope my work can change the way people think about the brain.

I have long believed, its not only possible to learn to understand the brain, but it must also be

possible to explain, how the brain works to almost everyone, including intelligent but non-technical

people. I want to achieve this, without loosing important facts, but I want to avoid using technical

jargon, wherever possible. On the occasions I do need to use specific technical terminology, I will

try to explain it, in non-technical ways. I will also build concepts over time, adding only the aspects

which are relevant to the discussion at hand. Therefore I intentionally start with large

oversimplifications of concepts such as the way neurons communicate, to provide an easy learning

curve and then I build up and fill out details later, to create a layered description, rather than present

a mass of information all at once.

By the way, I have to confess my writing style, such that it is, could be considered somewhatidiosyncratic at times. I hope this does not distract too much, from the details of my work. I have

also for example, noticed I tend to use words such as discussion, as if I am talking to you now. The

reason is I like to imagine I am talking to someone else in my writing, as if we are working through

the details of my work and in a way I am. As I am very conscious of the importance of peer review

of any work, so I am in effect, talking with other people, who I hope will give me feedback to

provide me with the other side of the discussion. My outlook on science is simple. Regardless of if I

learn I am correct or I learn I am wrong, the important thing for me is that I learn, therefore I hope

to progress. Science has been teaching this most basic lesson for centuries, which is why its

progressed so far. I therefore try to live up to this ideal.

I also intend to use analogies, as I find they help convey abstract concepts in more familiar ways. Ihope my analogies and attempts to avoid technical jargon, will be seen in the light they are

intended, rather than taken literally or seen as an attempt to dumb down the subject matter. As thatis not my intention at all. Far from it, as I intend to show how the brain works, down to the specifics

of how neurons perform computations on information and thereby show how its also possible to

understand AI brains, based on these concepts, that will result in truly conscious intelligent

machines.

I am also in the process of writing a book, based on expanding on the concepts I detail here and to

explore the wider implications and applications of my work. I intend to call my forthcoming book,

Opening The Glass Box and this document shares the same name, as I have long felt, the brain is

like a glass box. A box I can see into, but cannot touch its contents. Its design prevented me gettingan easy, (mental) grip on what was going on inside the locked glass box. My work has been to open

that box and I intend to show the box is not a Pandora box. For the glass box contains the keys, to

solve some of the worlds most intractable problems.

Alan Barton www.openingtheglassbox.com


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My work owes a huge debt of gratitude to the work of many scientists. Scientific research isn't a

solitary pursuit. The work of every scientist, is founded on a vast web of interdependencies,

ultimately between the work of all scientists. This applies to all fields of scientific research. In the

case of brain research, for well over 2000 years, people have searched for answers about how and

why people think.

Today the search continues at a staggering intensity. Worldwide, millions of people are involved

across many scientific fields, each contributing their research results to the search for the answers.

The three centrally important fields are Neuroscience, Psychology and AI Research. AI Research is

a branch of computer science and some aspects of AI research, effectively sit between Neuroscience

and Psychology. These areas of AI research are often referred to as biologically inspired AI

research and the aspects of my work I present here, are based on this aspect of AI research.

One of the central goals of biologically inspired AI Research, is to produce a computational basisfor how the mind works. In effect, take the work of Neuroscience and show a computational method

by which it can explain Psychology. That is also a goal of my work.

Such a computational basis can be used in a number of ways, but the goal regardless of how its

used, is to use the knowledge for the benefit of the human race.

Obviously this also opens up a huge number of questions and a few fears. So I intend to show the

box also holds the keys to solve these fears.



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When the first conscious robots emerge, what do we tell them? ... How should we look upon them?

... What are they to us and what are we to them? ... If they ever get smarter than us, what are we to

them then?

Robots are complex machines. Machines are complex tools. Humans have been creating and using

tools for millions of years.

To quote William Shakespeare, "This above all; to thine own self be true".

This quote applies to us, as much as it does to the robots. The history of robots, is the history of

tools and the history of tools, is our own history. As humans invented better tools, these new tools

had advantages over the old tools. Tools help humans, they always have. Its not a form of tool

slavery. Its not a form of disrespect for the tools. Far from it, humans would not be where we are as

a civilization, if it wasn't for our tools. We would not be able to invent robots, if it wasn't for ourtools. Tool usage is integral to human evolution. In a way, the tools are a part of us. They are an

extension of us. They allow us to do things, we would not be able to do, without the tools.

The process of tool improvements has continued for millions of years. While the signs of its

growing emergence have been with us for many decades, we now stand of the brink of the

emergence of conscious tools. The conscious tools will not all look the same. Some conscious tools

will take the form of office computers and they will provide new ways to process information and

new ways to interact with them. While other conscious tools, will eventually walk among us, to

help us in the world around us.

Science fiction, for many decades has spent a lot of time predicting and exploring possible scenariosabout what it could be like, to live in a world with conscious robots. But everyone who has ever

written about robots has one major problem, no one has ever met a conscious robot before.

To understand what the conscious robots are going to be like, we must first understand how their

brains work. But to build an artificial brain, we must first learn to understand how a real brain

works. Therefore, the key to unlock the potential of Artificial Intelligence, is the same key which

unlocks the mysteries of how the human brain works.

So once again, humans progress at the same time as our tools progress.



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The world around us has details on all scales. Things are made from smaller things and so on,

getting ever smaller, until we get down to the scale of an atom. An atom was once believed to be as

small as you could get, but modern physics shows us, its possible to break up atoms (in particle

accelerators), to reveal even smaller fragments, which are collectively called sub-atomic particles.

A fascinating aspect about life, is the way its so modular, with details on all scales. We think of a

human as a single creature, yet we are a multicellular creature. One of the most important points in

our evolutionary history, was when our ancestors became multicellular. We are composed of vast

numbers of cells. But each and every cell isn't as simple as it may at first sound. Each cell is a very

complex arrangement of smaller sub-sections, which are themselves composed of smaller molecules

and even smaller atoms.

Another fascinating aspect about life, is the way humans have evolved with a brain capable of

understanding, we live in a world with details on all scales. I want to return to this concept, as I gothrough the details of how the brain works. As the answer to why our brains can even comprehend

concepts of complexity on all scales, shows something very important about our relationship to the

world around us.

I think most people accept brains are composed of cells called neurons and neuron cells in some

way store and process information. To be a bit more specific, there are many forms of neurons and

the neurons are not alone. They also have support cells, which help the neurons function and

survive. These support cells are called gila and there are also different types of gila cells.

The total number of neurons in a human brain is estimated to be around 100 billion (and there are

also around ten times as many gila cells), but this doesn't portray the true complexity of the brain.Because each neuron needs to connect to many other neurons and so the total numbers of

connections within a brain can be huge. Its not uncommon to talk in terms of many thousands of

connections coming into a single neuron, or leaving a single neuron, going out to other neurons.

As an analogy, think of a single neuron like the seed of a small plant. As the seed grows, on one

side, it has many roots and on the other side, it has many branches. This analogy, ironically isn't far

from the truth, because plants and animals share common ancestors. Therefore it can be said, within

the sequences of atoms that make up DNA, its possible to have sequences of atoms which describe

branching like structures.

A simple way to think about neuron communication, is to imagine them speakingand listeningtoeach other. Obviously they do not actually speak or listen!, but imagine the neuron uses the roots to

listen to other neurons and the neuron uses the branches tospeakto other neurons. The neuron roots

and branches act like biological wires, to interconnect between other neurons. On the side of the

neuron which listens to other neurons, each part of the biological root like wire is called a dendrite.On the side of the neuron where it speaks to other neurons, each part of the branching structure is

called the axon. When two neurons interconnect, the axon of the speaking neuron joins onto thedendrite of the next listeningneuron and at the point where they meet, a special joint forms, called a

synapse. The synapse controls how the two neurons communicate. Imagine it like its a water tap,

adjusting the flow of, in this case, information from one neuron to the next neuron.

