E-2 Finite-State Brain to E-1 Infinite-State Brain
My Papers on origins of REM in dreaming, phasic transients, loss of external clock and resultant change of brain circuitry from (hardwired) finite-state to a (softwired) ANALOG(ous) to Infinite-State circuit are published elsewhere. Some of this material which tries to prove Globus’ Real-Time hypothesis and is from my time at Stirling University Centre for Cognative and Computational Neuroscience (CCCN) is too heavy-going for this introductory site. For details of menued DVD 53 mins (PAL or NTSC) & forthcoming book please visit www.Steve-Nichols.com
Without becoming embroiled in details of the neuroscience I would like to offer an analogy explaining how the 'phantom eye' might interact with the substrate of neurons and glial cells, connections, and electrochemical events that compose the brain. Given that the brain is a kind of neuro-computer or connectionist machine, and that patterns of electrochemical events represent the information that it is carrying then the 'phantom eye' is a 'virtual computer screen' to which attention messages are passed.
The "trick of nature" involves the fact that there is no longer a physical screen (sense-organ) to which output is directed, and from which input is received. Pathways to the expected device have been so established over evolutionary history that the brain can reconstruct how this organ once acted, and internalise its functions. The virtual screen decodes information conveyed by complex neuronal firings in much the same way that a computer-monitor redraws electron impulses as patterns of coloured pixels that are 'meaningful' to a viewer. Decisions concerning behaviour are then based on this ‘meaningful' level of representation rather than low-level messages. Behavioural choices previously determined by light information as it affected the median eye are now taken by the computational brain and its abstract ‘sense appendage’.... no longer a slave to direct environmental impressions.
Copyright Steve Nichols (1979 - 2006)
