dwarren@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Warren) (04/22/89)
Once evolution stumbled and let loose of a few of the lifelong memory
fibers, these formerly dedicated, now abstract fibers turned around and took
over the course of evolution. As the embodiment of the negentropic
principle, they became an "abstract" vault of the mind and an ordering force.
They set about creating internal order within the mind. On level two they
passively accepted order from without, and next on level three they will
actively impose order from within.
Throughout this article, the term "abstract fiber" refers on
ly to fibers in the abstract core of the mind. The term "concrete fiber"
refers only to the associative tag fibers which lie at right angles to the
time-dimension of both the abstract and the experiential fibers. So there are
three types offibers in this mind-model: experiential (sensory or motor),
abstract, andconcrete.
When the abstract fibers got loose from their dedication, they did not
lose their ability to store memories within their nodes that lie along each
fiber like a chain of beads. They lost neither their orthogonal
juxtaposition to the concrete associative fibers nor their ability to fuse
nodes and thus be tagged by the associative fibers. Since they no longer had
any direct source of memory data, either sensory or motor, the abstract
fibers could henceforth be filled with memory-data only by receiving inputs
sideways from the concrete associative tags, and that indirect, abstract
function is what they fulfill even to this day. An abstract fiber in the
core of the mind serves associatively as a unifying fiber which crosses all
time-boundaries and interconnects potentially all original and re-occurring
instances of the experience of a particular pattern of perception. A sensory
memory fiber is for sensation; an abstract memory fiber is for perception.
In order to understand how an abstract memory fiber works, you must keep
in mind the two-fold mechanism of original association and subsequent
reaffirmation. The original, neonatal sensory inputs to level two of the
mind flow first directly into memory nodes in the sensory memory channel and
thence indirectly, associatively, via the concrete associative tags, into
memory nodes in the abstract memory channel. In a newly constructed organism
(such as a baby), the first memory deposits are of a very low level of
complexity. The abstract memory channel stands ready to receive and record
whatever inputs are fed to it across the associative tags. Therefore, in the
earliest moments of memory, identical engrams are formed in the sensory and
the abstract memory channels. At its neonatal origin, the abstract memory
channel mirrors the sensory memory channels. Remember, the abstract core of
the mind is trying to mirror the external world, which it must perceive
through the medium of the sensory channels.
However, as time goes by, each abstract fiber becomes extremely
differentiated from its neighbors. The original level of complexity of the
data in the abstract memory channel is on the order of off-or-on, yes-or-no.
This irreducibly simple logical content is the mirrored reflection of the
jumble of data in the sensory memory channels. The sensory memory channels
never actually become organized internally, but the abstract memory fibers do
become organized. Order develops within the abstract memory channel through
the incessant and potent mechanism of associative reaffirmation.
Please examine the abstract memory channel from the point of view of
identical contents being held both in the sensory memory channels and in the
abstract memory channel. Suppose that through the eye a particular feature,
such as a geometric line, has been seen and recorded, first in the visual
memory channel, and simultaneously by associative tag in the abstract memory
channel. Every subesquent time that that particular feature is seen again
along the same sensory memory fiber, two important events will occur. The
one rather simple event is that the sensation of that feature will be
recorded one more time within a freshly fixed node at that point along the
sensory memory fiber where the march of time is presently fixing nodes by
simultaneity across a wide, associative front. Meanwhile, as the signal of
the sensed feature travels along the sensory memory fiber and briefly floods
that fiber at every point, the originally fixed node is faithfully doing its
duty as a comparison device. By simple unitary logic, it recognizes the
(umpteenth) reoccurrence of the signal of the same sensed feature with which
it was originally fixed, or written as an engram.
The sensory memory node, stimulated by the transient signal, blips out a
signal across its associative tag over to the related node on the related
abstract memory fiber. Now in turn the abstract memory node, stimulated by
the transient associative signal, blips out a signal which travels down the
abstract memory fiber to where unfixed tabula rasa nodes are being fixed by
every data-laden moment of the present. So now we have a mirror phenomenon
occurring both in the sensory memory fiber and in the abstract memory fiber.