The biological wires of the neurons carry small pulses of electricity, but inside the synapse,



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something strange happens. As the pulses of electricity enter the synapse, (from the axon of a

speaking neuron), it triggers special chemicals called Neurotransmitters to be released. Thesechemicals then slowly move over to the other side of the synapse. Meanwhile, on other side of the

synapse, special areas called neurotransmitter receptors, wait until they can detect the presence of

the special chemicals, and then they produce pulses of electricity.

This means the ability of one neuron to speak to another neuron is dependent on the chemicalcomposition within the synapse (and in the neuron) and the chemical composition can change in

both the synapse and in the neuron. How they change and why they change are centrally important

questions in understanding how the brain as a whole works.



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I think its fair to say, brain research doesn't suffer from a lack of science papers. Far from it, with a

subject spanning so much history, combined with many decades of science papers to wade through,

combined with almost countless teams of people researching so many brain related subjects, if

anything, the major problem is, the need to wrestle against an almost endless, vast avalanche of too

much information!

The problem with so much information, is perceiving how all the information fits together. This is

the major problem we face with brain research. What does it all mean?!

What we need, is a strategy to help deal will all this information. This strategy also shows a

problem solving methodology, we can apply to many problems which humans (and eventually

robots) may face, to at least start to help work through vastly complex arrangements and structures

of information.

The process of trying to understand the brain, is a process of reverse engineering. (Reverse

engineering is when someone starts with a finished thing, for example, a machine and then in an

orderly process, they dismantle the machine and document what they find, before they can then go

on to use the information they found). Computer programmers are given this kind of task, far more

often than we would like. A lot of computer science research, has gone into finding ways to avoid

the need to keep going back into, the details of other peoples work, (effectively to reverse engineer

part of it), each time we wish the use another section of it.

There are however times, when a body of work can grow so complex and vastly interwoven, that it

becomes difficult to perceive even parts of it. Computer programmers have many names, for this

kind of extreme interwoven complexity. (Usually when they are assigned the task, to makealterations to it!. Most of the names, I cannot repeat now and anyway, most names are best ad-

libbed, on the spur of the moment!). One of the less ad-libbed, but very descriptive names, is to

simply to call it, Birds Nest code. (Another name is to call it Spaghetti Code, which has the same

meaning).

When a mass of information feels like the extreme complexity of something like Birds Nest code,

then its usually time to consider a more drastic solution.

To be fair, there are two ways to proceed and programmers are by no means uniformly in

agreement, about which is the best way to proceed. At times, heated discussions between

programmers, can take on, an almost ideologically holy war level of near polarised support, for oneof the two opposing ways of proceeding. Its for this reason, why I approach the subject with care, to

show there is indeed a case, for using such a problem solving strategy, on tasks of the complexity of

brain research information.

The first of the two ways to proceed, is simply to do nothing!. This means, each time a change or an

addition or a reference to the work needs to be made, then each person needs to keep going back

into the details of other peoples work, to try to reverse engineer part of the existing work, enough to

understand that section of it. Some of the people who are partly familiar with the existing work, can

be some of the strongest supporters of this approach to do nothing, which is understandable, as they

have invested a lot of time into understanding even part of it.



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The second way to proceed, is to do something called, Clean Sourcing, which is another name for a

form of reverse engineering, but with one important difference. Clean Sourcing means reverse

engineer all the work in one go and then, during this process, the person creates a clean new

distilled down version of the old work. Its a process of breaking up the component parts of the

information and then identifying which are important and then reassembling the important

component parts, whist clearing away the mass of complexity, the important parts were buried

under.

Another one of the reasons opponents of Clean Sourcing are usually put off the idea, is the extra

work that is involved. (The bosses of programmers, are often the biggest supports of this kind of

thinking, which is understandable, as they have deadlines to achieve). Its quicker to reverse

engineer a section of work, than it is to reverse engineer all the work in one go. However that

solution is short term thinking. Over a long period of time, if lots of references, are need to be made

back to the old work, then reverse engineering all of it, to create some new clearer, distilled down

version of it, may well be the most time saving long term solution. But saving time in the long run,

isn't its main advantage. The distilled down new version, is easier to understand.

Clean Sourcing is a very important concept for dealing with information, far wider than simplycomputer programming. It can be used to solve many problems of huge complexity. Its not about

forgetting the importance and even historical importance, of all the people who worked so hard to

collect the information. Its simply a way to extract and identify important information.

I suspect some people will not be convinced of the need to use Clean Sourcing. So I would just like

to point out, some of the greatest advances in scientific history, have occurred when some simple

concepts, have been found underlying the seemingly complex world. Ultimately, one of the core

pursuits of science, is the need to find some simple underlying principle, which explains so many

questions and predicts answers to questions, we have not even thought about yet.

So my goal has been to seek the simplicity underlying the complexity, while I searched and

continue to search, though any field of scientific research, I think helps me find clues to what the

brain is doing.

Knowledge BuildingAt this point, I want to introduce another analogy, to help move the discussion closer to

demonstrating, its possible to identify the nature of knowledge itself and how the brain processes

that knowledge. Understanding knowledge itself, is a key part in understanding how the brain can

recognise and deal with the world around us. What I am also trying to show is that if we look at

what knowledge is and how the brain works with this knowledge and look at it in the correct wayand thereby see how, the various aspects of the brain functions fits together, then in hindsight, it

becomes obvious how the brain works.

The analogy I want to introduce, is one I find very useful. Its an imaginary jigsaw puzzle. A piece

of knowledge, is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. If you can see the overall picture, then you have

enough of the jigsaw pieces, in their correct places. But its a special jigsaw puzzle. Every piece of

this imaginary jigsaw puzzle, is composed of smaller jigsaw puzzle pieces. Its detail within detail.

Pieces made from smaller pieces and so on.

I have come to realise, the fragments of answers about how the brain works, are like jigsaw pieces

of knowledge, scattered throughout the fields of science. There are many areas of science seeking



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answers about the brain, but beyond that, science itself is the pursuit of knowledge. Science itself is

jigsaw pieces!.

I realised if I could find enough of the correct jigsaw pieces, while discard enough of the wrong

jigsaw pieces. Then I could start to build up, an overall picture of how the brain works. But

construction is not my only goal. I am looking for simplicity, underlying the complexity.

To recap, the imaginary jigsaw puzzle, has pieces composed of smaller pieces and as each puzzle

piece is knowledge. Then therefore, knowledge is composed of knowledge! We build knowledge

out of pieces of knowledge!

This thought process, has an irresistible question hanging over it, like a huge neon sign. If

knowledge is composed of knowledge, then eventually, you must get down to some piece of

knowledge, that is very small. So what is the fundamental building block of all knowledge!

The answer to this question is unavoidably, fundamentally important to humans and to the future of

robots.



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Introduction to NCATS TheoryAt this point, I want to introduce a new acronym. Over the course of the rest of my work, I want to

explain what each letter means in detail. The acronym is NCATS. Each letter is important andtogether, they form the the basis of how a brain deals with information about the world. It also

shows what the fundamental building blocks of knowledge are. (The best way to remember it, is

simply to think of N-CATS, but the N is no less important, its just easier to think of the name

NCATS this way).

The letter T in NCATSThe first letter I want to focus on in NCATS, is the letter T.

T Stands for Temporal, as in time. The process of the passing of time. Events in the world around us

happen over time. Everything takes time. Time to move, time to change, time to grow. Time is afundamental concept of life. Any brain that could evolve, would have to have ways to deal with

time.

The importance of time, in the way the brain works, has been known for a very long time.

