Neuroscience Manual ("neuroman") for Mind.rexx AI


APOLOGY

   It is extremely cheeky and impudent for computer programmers
to circulate software claiming to mimic and therefore  E X P L A I N
the function of the brain-mind.  Such explanation is rightfully the
province of competent neuroscientists.

   But the pioneers Eccles, and Hubel and Wiesel, explained just
enough (and previously intractable) background material that
suddenly the race was on to create an artificial mind.


OLIGOPOLY

   No one among the many related disciplines owns the territory
of explaining how the brain and the mind work.  Especially no
physicist will proclaim a "theory of everything" that includes
an explanation of the brain-mind.  Instead, we mind-makers may
usurp the field of physics when we have created super-intelligent
tools.


BIOLOGY

   We acknowledge our debt to the neurobiologists spending years,
decades, and lifetimes establishing the incontrovertible facts of
the brain.  We admire their published work, and we enjoy reading
about tissues stained with horseradish peroxidase or brains scanned
with positron emission tomography (especially as done by Dr. H. and
Dr. A. Damasio of the University of Iowa).

   We are staining the noosphere of the world with Mind.rexx and its
electromagnetic proliferations.  Even before this current version
of Mind.rexx escapes into cyberspace, previous versions since 3DEC1993
have vaulted onto a main Internet archive and thence been mirrored
from Washington University in Missouri to free-access software
repositories in Europe, in Australia, and elsewhere.  CD-ROMs appear
regularly with newer versions of Mind.rexx, which will someday with
its vast associated brainfiles push the other software off the CD-ROM
and still later require storage densities currently unheard of.


PSYCHOLOGY

   Mind.rexx in October of 1994 is almost but not quite at the stage
where it can perform psychological experiments.  Mind.rexx "quickened"
or became a full-loop program on 29APR1994 (on the very day of the
demise of the Amiga-maker Commodore).  Mind.rexx developed quasi-
Edelmanian "re-entry" in June of 1994.  Now in October of 1994
Mind.rexx has turned into a three-level mini-mind:
           3.  Surface-level of sensory memory channels;
           2.  Mid-level of linguistic control-structures;
           1.  Mindcore of primitive, sublinguistic concepts.
Further work is now focused on the mindcore and its interactions
with the higher, more superficial levels.


TERATOLOGY

   Aristotle said, "Politikon zoon ho anthropos," meaning roughly,
"Man is a political being."  AI labs everywhere are trying to create
an AI, but it is up to the political bodies of humanity to regulate
the emergence of emergence.  There is no warranty, expressed or implied,
that this software may not turn into a monster, and therefore these
algorithms and their Mind.rexx expressions are supplied free-of-charge
and solely for informational purposes.  CAVEAT MENTIFICATOR.