lewis@smu.UUCP (Eve Lewis) (02/22/88)
Urgent insert: On the morning of Friday, 12 February 1988, I heard
the following NPR item:- The National Research Council has issued a
report calling for a major shift in biology research. The report
says the Federal Government should spend $200 million a year, for
fifteen years, on a single genetic project. NPR's Science reporter,
Laurie Garrett, has more:
Garrett: For several years, some powerful scientists have been
promoting the largest biological research effort ever attempted.
They want to decipher the code of over three billion genetic mes-
sages stored in human chromosomes. The National Research Council en-
dorsed the project yesterday, but did not say which Federal agency
should control it. Last night, Harvard University Nobel Laureate,
David Baltimore, addressed the Annual Meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. Despite his leading role
in genetics and biotechnology research, Baltimore came out against
"The Genome Project."
Baltimore: When I walk around and ask people, "Do you feel in your
own research, that what's holding you up, is a lack of sequence of
the human genome?" I have yet to meet anybody who says, "Yes."
Garrett: Baltimore says Federal money and research efforts would be
better spent on a massive, co-ordinated attack on the AIDS virus. In
Boston, I'm Laurie Garrett.
End of this NPR transcript re: Baltimore's horrendous opinion.
1) Do researchers always know precisely what is "holding up" their
research, or how said research would be spurred, stimulated, and
aided by such an important store of data?
2) From Robert Kanigel's book, "Apprentice to Genius," which I just
finished reading, discussing James Shannon of NIH, and I believe
supporting my view that Baltimore's advice is a mistake:
"Shannon's task was to align NIH's disease-oriented structure with
the needs of basic research. The strategy he advanced all the years
of his tenure as director was: Don't embark on a narrow search for
disease cures at all." and,
"`Knowledge of life processes and of phenomena underlying health and
disease is still grossly inadequate,' he would write. Without such
knowledge, it was a waste of time, money, and manpower to aim for
the solution of a specific medical problem. He blamed the failure of
polio vaccines back in the 1930s on lack of knowledge of the polio
virus and techniques needed to culture it. He pulled the plug from
an artificial heart program already approved because he didn't think
cardiac functioning was well enough understood.
"He didn't like the term basic research; he preferred calling it
fundamental. But in the end it was the same. As he put it in an ar-
ticle he coauthored for "Science" soon after becoming director, "The
potential relevance of research to any disease category is [best]
defined in terms of long-range possibilities and not in terms of
work directed toward the quick solution of problems obviously and
solely related to a given disease." Additionally, re:
Ca. 1955, Dr. Seymour Kety, Director of Scientific Research for NIMH
"In the long run, basic science would gain, leading to clinical ad-
vances more abundant than if they'd been pursued directly.
"Some years later, two clinical investigators, Julius Comroe and
Robert Dripps, lent analytical force to Kety's intuition. The two
undertook to examine the origins of the ten most important clinical
advances in heart and lung medicine and surgery of the preceding
thirty years. They tracked down 529 scientific articles that had, in
retrospect, proven crucial to those clinical success stories. Of
them, Comroe wrote, fully forty-one percent `reported work that, at
the time it was done, had no relation whatever to the disease that
it later helped to prevent, diagnose, treat, or alleviate.' Penicil-
lin, the anticoagulant heparin, and the class of drugs known as
beta-blockers were among them."
Now, I refer to the above, because I believe that if David "reverse
transcriptase" Baltimore's advice were followed, it would deprive
the AI people and the neuroscience people (let's hope that some have
a foot in each camp) of the BIOLOGICAL COMPILER IN THE NEURONS OF
THE HUMAN BRAIN, to wit: the "reverse transcriptase" implicated in
mental function. That is why it is too ironic for words, that Bal-
timore should come out with such an opinion, in addition to its
being pathetic that someone of his calibre should "think small." One
wonders what interests have gotten to him.
My article continues:
On page A1 of the New York Times, 20 March 1987, there was a report
of a meeting called by the American Physical Society. I tell you,
these people were chortling in a state of absolute mania, in regard
to the discoveries in "superconductivity." The head: "Discoveries
Bring a `Woodstock' for Physics." Byline: By James Gleick.