Philosophically, its been known about for centuries. Detailed brain research, into the importance of

processing information over time, has existed for many decades. There are so many references I

could pick. For example, Professor J.C.R. Licklider during the 2nd world war, did some pioneering

work in the field of Psychoacoustics. (Psychoacoustics can be basically thought of as, how the brain

understands sound). As part of this work, he set-up a way of modifying sounds, so that their

loudness was uniform, for all pitches of sound. When this distortion was done to speech sounds, he

observed the speech remained intelligible. Obviously it was distorted, but it could be understood.Yet the only information remaining in the modified speech sounds, was something referred to as

zero crossing information. This can be thought of like pure digital sound, the differences in the

volume of the component sound pitches has been removed, its all the same volume. Yet through this

specific form of distortion of sound, speech can be understood. It therefore shows, time plays an

important part in how we perceive sound and speech.

There are many examples of the importance of time I could pick, but Professor J.C.R. Licklider

observations on zero crossing information in speech, has a particular happy importance to me. Back

in early 1985, while I was working at a company called, Plessey Military Communications, in

Ilford, England. I was lucky enough to get picked to be involved in a speech recognition project,

based on combining the concepts of zero crossing information in speech, with some (I consider very

important) work done in 1975 by Janet Maclver Baker, at Carnegie-Mellon University. This work

was called, A new time-domain analysis of human speech and other complex waveforms. From

this work, I learned two important things. The first is, we again see the importance of a brain that

can handle time, when its processing, in this case, speech and sounds. The second thing I learned, is

something which has stayed with me ever since. The work shows there's a structure in speech below

the size of phonemes. (A phoneme is like a very small section of speech, it can be thought of as a

building block of speech). But this paper from 1975 shows there are even smaller section building

blocks of speech!. If each phoneme is a jigsaw puzzle piece, then this paper shows even these

phoneme puzzle pieces, are made of smaller puzzle pieces!



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Before I move onto other areas, I want to stress, the project at Plessey's wasn't my project, I was just

a young apprentice electronics engineer at the time and because of my interest in AI and knowledge

of programming, I was lucky enough to get picked to help out on the project. I would also like to

add an apology to the person who project it was, because unfortunately, I have forgotten his name

over the years and I can't find his name in any of my notes of that time. (I would be very happy to

add his name, if he could contact me, if he ever gets to hopefully read this).

At this point I want to start discussing another letter within NCATS. Once I have introduced it, I

want to combine it with the letter T for Temporal. I will continue this process, until we have linked

up the purpose of each letter in NCATS.

The letter A in NCATSThe letter A stands for Association and its at this point, the landmark work of Donald Olding Hebb

fits best into the jigsaw puzzle.

In 1949 Donald Hebb introduced the concept of what is known as Hebbian theory. This theorydescribes a way of learning. Much work has been done since that time, to explore and adjust the

original theory, but the introduction of this theory, was a landmark in the search for answers about

the brain.

Variations on Hebbian theory are very important in a lot of Artificial Neural Network research.

However, we have a major problem. After decades of Neural Network research, we still do not have

intelligent conscious robots. Also, behaviours and abilities even simple creatures find easy, are

extremely difficult to get even partly working, in our most complex robots. We are clearly missing

something or some things. The question is, what are we missing?!

Various temporal versions of Hebbian theory based Artificial Neural Networks have also been tried,

but once again, these also failed to give us the results we wanted.

Huge amounts of time, money and research have gone into finding the answers we are clearly

missing, but we still do not have the answers. Countless millions have been spent, seeking these

answers.

As is so often the case in science (and life!), the clues to the answers, have been there for some

time, right in front of us, its just we have been failing to see and comprehend them correctly. We

need to bring the jigsaw puzzle pieces together, in the right ways, so we can see the overall picture.

Whatever knowledge we are trying to construct, knowledge is made from knowledge. For example,a mathematical formula is like a play, just waiting to be written. Its component parts, waiting in the

wings, to be combined into something new. Knowledge is made from knowledge.

At this point, I want to start expanding the description of how neurons work in more detail. The part

I want to deal with now, is why neurons talkto other neurons.

Imagine a leaky bucket, glued onto one end of a seesaw lever, which is pivoted in the middle. On

the other end, is a weight, also glued onto it, which is slightly heavier than the empty bucket. If you

pour water into the leaky bucket fast enough, you will get the seesaw to tip over, so the bucket of

water, is then heavier than the weight. When the seesaw tips over, it chucks the water out of the

bucket, so it tips back again quickly, as the weight is slightly heaver than the empty bucket..



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A neuron is like a leaky bucket on a seesaw. When the seesaw tips over, this is the point when the

neuron talks to other neurons. The question then becomes, how to control filling up the bucket. This

is why a said a Synapse can be thought of like a water tap. Many neurons talk to each neuron. Itsimportant to remember, a neuron only talks when its bucket gets full enough so it tips over. So

neurons can only hearsomething from a neuron that has just empted its bucket. Neurons talk in

pulses of information. Neurons need to collect these pulses of information and if it gets enough ofthem, then it can tellother neurons its collected enough pulses of information. (Obviously I am still

greatly simplifying the description. I will get to the specifics later). The important point to note at

this stage, is neurons listen to groups of other neurons, then they talkto other neurons.

One thing I should also mention is neurons are relatively slow. If a neuron took say one

millisecond, to send its message through into its axon and then into a synapse and then into the

dendrite of another neuron, then a thousand neurons in a line, each passing on the message, would

take one second to pass a message from the first neuron, to the last neuron.

The reason the neuron bucket is leaking, is that it provides an easy way to ignore small unimportant

messages. The neurons want to be sure about what they say, when they choose tosay something. Ifthe neuron bucket doesn't get enough pulses of information to fill the bucket, then these small

amounts in the bucket just leak away and the neuron doesn't say anything. It wasn't enough

information for the neuron to take notice of it, so it doesn't bothersayinganything.

At this point, the leaky bucket analogy has taken us as far as we can go with it. Because the neuron

messages don't just fill the leaky bucket. Some message pulses can actually remove water from the

leaky bucket, making the seesaw less likely to tip over. Each Neuron can choose two ways to

interpret the electrical pulses, it hears from each neuron that sends it messages. Each connection

sending information into a neuron, can be either excitatory or inhibitory. Each excitatory message,

increases the chance, the neuron is about tosay something. This kind of input to the neuron makes it

gets more and more excited, until itsays something. Each inhibitory message, decreases the chance,the neuron willsay anything. Its like the neuron is getting calmer.

At this point, we need to discuss, how a neuron chooses what it wants to do with each message

wire. It needs to choose between making it inhibitory, or excitatory.

This brings me onto some very important research, called spike-timing dependent plasticity

(STDP). (Some of the first people in this area of research, between 1994 and 1998, are Dominique

Debanne, Henry Markram and Li Zhang who followed up the work). Since their work was

published, a lot of research has been directed at working to understand various aspects of STDP.

Plasticity in the context of the brain, is its ability to adapt, change and learn.

I want to start slowly getting into the details of spike-timing dependent plasticity, but I want to

approach the subject, from the direction of what the brain is trying to do with STDP. Its a different

way to view STDP, but I wish to explain it, in a way everyone can follow. (Hopefully people who

know STDP, will forgive my initial simplifications of it, as I use the simplifications to highlight and

introduce its key attributes, over time, without getting buried in all its details, all at once).

Spike-timing dependent plasticity, shows a very specific way in which neurons adjust themselves.

This is the process a neuron uses, to choose how to interpret messages from other neurons. It

chooses between interpreting messages as either inhibitory, or excitatory information.



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However, even more importantly, hidden and implied within the findings that define STDP, is an

unseen very important gem of knowledge, waiting to be found within it. This gem isn't by any

means, the whole answer of how the brain functions, but its an important clue to help see what the

brain is doing. For this gem of knowledge, is a big clue to the fundamental building block of all

knowledge!

To fully understand the fundamental building block of all knowledge, we need to understand how

its used by the brain. This then shows us how its applied to construct knowledge.