The associative tag fiber of the present moment fuses across nodes on both
the abstract memory fiber and the sensory memory fiber. Thus the logical
content and the "dedication" of the abstract memory fiber are reaffirmed by
simultaneity in the present moment of perception.
The concrete associative fiber of the present moment of perception will
fuse with sensory and abstract nodes wherever two or more signals are present
orthogonally. Suppose that the eye of the organism is seeing an image or
pattern composed of many features. Each extracted feature floods its own
sensory memory fiber within the visual memory channel. The concrete
associative fiber of the present, which is activated by an internal clock of
the brain, fuses nodes with each feature-fiber that is momentarily being
activated by the total sensation of the image or pattern. Therefore, this
concrete associative fiber is henceforth irrevocably linked to the group of
features which comprise the seen image. Henceforth this associative fiber
can either recall the image internally or recognize the image seen again
externally. The concrete associative fiber is now an associative "tag"
attached to the image.
Although the associative tag may connect to many fibers in the sensory
memory channel, it can connect to as few as one single fiber in the abstract
memory channel. Thus a single fiber in the abstract memory channel can come
to represent a whole class of fibers in the sensory memory channel, and lo,
an abstract concept is born.
If you pause to think, you may see how it makes sense that often
multiple fibers will be activated in the sensory memory channel while only
one or a few fibers are activated in the abstract memory channel. In the
neonatal period, there may be a releasing mechanism which lets loose of only
a few abstract fibers at a time. Or the abstract fibers may compete to be
the first abstract fiber to be reaffirmed by the associative tag over to a
bundle of sensory fibers comprising a pattern. The main thing
is, each abstract memory fiber can serve as a reaffirmative collection-point for
associations to a whole class of similar sensory patterns. Voila, pattern
recognition occurs. The abstract fiber is not in the thick of sensation; it
stands aside and is abstract.
An abstract memory fiber (spoken of in the singular here, although a
gang of thousands of logically fused fibers is meant) can become the physical
and logical seat of a concept within the mind. For instance, a dog that
knows and recognizes its master will have at least one abstract memory fiber
which serves as the ultimate, concentrated association-point for all
memory -information related to the dog's master. This assertion is so serious
and so evocative of hasty disbelief that it is now time to invoke the force
of the dimensionality of the mind.
The level-two mind has two dimensions, the lifelong time-dimension and
the simultaneity-dimension. Within the level-two mind (and the level-three
mind), memory fibers all flow in parallel and only along the time-dimension.
You know from experience that your mind has held a concept of something
or other, such as a concept of the sun around which our earth orbits. All
your knowledge of the sun is tied to that concept, and that concept is tied
to the word "sun." Of course, your conceptual knowledge of the sun could be
broken down into ingredient concepts, such as the concepts of warmth or light
or chariots. But is seems as if you have one unitary point within your mind
where all the constituent concepts are subsumed under the operative concept
of "sun." So the dimensionality of your concept of "sun" is punctiform. If
your concept of sun were triangular or circular, you would not be able to
focus your mind upon the same pinnacle of conceptuality each time that you
thought about the sun.
But your concept of the sun is not only unitary, it is also quite
constant over time. Just as a point extended through space becomes a line,
likewise a unitary concept held constant over time can best be r
epresented, both physically and logically, as a unitary fiber (or its logical
equivalent, a gang of fused fibers) flowing along the time-dimension of the
mind. So thedimensionality of a concept is double: it is punctiformly
unitary and it is chronologically linear.