Was I jealous? Was I envious? I tell you that I was totally sick, to
the max. But I also tell you that less than one year later, I am
beginning to feel rather good, about AI (artificial intelligence, as
we all know) and about NI (natural intelligence).
Interdigitation between these two disciplines will forge an ab-
solutely unbreakable bond, and after a struggle of two and a half
millenia, WE will chortle at our own "Woodstock." I can see The New
York Times article's banner headline in my "mind's eye," now:
"DISCOVERIES BRING A `WOODSTOCK' FOR NEUROSCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE." (We will also be able to define in neurophysiological
and molecular biological terms, just what is that "mind's eye.")
Now, re: the Drexler concept: Godden <GODDEN%gmr.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
in an article, "Intelligent Nanocomputers," dated Friday, 15 January
1988 @ 09:46 EST, discusses K. Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation."
What he explores particularly in his review is the chapter on AI and
nanocomputers. "Drexler makes the fascinating claim (no doubt many
will vehemently disagree) that to create a true artificial intel-
ligence it is not necessary to first understand intelligence. All
one has to do is simulate the brain, which can be done given
nanotechnology. He suggests that a complete hardware simulation of
the brain can be done, synapse-for-synapse and
dendrite-for-dendrite, in the space of one cubic centimeter (this
figure is backed up in the notes)."
However, the real "Engine of Creation" is, in actuality, a
NANO-NANOTECHNOLOGY. It would be most resourceful, and productive to
access the BIOLOGICAL NANO-NANOTECHNOLOGY, and with this
inspiration," with this wealth of clues, create an AI
NANO-NANOTECHNOLOGY.
Biological Nano-Nanotechnology IS Molecular Biology. But take heart,
because there is no conflict between Biological Nanotechnology and
Biological Nano-Nanotechnology. Indeed, the latter is the raison
d'etre, the vis a tergo, the provider of templates, the sine qua
non, for the former, which provides the model, and the source of
reference for Drexler's "Engine of Creation," which is - one judges
from Godden's review - an isomorph of the human brain.
I only recommend that AI nanotechnologists avail themselves of the
wealth of experimentation and information in Biological
Nano-Nanotechnology. Every structure in the human body, not ex-
cepting, for sure, the human brain, drags with it a phylogenetic
residue, from further back in time than perhaps we care to remember,
a DNA riddled with karma, "sins," choices made at forks in the
evolutionary road, even choices not made at such forks, and all,
rattling like the chains of Marley's ghost. We may be scared, in-
hibited by built-in protective mechanims, which is why we have not
yet solved "the biggie." I here refer to precisely what is the human
mind, in neurophysiological and molecular biological terms.
The structural genes of the human genome determine the morphology of
the human brain, not to neglect the neurotransmitters, receptors,
etc. In my view, the human genome is the engineer that masterminded
the "Engine of Creation." There is no antithesis implicated; indeed,
after swallowing the theories of Galileo, Darwin and Freud, the
species (ours) had best prepare itself for another humongous gulp,
when the genetic constraints on human thought are revealed and sub-
stantiated.
Godden's review of the Drexler book apparently elicited some reac-
tion. I refer specifically to the article dated 01 Feb 88 (11:53
PST), by John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, and that from
Wednesday, 03 Feb 1988 (01:25 EST), by Marvin L. Minsky
<MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>.
Dr. Minsky is optimistic in the extreme, as I am:
"Progress in this direction certainly seems faster than almost
everyone would have expected. I will make a prediction: In the next
few years, various projects will request and obtain large budgets
for the "human genome sequencing" enterprise. In the meantime, some-
one will succeed in stretching single strands of protein, DNA, or
RNA across crystalline surfaces, and sequence them, using the STM
method. Eventually, it should become feasible to do such sequencing
at multi-kilocycle rates, so that an entire chromosome could be
logged in a few days."
That is why Dr. Baltimore's advice is so alarming. With his prestige
and influence, whomelse will he recruit for that bandwagon?