The fundamental building block of all knowledge, is a Temporal Event.

However, every creature who detects a Temporal Event has a major problem. A Temporal Event is

when two or more events occur at the same time. However, they may not actually be linked! What I

am talking about is causally. Two events can occur at the same time and there are two possibilities.

They can be causally linked or they are not causally linked, in which case, they are an illusion.

Therefore, there are two types of Temporal Event which are the Causally Event and the Illusion

Event.

The question then becomes, for intelligent life to exist, it needs to find the Causal Events and ignore

the Illusionary Events, so how can it workout, what kind of Temporal Event its detecting and the

answer is, it can't!!!

Most creatures cannot workout if an event is a Causally Event, or an Illusion Event. However,

smarter creatures, have started to workout the difference. They have evolved a partial solution to the

problem! They have higher brain functions to work it out!. They have evolved a way to bias their

chances, so they are more likely to detect Causally Events and less likely to be fooled by Illusion

Events. But we have a lot to discuss, before we can discuss how to use neurons to construct ways to

workout the difference between a Causally Event and the Illusion Event.

For now, I want to go into the details of a Temporal Event, regardless of if its a causally linked

event or simply an illusion of two or more things occurring at the same time. We need to discuss

how neurons process these events and neurons don't care if its causally linked or simply an illusion!.

They are only interested in Temporal Events!

This will take some describing, to prove its true, so please bear with me. I intend to keep breaking

the description down, until its clear exactly what is a Temporal Event and how the brain deals with

them.

Each Temporal Event, is either a minute fragment of two or more causality linked events occurring

at the same time or a minute fragment of an illusion, where two or more things occur at the same

time, but are not linked.

The way the brain detects the Temporal Events, is by using Temporal Associations. This is the

letters T & A combined from NCATS. However there's another complementary computation the

brain does with a Temporal Association, which is the Temporal Differentiation. In other words, the

Temporal Association can be thought of as a Temporal Integration.

So what we have is, Temporal Integration and Temporal Differentiation. As I mentioned, this will

take some time to describe, but its important we work though the details of this, to prove how it



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make the same mistakes, from time to time.

However, what this shows, is that creatures with brains are vastly more intelligent, than many

humans wish to believe, other creatures can ever be capable of achieving. They are not as smart as

humans, as they don't have higher brain reasoning like we do, but they are interpreting the world

around them in terms of causally and illusions, its just they can't tell the difference. This also shows

there's a huge evolutionary competitive advantage, for a creature to evolve a way to filter out evensome Illusionary Events. It gives that creature a major advantage over the other creatures, that waste

time on Illusionary Events.

If Causality Events occurred only half of the time and Illusionary Events the other half of the time,

then the world would be chaos to a creature. It couldn't make sense of it. But the world isn't like

that. There are more Causality Events than there are Illusionary Events in the local area the creature

lives within. How many Causality Events in the world to Illusionary Events is impossible to say.

The reason is, if we look at the world as a whole and attempt to workout how many events occur at

the same time, there's an astoundingly vast number of events, we could attempt to Temporally link.

However, I deliberately scaled this discussion up to the size of the earth, to show proximity plays a

part, in the likelihood of events being causally linked. Events near each other, are more likely to becausally linked and most creatures don't see very far into the world. They are only interested in their

local surroundings. Therefore, there's enough of a difference in the greater number of Causality

Events, compared with less Illusionary Events, in the local area the creature lives within, for that

creature to deal with life around it.

The Temporal Events make a lot of evolutionary sense. It takes an understanding of even some

aspects of causality, to hunt and predict and head off another complex behaving, advanced

multicellular creature. It takes an understanding of causality, to watch another creature eating food

and realise that means, there's food available to eat. Of course, it could make a mistake, it could be

poison, but then evolution tends to filter out these mistakes over time, so creatures tend to see other

creatures eating safe things. So even if they can't smell the food, as the wind could be in the wrong

direction, (or its something they have never encountered before), then they can still know its

(potentially) food.

It also makes a lot of sense, from the point of view of evolution, as the ability to comprehend some

small fragment of causality, is very simple. A single neuron cell can do it!. Of course it could be

detecting an Illusionary Event, but it doesn't care and anyway, in the proximity of a neuron, its more

likely to be picking up Causality Events. The bigger problem is correctly interpreting the outer

sense signals.

Also, (and this is where it really gets astoundingly mind altering!), it takes the beginnings of anunderstanding of causality, to use a part of the environment as a tool. An understanding of the use

of a tool, requires an understanding of causality, and every creature with a brain has the potential to

manipulate the world around them, to help themselves!. Imagine a species of creature, that digs

holes to live underground. The first time the young of this species, touches its paw on the ground

and moves it, it sees the world change and the world changes, in direct response to the actions of the

creature. When its muscle controlling neurons fire, shortly afterwards, it eye message processing

neurons detect and signal something in the world has changed. It can then temporally associate

these two events!. It has then just learned something about the world and its ability to alter that world!

It therefore means tool usage is linked into evolution, far closer than we have ever dared to think

possible. This is certainly something to tell the robots. Its very likely (but not certain) creatures have



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been manipulating the world around them, probably since brains evolved. A tool is simply a

manipulation of the environment. Its using one bit of the environment, to alter another bit of the

environment! The question then becomes, what is a tool. How far back in tool evolution, can you

go? Is a claw on an animal paw a tool. It could be said its a tool. Its just a built in tool! Is a hole in

the ground dug by a creature a tool? In a way it is, as the hole is a way of protecting itself by

keeping out larger predators. So its a tool to filter down the size of predators the creature is likely to

have to face. Its therefore a safer environment for the creature. Its using a predator size sorter.

A hole dug in the ground could be a tool, but did the creature invent the hole? Probably not, its far

more likely, a behaviour biased to be more likely, by evolution. But this discussion is moving into

an area called, goal directed behaviour, which is a discussion for a later section, as we move the

discussion towards psychology.

Its very important to remember, Temporal Event processing isn't the whole picture of how the brain

works. We are so far only partway through covering only two letters in NCATS. There's more we

need to discuss, to show the way the brain works. But for now, I need to work through the

importance and implications of Temporal Associations, which are detecting Temporal Events. We

also need to be very clear, about what is meant by Temporal Events. I also need to go into thedetails, about Spike-timing dependent plasticity, to show how the neurons detect and tune into

Temporal Events.

I was discussing earlier, the process of when and how a neuron talks to another neuron and that the

listeningneurons have two ways to react, to what they hear, from all the many neurons talking to

them.

This brings us to the meaning of Spike-timing dependent plasticity. The Spike-timing, refers to the

messages a neuron listens to from other neurons. Its partly about the timing differences between themessages a neuron hears. The spikes are pulses of electricity. The messages neurons send to other

neurons, are series of pulses of electricity. So the plasticity is dependent upon the timing of the

small message electricity spikes. But its also dependent upon when the neuron itself talks, not

simply about the timing of the messages that neuron is hearing.

Therefore, when multiple neurons are talking to another neuron, the timing differences between the

message pulses of electricity, of ever message, arriving at a neuron, is important relative time when

the neuron itself decided to talk. This changes how it interprets its incoming messages. This acts

like a tuning process, making the neuron more interested in specific timing differences between

when itspeaks and when it hears messages from other neurons.

Now we are ready to discuss some more specifics of Spike-timing dependent plasticity. Neuronsalter how they interpret what they hear, dependent upon the exact moment they speak. If they hearsomething just before they speak, then they are more interested to hear that again in the future. It

means what they hearis contributing to excite them, up to the point where they speak. So neuronstake notice of other neurons thatspeak, just before theyspeak.

If they hear something from a neuron just after they speak, they are less interested to hear that

again. These messages need to inhibit them speaking. I underlined just after, as this is important. If

its a long time after, then the neuron isn't so interested in doing anything about it. Eventually it

could learn its associated, with some other message inputs for example. Something it hears slightly

after its spoken, means it needs to tell these messages apart, from anything contributing to what it

says, so it increases its chance of telling them apart, by interpreting late messages as inhibitory.