Does it seem ridiculous that this mind-model claims that perhaps a
single gang of fibers in your brain holds your concept of a thing such as the
sun, or of your pet dog, or of yourself - your concept of ego? But think:
the concept-fiber is operative not by itself, but by virtue of the myriad
associative tags leading from it. Many concepts are interrelated and they
contribute to the composition of one another. Conceptual fibers are
associated not just to sensory data, but also to one another within the
abstract memory channel. Therefore a slice of your abstract memory channel
is like a conceptual topography. The maze of concepts is like a stick-forest
of interrelated points of knowledge. Concepts are neighbors or relatives of
one another not by physical proximity, but by logical proximity.
Your pet dog has a stick-forest of concepts, but, alas! he has no words
(or symbols) attached to them and therefore he can not manipulate them in a
rational way. Even though your dog may hear words quite often, he does not
develop the use of words. Your baby, however, quickly develops the use of
hundreds of words. How is the level-three mind of your baby different from
the level-two mind of your dog?
On the third level of mind, rational intellect springs into being in a
process whereby rigid informational structures arise amid the hodge-podge
informational milieu which was level two. These new structures arise as the
means to express relationships among concepts. They are to some degree
logical structures and to a larger degree linguistic structures. The
structures remove the mind from the bondage of immediate, concrete experience
and allow the genesis of abstract thought.
We can first examine the existence in the mind of a vocabulary of words
solely with respect to level two, and then we can describe the level-three
structures which govern these words in linguistic thought.
Let us discuss the relationship bewteen word-memories in the auditory
memory channel and image-memories in the visual memory channel. Let us
confine our discussion to concrete nouns which are readily linked to concrete
images.
First of all, the association between the two memory channels is a
two-way street. Activation of the image can evoke the word in auditory
memory, and activation of the word can evoke many images in visual memory.
Notice that "word" here is singular, but "images" is plural. This difference
obtains because a single word can serve as a control-symbol for a whole class
of images. For instance, if you see any one of many varieties of dog, the word
"dog" can come to mind in your auditory memory channel. If many people
listening to a story hear the word "dog," they will probably summon up quite
varying images of dog to instantiate the concept of "dog."
Humans with words as control-symbols have an extreme advantage over the
level-two minds of animals. The word attached to a concept makes that
concept utterly and fluidly manipulable within the ratiocinative structures
of the mind. Even though the word is an extended string of phonemes, it
behaves logically as if it were a unitary point.
Indeed, in the level-three mind, each word is attached to a unitary
point, namely the abstract conceptual fibergang associated with the word in
the abstract memory channel.
In a level-one mind that contained words, there would be a direct
associative link between an image and a word. In the level-three mind,
concrete associative tags do not flow directly between images and words.
Instead, from the sensory memory channels the associative tags make contact
with the abstract conceptual fiber, which is the focal embodiment of a
particular concept and which serves as a unifying point for the development
and linguistic activity of the concept. If a linguistic structure is going
to control a vocabulary of words, each word must have a sort of "handle" upon
it, by which the word, as a symbol, can be controlled. That handle is the
abstract conceptual fiber.
The abstract memory channel is the set of all abstract memory fibers.
An "abstract conceptual fiber" is an abstract memory fiber which happens to
hold a concept (by gathering up all the associative tags of the concept).
Therefore the set of all abstract conceptual fibers is a subset of the set of
all abstract memory fibers.
Thus far in our discussion, a concept has a tripartite existence within
the brain-mind. Firstly, the word exists as a short string of sounds within
the auditory memory channel. Be aware that no word will exist at only one
memory location within the auditory memory channel, but rather each word will
be recorded there in hundreds or thousands of historical instances, depending
upon how frequently the word is used. Furthermore, be very aware that, since
each instance of the word is the same string of sounds (phonemes), all
instances of a word within the auditory memory channel are logically
equivalent. Since the auditory memory channel is not just a
transmission-channel, and not just a memory-channel, but also a
comparison-channel, any one instance of a word can quickly be compared with
all other instances of the same (or even a similar) word, so that a word
existing in thousands of spots within the auditory memory channel functions
as if all the spots were interconnected, as indeed they are. To illustrate
this point, think of the word "dog" and how you can conjure up many different
images of"dog."