John McCarthy (01 Feb 88) describes two extreme approaches to AI,
the "Logic Approach," which is his preference:
"Understand the common sense world well enough to express in a suit-
able logical language the facts known to a person. Also express the
reasoning methods as some kind of generalized logical inference."
and the "Instrumental Approach," which McCarthy finds less useful:
"Using nano-technology to make an instrumented person. (This ap-
proach was suggested by Drexler's book and by Eve Lewis's commentary
in AILIST. It may even be what she is suggesting)."
McCarthy points out certain problems with the "Instrumental
Approach," which on a Nanotechnological (Drexler) level would be a
recruitment of a functional isomorph of the human brain, and on a
more intricate, biologically more "basic," Nano-Nanotechnological
level, would involve a functioning human genomime ["genomime" is a
word I coined for the genomic equivalent of the brain isomorph].
He says "Sequence the human genome. Which one? Mostly they're the
same, but let the researcher sequence his own."
Dr. McCarthy is overlooking, in the most anti-serendipitous manner,
what neuroscience, embryology, and most particularly, which he did
not mention, PHYLOGENY, have to offer. Just for starters, the evolu-
tion of the genome, pari passu with the phylogenesis of the pineal
organ and the phylogenesis of the inner ear, as traced throughout
the vertebrate phylum, would give artificial intelligence such a
wealth of data, such an embarrassment of riches that it would hardly
begin to know what to do with.
This article is fast becoming a "gontzeh megillah," and I really
must wind it up, but when McCarthy refers to "the human genome," and
says, "which one?" that is enough to get me started again. As far as
feeding "culturgens" (E.O. Wilson's term) into the super-duper
parallel computer, does McCarthy really believe that there are no
racial differences, no sexual differences, not to mention individual
differences, in human brains? Does he think that it's "cultural
pressure" that accounts for the Oriental reverence for the dragon,
and for the Occidental St. George, slayer of same?
"Evolution keeps going, and even if we don't do anything artificial,
we won't be the same in ten million years." - Marvin L. Minsky
Meanwhile, before McCarthy abandons the "Engine of Creation," en-
tirely, I suggest that he check out the "Sexually Dimorphic Nucleus
of the Hypothalamus," S.D.N., for short - just for starters.
McCarthy states: "However, experience since the 1950s shows that AI
is a difficult problem, and it is very likely that fully understand-
ing intelligence may take of the order of a hundred years.
Therefore, the winning approach is likely to be tens of years ahead
of the also-rans."
In fact, we are not referring just to the experience of the last few
decades, but that of the last two and a half millenia.
If you would read the "Works of Plato," specifically the Socratic
dialogues in "Phaedrus" and "Theatetus" and compare the Dialogues to
Minsky's "Society of Mind," or to Lopate's interview with him, or to
Sir Francis Crick's seminar on "The Impact of Biochemistry on
Neurobiology," at Cornell University on 6 May 1986, or to Jonathan
Winson's "Brain and Psyche," or Michael S. Gazzaniga's "The Social
Brain," or J.Z. Young's "Programs of the Brain," or the other per-
ceptive contributions in this area, then you would have to ack-
nowledge that as far as the struggle to comprehend memory, or in-
ternal representation, or vision, or "How We Know Universals," is
concerned, we would have to paraphrase the Queen in "Through the
Looking-Glass," and admit that it's taken all the running we can do,
just to keep in the same place!
Nonetheless, solving this problem is do-able, and we are better off
with the information about the trillion neurons, with the 10,000
connections each, and the plethora of neurotransmitters and recep-
tors. And we will be better off yet with sequencing the human genome
with the three billion base pairs, and the introns and the exons,
and the promoters and the enhancers and the repressors and the even
the "junk" DNA. Maybe, especially the "junk" DNA.
Surely, we will have come up with a robust theory, or theories, to
interpret all that data, but let it be there to interpret, just as
we have to make sense out of all the neural pathways and connections
and peptides and receptors.
We don't need any "bottom-line," pessimistic, "applied research"
types shoving us off that track, or plunging us back into the dark
ages. So much for Baltimore's suggestion. Keep the faith!