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There are two ways to get a neuron excited.

Most of the time, it takes two or more neurons talkingto a listeningneuron for the listeningneuron

tosay anything and then only if they occur, just before the listeningneuron itselfsays something. Inthis way, these input neuron messages are associated together with that neuronsayingsomething.

However, there's another way to get a neuron excited. It could receive a message so frantic from atalkingneuron, that the listeningone gets excitedas well, and has tosay something. In this way, the

neuron is simply passing the information onto other neurons. Its not doing a Temporal Association,

its leaving that job to other neurons, to workout the details further down the interconnected mass of

neurons. This makes very good sense, from an evolutionary point of view. The frantic neurons are

saying, hey, listen up, I've got something important here!. Also, even as the frantic message getsdissipated, as some neurons can take less interest in messages and other neurons can be partly or

fully inhibited, further down in the mass of neurons, these strong messages are still likely to travel

some distance in the brain.

So neurons tune into Temporally Associated fragments of information. Two or more things,

occurring at the same time. These events are very small and there's lots of them, as we have lots ofsensors to pick-up information around us. A certain pitch sound in speech. A pixel like bit of visual

information from one of our eyes, about colour or movement. A nerve on our skin, sensing touch or

heat. The brain is combining Events which occur at the same time. Its an attempt to workout

causally. Not a particularly accurate way of working out causally, but it works most of the time.

The way our brains process Temporal Events, effectively mean, there's a quantum like structure, to

all of human knowledge!. This obviously means it has a huge number of applications in AI and

even in all other areas of life, especially when we need to make decisions.

I find Temporal Event processing, a fascinating area to study. For example, something incredible

happens, when we try to redefine science, in terms of Temporal Events.

Science is the process of detecting Causality Events whilst excluding Illusionary Events.

Its effectively a binary definition of science!.

For thousands of years, millions of scientists have been working, for so many generations to

identify Causality Events and filter out illusions. Yet we still live in a world, where so many people

want to believe in Illusionary Events!

Richard Dawkins concept of a Meme (which he defined as a "unit of cultural information"),something analogous to that of a Gene, can therefore be defined in terms of Temporal Events. So

just as Genes are constructed from four base letters, Memes are constructed from two forms of

Temporal Events.

Therefore,

Memes composed of only Causality Events are true.

Memes composed of any Illusionary Event are false.

Therefore,

Any individual, group or country wasting time on Memes, composed in any way from Illusionary

Events, is wasting time and effort, that could be spent on memes composed only from Causality



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Events. Therefore there's an evolutionary competitive advantage for any individual, group or

country that filters its memes, so that its focusing all its effort, on memes that are based only on

Causality Events. Therefore a society based on science, will out perform a comparable society

basing its beliefs on memes, composed in any way from Illusionary Events.

This concept has huge, even global economic importance! But then, scientists have been trying to

tell everyone else, about the importance of science for centuries!

An accurate perception of reality, requires an accurate perception of causality.

However, Illusionary Events do play a very important, even vital role in our brain. They are our

imagination. We see possibilities beyond reality! However, while having an imagination is very

important, good and very useful, its dangerous to believe our imagination is real. Illusionary Events

have an very important role to play, but we should be mindful that anyone who believes their

imagination is real, needs help. By the way, this also means creatures have an imagination!

The letters A & T in NCATS show us, how a brain processes Temporal Events, but its by no means

the whole picture. The next area I want to move onto, is another form of memory in the brain. A

Temporal Association is a form of memory, but its not the only one in the brain.

There are actually a few forms of memory and now I want to talk about another form of memory, as

each form of memory does a different job. Temporal Association memory is for processing

Temporal Events.

I just want to introduce this other form of memory, then we can get into a discussion about another

letter in NCATS.

The form of memory I want to introduce, comes in two kinds, called Potentiation and Depression,

(but it has nothing to do with people feeling depressed). There are also two forms of Potentiation

and Depression which are long-term and short-term.

This gives us four possible variations on a theme.

Short-Term Potentiation (STP)

Short-Term Depression (STD)

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

Long-Term Depression (LTD)

Trying to pin down the specific amount of time, which is defined by Short-Term and Long-Term, is

beginning to feel like a process, of trying to nail jelly onto the ceiling! They can vary for many

different reasons, such as their specific location within the brain and vary between creatures, but

their basic concepts remain. Fortunately the precise time scales, which are loosely defined by Short-

Term and Long-Term, do not affect our discussion. However, as a ruff guide to the time scales we

are talking about, Long-Term can be thought of in the region of around minutes to days, even

possibly weeks in some cases. Short-Term is around minutes.

The scientific breakthrough in this area, was done by Dr. Terje Lmo in 1966. The discovery of

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) was a very important step, in starting to understand this form of

memory.



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Potentiation and Depression relate very closely to the way Synapse interpret their incoming

messages, from a neuron talkingthrough them. We are now talking about, what the Synapse are

interested in, not the Neurons.

Potentiation and Depression change the way Synapse interprets a message.

Potentiation makes a Synapse more willing to pass a message onto the listeningneuron. Its like the

tap in the Synapse gets opened more.

Depression makes a Synapse less interested in passing a message onto the listeningneuron. Its like

the tap in the Synapse gets closed slightly.

We are now ready to move onto the next letter in NCATS.

The letter C in NCATS

The Letter C in NCATS stands for Context, but what is it? Context is the moment by moment

change of perhaps, the most elusive aspect of a brain. Its the one so many philosophers have spent

so long discussing. Context is the moment by moment flow of the main part of Consciousness! (The

other parts of Consciousness, being the result of the other four letters in NCATS).

Specifically, Context is the moment by moment changing state of attention, at the neuron level.

This will take some time to prove its true. As part of this discussion, I need to go into the details of

Potentiation and Depression, but I want to do it, from the point of view of its role in Consciousness.

Potentiation of a Synapse, means this Synapse will take a more active role in Consciousness.

Depression of a Synapse, means this Synapse will take a less active role in Consciousness.

Potentiation and Depression are another form of tuning in the brain. But its literally the form of

tuning in the brain, we are most consciousness of it occurring!

Potentiation occurs when a strong fast repetitive series of message pulses reach the Synapse. The

Synapse gets interested in listening to this message and more importantly, it gets interested in

listeningout for any more messages it could hear, some time latter.

Depression occurs when a weak, slow, maybe occasional, pulse here or there, message arrives at theSynapse. Think of the Synapse as being too bored to take much notice of this slow, yawn, boring,

yawn, uninteresting, yawn message.

Neurons listen to other neurons, but they need to know which neurons to listen into, more than

others.

I now want to talk about consciousness and I want to start with an analogy of a standing around

style party, where people flock into small standing groups, each having their own discussions.

Everyone is in the small standing groups and its a small room, so the groups are packed in, back to

back. Imagine you are in one of these groups, listening to other people in your group talk. Suddenly

in a group behind you, someone mentions your name. At this point, its hard not to take notice of the



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other conversation about you! Its also easy for you to pick-up your name, as you have heard it so

many times in your lifetime. But as you listen to the conversation, you realise they are talking about

someone with the same name as you, but they are not talking about you. At this point, you can

either carry on listening to this conversation about someone with the same name as you, or you can

mentally return to the conversation you were listening to, in the group you are standing in.

(This process of mentally returning or switching and tuning back into the other conversation, playsa very important role in some underlying aspects of Psychology).

The process of mentally switching between the conversations, is the process I want to discuss in

detail. It can be thought of like some kind of attention steering, making us focus onto something

else of interest. Its interesting how its not easy to keep focused on two or more conversations at

once. When mentally switching between conversations, its easy to end up in the situation, where its

possible to feel like saying something like, I'm sorry, what were you talking about!. Some people

would say sorry, others would attempt to bluff their way through, hoping to pick-up the

conversation before someone else's asks you, So what do you think?. What I am interested in, is

the process of mentally switching and tuning between the conversations. I call the switching

process, Attention Steering. But we need to go into the process of Attention Steering, to see howthis happens, in a lot more detail to prove its true.

Imagine you're back in the standing around party, where you are listening to some interesting

conversation. Now imagine, while you are standing in this small group of people, listening to some

fascinating conversation and without you (or anyone else) realising it, a hungry lion creeps up

behind you and sinks its teeth into the back of your ankle. Suddenly masses of intense pain signals

flood up your leg and then finally get to your brain. At this point, what the topic of discussion was

in the group, suddenly becomes less important! Pandemonium ensues, everyone gets a fear

response, people start screaming everywhere and not surprisingly, you lead the chorus.

What the lion was thinking at this moment, is unimportant to our discussion, although I suspect it

wasn't thinking, hang on a minute, I thought this leg was going to taste of chicken!.

The reason I just made a joke, (a so called, short story, with a humorous ending, hopefullyhumorous, in this case!), is to demonstrate an aspect of consciousness. While I have been talking

about the joke and jokes are a fascinating aspect of brain function. Hearing a joke for the first time

is like a Eureka moment of understanding. The moment we connect up many Temporal Events for

the first time, into some new moment of understanding. Therefore one aspect of intelligence is the

ability to connect up Temporal Events. The more that can be connected, the more intelligence. Of

course, they have to be Causality Events, otherwise its of no benefit for the purpose of being

intelligent, but the neurons don't care if they are Causality Events. Neurons are only interested inany Temporal Events so Illusionary Events will do just as well, as far as neuron eureka moments are

concerned. In the case of hearing a joke for the first time, we are learning Illusionary Events we

haven't experienced before.

What I have just been doing, is demonstrating an aspect of consciousness. I have been playing with

your mind. Each word I say, you learned long ago, to temporally associate to concepts of different

meanings. What I have been doing, is to distract you from the horror of the lion chewing on your

leg! Obviously a lion isn't chewing on your leg, but what I have been doing, is attempting to show

something more subtle. I have been deliberately distracting your attention, (which is why I saved

the discussing on eureka moments, jokes and intelligence until now to mention). But we can get to

the subtly of it later. But first, I want to use the example of the pain signals flooding up a leg and



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then into a brain. Intense pain means the damage sensors in the leg, around the area getting

damaged, are sending lots of intense messages. There are lots of pain sensors all over our body and

some of the pain messages, will possibly be, even intense enough, to be the frantic neuron messages

I discussed earlier. (Frantic messages are for the purpose of switching attention very fast). Others

pain message signals will not be so intense, but its likely multiple pain sensors are activated at the

same time, so the nearby pain sensors will be Temporally Associated together. (This is learned from

a young age). It makes sense if I experience touch or pain in one point on my body, then I have achance to experience touch or pain on a nearby part of my body. (Again, we also see the importance

of distance between events, as simply a guide to possible causality events, but its not at all proof of

causality, they could just be occurring together at the same time, but its unlikely so near each other,

on our body, at the same time).

The past two paragraphs, have been somewhat of a bumpy ride, in terms of consciousness. That has

been my intention, but now I want to quieten down the discussion, so we can focus more fully on

the details of the pain signals in the brain, without the background distraction, of so many other

concepts, crowding out the core meaning and dulling down our attention, by taking the attention in

parts of our brain, in different directions around the same time. (This is why I also introduce

concepts over time and then build on them, rather than give a mass of information all at once. Thiseases the learning curve, so our consciousness can focus more fully, on one core aspect at a time.

This helps us learn building blocks of knowledge, we then build onto later. Consciousness focuses

knowledge building into areas of the brain, this is partly how information self organises. Another

part of self organisation, is due to their location within the network structure of neurons).

Also, as I just added the part in the brackets in the previous paragraph, I partly disrupted our flow of

consciousness again, so our ability to return mentally to the subject was partly disrupted.

Anyway, lets get back to talking about the core details, of how the pain signals act on the brain.

Neurons and Synapse are both interested in strong signals. In the case of the neurons, their 'leaky

bucket' needs to be filled or the neuron doesn't show any interest in talking about the weakincoming messages. In the case of the Synapse Potentiation, its occurring to make the Synapse more

interested in taking notice of the message they are receiving. But far more importantly, the Synapse

are also more interested in hearing out for any possible further messages, they could receive, in the

near future. The Synapse doesn't know if it will receive more messages. It doesn't care, all its

interested in, is tuning into strong messages and keeping open to listen out for more messages. So anymessages relevant to this neuron, via the synapse that is listening out for messages, will be picked up.

Before we get to the meaning of the neuron messages themselves and go further into discussions on

consciousness, I want to deal with the function of a brain, at a computational level.

In computer science, one of the first fundamental computing concepts, students learn, is the concept

ofInput Process - Output. A brain can also be viewed in this way. We senseInputfrom the world

around us (and even sense our internal status like for example, maybe we feel thirsty), Then we

need to Process information we sensed, making up our minds what we want to do, and then we

actually do it, by Outputtingcontrol messages to our muscles, as we seek to achieve the goal, wehave decided upon. The part where we seek to achieve the goal, we have decided upon, is a

process of feedback. We have a goal we have decide upon and then, by a process of

approximations, we seek to achieve that goal. However, its not totally approximations, as our goals

are defined by an understanding of Temporal Events. For example, maybe we have sensed we are

thirsty, and so we decide to walk across a room to get a drink.



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Imagine for example, if we have tripped over a loose mat on the floor a few times, on the way to get

a drink. Therefore, the next time we walk towards the mat, we are reminded to be conscious of

avoiding it. First we see and recognise its a mat. We have also learned to Temporally Associate the

mat, with the fear of falling over it and in the past, when we were young, we learned to Temporally

Associate tripping over, with the sudden pain of when we hit the ground.

We now come to the point, where we can start to discuss, the specific meaning, of the neuronpulsed messages. One way to think about the strong messages, is to think of them, as effectively

opening up pathways, while weak messages are closing pathways. We are switching between

neurons. However the Neurons have learned Temporal Events. So we are opening up pathways, to

allow our attention to focus on being ready to process some possible Temporal Events, more than

other possible Temporal Events. For example, if we look at a tree we see leaves and branches. This

opens up pathways to our understanding of the concepts of trees. As we look around the tree, we are

seeing more tree images, so our consciousness is still focusing on the tree. If we suddenly see a

creature in the tree, especially if its staring at us, then our attention is switched more towards

processing information about that creature. We Attention Steer away from thinking so much about

the tree and our attention is drawn to the creature, especially if its moving.

A Temporal Event is the fundamental quantum like building block of all knowledge. A Temporal

Association is one of the two fundamental building blocks of recognition. (The two I am referring

to are, the Temporal Association (in other words, Integration) and Temporal Differentiation, which

I intend to discuss later).

We have networks of neurons recognising patterns of Temporal Events.

The purpose of a brain is effectively to route input signal messages through the brain, until they

cause output signal messages, to muscles. But that describes a very simple creature. As more

complex creatures evolved, more brain cells grew and so more complex patterns of Temporal Event

processing were possible. Patterns of neurons forming, to feed information into yet more patterns of

neurons. So in more complex creatures, it can take longer to route the input signal messages

through, as there are a lot more complex patterns available. However it doesn't have to route a

message through all neurons. Its a choice. So a brain can do a lot of thinking, or it act impulsively.

Therefore complex creature brains, can spend more time, thinking about what its going to do. This

process has continued to increase, for hundreds of millions of years, with ever more complex

pattern recognition capability evolving, until we get to the scale of a human brain, with a hundred

billion causality processing units in it and hundreds of trillions of synapse deciding which signals

are important to focus on. Our consciousness is the result of hundreds of trillions of synapse

showing an interest in a hundred billion Temporal Events processors!. The more Temporal Events acreature can hold and process, the more information the creature knows about causality. The more

knowledge it has. The more Temporal Events it can associate, the smarter it is. Provided they are

Causality Events, otherwise the more deluded it becomes, if its Illusionary Events.

The neuron message pulses of electricity are analogue value messages, but passed in a simple

digital way. The messages have a magnitude value of their importance to the listeningneuron.

In the science of Electronics, there are many ways to send analogue values by digital means. They

have names such as Pulse-width modulation and so on. However, there's a digital pulsed

communication method, which (almost) matches the way the brain communicates. Its called Pulse-

Density Modulation.



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of neurons at a time.

The Neurotransmitters modulate consciousness, in different parts of the brain. In other words, they

can act like large water taps, in different parts of the brain, (partly) turning on and (partly) turning

off neuron attention in whole areas of the brain. Within each area of the brain, the neurons in that

area, tend to do the same kind of job. One area may for example, process sound while another area

processes vision and so on. This activation of areas of the brain, provides the mechanism thatunderlies goal direction. Its a process of biasing the attention onto certain things. If you are for

example hungry, then its logical neuron to neuron information pathways, related to food

information processing, are given a higher conscious importance. (I should stress at this point, this

sort of area activation, isn't only controlled by Neurotransmitters. There's a way individual neurons

can also control groups of neurons at a more bulk level, which I will get to later). Anyway, back to

Neurotransmitters modulating consciousness in different parts of the brain.

Psychoactive drugs can have the same kind of effects as Neurotransmitters. For example, Alcohol &

Coffee affect attention.

Neurotransmitters released into the brain, do not have to bias the Synapse to the point where theyfire. However, large amounts of a Neurotransmitter released into the brain, (or artificial

Neurotransmitter like chemicals) in the brain, would make the Synapse fire. The Synapse would

then be talking to the Neurons!. But the messages the neurons would be receiving, would not be

based on Causality. It would be chaotic firing, so depending upon which area of the brain it was

occurring within, it could be disorientating. This is why some so called recreational drugs distort

perception. Our concept of reality breaks down, because our ability to process Causality is

malfunctioning. Random firing of Synapse creates an effect similar to illusionary events. This can

also explain why some people have said, recreational drugs affect creativity and imagination. Its not

actually creativity as its randomising neurons. (However, personally I don't like the thought of

robots using recreational drug style randomising behaviour, to increase robot random illusions, so it

can think up more strange ideas, because then we run the risk of having the same problem, as we

have with some humans. They would be loosing their grip on reality!). Also in humans it can

obviously cause permanent damage, which then places that person, at a competitive disadvantage in

life.

Another interesting thing about Neurons is that, because they talk to so many other neurons, thenthey also have the ability to affects areas of the brain. This means we have two mechanisms for area

control of the brain.

The groups or areas of the brain, I've been referring to, are the foundations upon which behaviours

and personality attributes are defined. So behaviours and personality attributes have twocomplementary, but independent mechanisms by which they can be controlled. Therefore the

amount each area of the brain is driven by either mechanism, results in what kind of personalties

and behaviours we observe. Therefore, malfunctions in either mechanism, can result in Personality

Disorders. If different areas are driven too much or too little, then we get different behaviours and

personalities. Therefore the areas that are driven, can be seen as behaviours and personality building

blocks. Over the course of a day, as the building blocks get driven more or less, then the behaviours

and personality alters. If someone has a tendency, to alter the frequency of activation of a building

block, then this will alter the frequency of these behaviours and personalties occurring. The way we

often talk about these building blocks, in our daily lives, is to refer to them in summary, as our

emotions and how our emotions change over time. Our emotions ebb and flow, like the ripples and

waves on a seashore, even within one day of our lives. Different combinations of building blocks



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are more or less active, at different points in the day. In Personality Disorders, the building blocks

ebb and flow, by the wrong amounts or at the wrong times.

This is also interesting, from the perspective of the nature versa nurture debate. As the answer is

both affect the brain. Evolution affects bulk wiring layouts in the brain and which sub-systems in

the brain go where. Evolution can also affect the amounts of Neurotransmitters and the way in

which Neurotransmitters are interpreted. Whereas nurture is about the learning processes in thebrain. In other words the ability for neurons to alter, in response to Temporal Events and the way

consciousness tunes into things of interest. Therefore nurture can also affect the levels of

Neurotransmitters in the brain, by driving neurons to fire more in certain areas. Also nurture can

modulate entire areas, simply as neurons can connect to so many other neurons. So even if one

neuron does not connect to a whole area, groups of neurons feeding into more groups of neurons

can have an effect on areas of the brain. Therefore behaviours and personalities are also modulated

by what we learn. But behaviours and personality attributes are also modulated by the bulk wiring

layouts in the brain. More messages from one area of the brain, can affect another area of the brain.

Therefore our behaviours are controlled by both nature and nurture. We have a bulk brain structure

and biochemistry levels defined by the construction principles of DNA, which results in us being

human. But we are also adjusting our individual brain cells, in response to what we learn.

We are now ready to move onto a new letter in NCATS.

The letter S in NCATS

The Letter S in NCATS stands for Structural as in Structural changes, but there's a number of

Structural changes which work over different time spans.

Part of the role of the NCATS letter S for Structural, is as a reminder for the aspects of neural

plasticity, we have not discussed yet.

The brain is a living machine. It processes Temporal Events and uses consciousness, to route

messages into networks of Temporal Event processors, we call neurons, which allow us to

recognise patterns in things. In other words, recognise patterns on all scales of detail at the same

time. (I intend to expand on this aspect of patterns, on all scales of detail later).

The reason I mentioned the brain is a living machine, is that we accept living things can grow and

heal themselves. The brain is no different in this respect. Although just like any part of our body,

unfortunately there are limits to its ability to alter or repair itself.

Any structural change which influences the flow of information in the brain, therefore influences

how we think. However structural changes do not alter the function of the brain, in the time scale of

milliseconds. Therefore they are not directly related to the moment by moment processing of

information.

However structural changes which occur over time, will change the way the brain processes

information and so these changes can be considered another form of memory learning.

This is where the evidence so far is pointing, to the role gila cells play in altering how we think.

They are not simply a support system. Any structural wiring change caused by gila cells will result

in processing changes in the brain. From what I've heard about gila cells, they appear to be reacting



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to their local environment. This makes sense. The gila cells are interested in areas of activity in the

brain, the same way the Neurons and the Synapse are interested in activity. I want to return to this

discussion about the role of gila cells, after we go through other important structural changes.

One fascinating more recent discovery is called Adult Neurogenesis. This is new brain cells being

born in the brain. Its so far been identified, in only a few places in the brain, in particular part of an

area called the Hippocampus. However it has been suggested it could be more wide spread.

The thing I find most fascinating about Adult Neurogenesis, is not actually the process of the

formation of new brain cells. While this is very interesting, it also implies something else, which I

find more important. There's no point having a new brain cell in the brain, unless it can wire itself

into the brain. This means the new cell is wiring itself onto older cells. This means the old cells can

still form new connections.

There seems to be split opinions currently in science, between what kinds of structural changes are

possible. The discovery of Adult Neurogenesis has helped to put a new spotlight on the subject. We

obviously know Neurogenesis occurs when a baby is first forming. Also after birth, the number of

synapse increase, so the brain is adding interconnections between neurons. There's also some talk ofit culling unused synaptic connections, which makes sense, as synapse which are not Potentiated for

a very long time, are not required, as they play no part in consciousness.

Gila cells have been associated with culling synaptic connections. Gila cells are also associated with

helping dendrites and axons grow. Therefore they can change how we think. I suspect they are

doing what the neurons and synapse are doing. Showing interest in any parts of the brain that are

active. One question I would really like to know for sure, is over what ages ranges can a creature

have Gila cells altering the wiring. Is it simply an early development learning process, or can it

occur over all age ranges, so adults can have it as well? It makes sense new connections are made

over all age ranges. It would provide a way to learn new patterns, beyond what the current brain

layout allows, which would have a strong evolutionary advantage. For example, creatures need to

learn about new dangers at any point in its life, from creatures they have never met before. Also for

adult Neurogenesis to exist at all, it shows new wiring can form in adults.

I want to return to discuss some more about the structural changes, after we have gone through the

final letter in NCATS, as it contains more clues to what kinds of structural changes are possible.

At this point, we have gone through four out of the five letters of NCATS. We only have N

remaining. One thing I find really fascinating about NCATS, is that everything we have been

discussing so far, is independent to a specific layout of a brain. Its not so far about what specific

sub-systems a brain needs. This means creatures evolving, can use these concepts to construct awide variety of brains, of varying complexity and layout.

This also means, NCATS can also be applied, to a very wide range of AI applications. NCATS

provides general purpose neural processing concepts, to allow the construction of truly

consciousness machines. How intelligence we can build them, depends on a lot of factors, I will get

to later.

One very important point to note, is that a machine based on NCATS will not simply be a

simulation of consciousness. It will be a truly conscious machine. It will be conscious in the way we

are conscious, and learn the way we learn. It will think like a living creature. It will even have

emotions, but it will not have every emotion we have. It doesn't need every emotion. I will return to



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this, when I get into the design considerations required to design robots.

For the final letter, I want to discuss the layout of a brain and how information flows around it.

The letter N in NCATS

The Letter N in NCATS stands for Network.

Brains have a number of distinct sub-sections. They vary between creatures, but there are also

simultaneities in some areas of the brain. There exists a branch of brain science, called comparative

Neuroanatomy, which studies these simultaneities and differences, trying to use comparisons

between creatures, as a means to workout how the brains function. The science of comparative

Neuroanatomy is incredibly old, it can remarkable be traced back as far as Aristotle! (2391 years

ago to 2329 years ago). Although one scientist stands out beyond all others, for his contribution to

science in this area. That scientist was Charles Darwin. His work called, Origin of Species

transformed the study of comparative Neuroanatomy, because it showed a mechanism by which

species evolved over time. It provided the first major key to understand how and why creatures are

the way they are. However its not the only key. A lot of research has gone into the study, of the

genetic basis of how and why DNA constructs various parts of the brain. This work is helping to

explain how parts of the brain form and show how some neurological conditions have a genetic

basis.

In discussions about the brain, it seems its often not long, before the discussion moves onto the

reoccurring questions, of why are humans different to other creatures. The conversations usually go

along the lines of, we have transformed the planet, while other creatures don't seem to do much. Its

fascinating how so often, some humans want to differentiate themselves from other creatures.

Its fascinating in English at least, even the word animal, can be used in a derogatory way, when

applied to a human. We humans didn't spontaneously come into existence!. The other creatures

share many attributes with us. In fact, they are a lot smarter than we are giving them credit for. So

far I've shown, they understand causality!, they are consciousness!, they even have imagination!

(due to also processing illusionary events). They are also superstitious!, simply because they cannot

tell Illusionary Events from Causality Events, and this is most definitely, something many humans

have in unfortunately vast abundance. Also, as if all that wasn't enough, we have one more big

surprise waiting for us in this section. But I want to give an overview of our own brains, before I get

to it. (I don't want to spoil the surprise, for anyone who wants to cling to an ever more fraying, last

thread of hope, humans some how, spontaneously just became intelligent! ;)

On the outsider layers of our brain, we have something called the Neocortex, which is composed of

6 layers, over most of our brain surface. Deeper inside the brain, we have a number of interesting

areas, some of which, I have simply been referring to up until now, as areas or groups of neurons,

that act as building blocks, for our emotions and behaviours. The majority of this internal structure

is summarised as the Limbic system. I want to mention, many other creatures have something like

our Limbic system. (Also, while we are here, I guess I should just point out, that means creatures

also have basic emotions! By the way, that's not the surprise I'm saving, although I think I just

heard, that over worn, very frayed thread of hope, break a bit more. ;)

The Neocortex is a mammal specific area of the brain, but many other non-mammals, I suspect have

something similar, but more primitive, (which I will get to later). The only big noticeably different



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part on a human brain (on the outside) is the strange looking, almost small brain like object, on the

back underside of our main brain, which is the Cerebellum. This acts like a telephone exchange,

between our brain and the rest of our body.

I will keep this simple, but I want to identify some important areas of the brain, to help us discuss

how information flows around the brain.

Start by thinking of your forehead, nose and chin as defining a line down the centre of your face.

Your brain is (mostly) divided into two halves, either side of this line. Each half is called a

hemisphere, so you have a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere.

There's another way to divide up the brain, into areas called lobes. Each hemisphere has four lobes

so in total you could say you have eight lobes. Its important we identify each pair. (This is only

going to be a ruff location guide, but its all we need for now).

If you put your hand centrally on the back of your head (about half a hand width above your neck so

you are past the Cerebellum on the back of your head) then that area is called the Occipital Lobe.

That area interprets visual information. Strange how we interpret vision with the back of our head!

Anyway, if you put your hands, so that your thumbs are in your ears, and your fingers just about

touching over the top of your head. Now imagine that as a line running from both ears over the top

of you head. Keep you fingers behind this line, towards the back of your head. Your hands are now

over your Parietal lobes. These interprets touch information.

So the back of you head has the Occipital Lobes (vision) and then the Parietal lobes (touch). Its

important to notice the Occipital Lobes that interprets visual information, is below and behind the

parietal lobes that are interpreting touch information. The importance of these two areas, I will

come back to later.

The next two lobes are the Frontal lobes and they are at this moment trying to decide right now, if I

have lost my mind, talking about putting hands on a head! ;) ... Anyway, joking aside, I think its

important we locate it on our head. In front of the line we talked about, between your ears and over

your head, is the frontal lobes, but only on top of your head, not at the sides. They are literally at the

front of your head, as their name implies. (There's also something important at this point between

when the Parietal lobes end and just before the Frontal lobes begin. I'll get to this in a minute).

The last two lobes are the Temporal lobes. These are at the side of your head. These can be found

by putting you hands over your ears and pointing your fingers forward towards your eye. Now pull

you hands backward, so your finger tips are just by your eyes. Now you hands are mostly over yourTemporal lobes. Its a ruff guide, but it will do for our discussion. These Temporal lobes interpreting

sound information.

Its important to note, I have so far only been talking about, what goes into the Occipital ( vision),

Parietal (touch) and Temporal lobes (sound). These are some of the main outside world sensorinformation areas, where the brain starts to make sense of the world around us.

I now want to start by talking about something called the Postcentral gyrus. A gyrus is a commonly

occurring name, used to describe various parts of the brain. It can be thought of as a bulge, as in the

bulges visible on the outside of the brain. The bulges I am referring to are the relatively large

ripples on the surface of the brain. They look like a large finger print style pattern. The groves in-



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between the gyrus are called sulcus. Together the bulges and groves (gyrus and sulcus) provide a

convenient way to label various parts of the brain, in slightly more detail.

The line I defined as between your ears and over your head, has a special significance. If we work

from the back of the head, up to this line for a moment, then this line defines the boundary between

where the Parietal lobes end and just before the Frontal lobes begin. (Remember the brain is split

into two hemispheres, so we have Parietal lobes on both sides ending and Frontal lobes on bothsides beginning).

At the point where the Parietal lobes are about to end and just before we get to the frontal lobes, is

the area of the Parietal lobes called the Postcentral gyrus. This is the ar

Opening The Glass Box

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