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Celebrating nephew Steve's birthday
 An example of "family resemblances"
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Robert Kovsky, B.S.E.E., MIT, 1968; M.A., Physics/Materials Science, UC Berkeley, 1971; J.D., UC Berkeley, 1974.
| I am now living in a retirement community in Northern California. Lacking an institutional affiliation, I am grateful for the Internet as a publishing medium.
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Conceptions that led to Quad Nets Projects originated in 1970 while I was working on a Ph.D. project in physics and materials science at the University of California (Berkeley). The Ph.D. project investigated electrical switching phenomena in glassy metal alloys that appeared useful for associative memory systems. Glassy metal alloys can take on multiple physical forms ("phases") that have different electrical properties; a researcher can control changes between phases. One leading conception was that classes of phase changes in such materials could generate, control and interact with classes of electrical signals in large-scale collective ways that mimicked operations of brains. Such models would differ from computerized brain models where changes occur incrementally in bits.
(Other researchers had conceptions similar to mine, especially Stanford R. Ovshinsky, the leading pioneer in the field. See https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8768449, L. Hoddeson, P. Garrett, G. Wicker, "Stanford Ovshinsky and the Genesis of the Cognitive Computer.")
Concepts of large-scale phase changes also applied to movements of my own body. While at Berkeley, I developed an interest in backpacking adventures in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. I became aware of courses of purposeful action of my body that happened spontaneously — e.g., crossing a stream of water by stepping on rocks sticking up from the surface or climbing on a big rock.
As a result of my dissatisfaction with the "modern scientific view," I left formal studies in technology and entered law school. Thereafter I had legal adventures of various kinds. My conceptions continued to develop and evolve. Starting about 1992, materials were published online.
Associative memory systems have potential application to legal research, a possibility that I explored in my first attempts at alternative models of brains. The results are represented by a device model of a legal research system as part of (...) Technology of Freedom. (Technology of Freedom was in the nature of a "reconnaissance" of long-range goals and paths to the goals. The project (...) correctly envisioned some essential features of the Quad Net and timing devices systems.)
While at MIT, I encountered the proposition that "brains are computers." Previously, I had built a computer out of pinball machine relays saved from law enforcement incinerators by my high school science teacher, Frank Gasper. I had also learned assembly language and applications programming for mainframe IBM machines and I had a pretty good idea about how computers work. My immediate response was that the proposition "brains are computers" was false, absurd and unworkable. My views on this subject have never changed but have developed in several ways. The proposition is contrary to the working of the Spirit that I experience directly as freedom. Factually, the proposition "brains are computers" has not led to any substantial intellectual development despite more than 60 years of intensive research. Notwithstanding many valuable uses of computers, e.g., in medical procedures, I do not know of any substantial practical benefits that have been developed from the proposition itself. I hold that the proposition is not only false, it is seriously injurious to human beings and to Western civilization. The proposition would deny freedom and squeeze freedom out of our activities, substituting a culture of meaningless mechanisms, continual distractions and unreal imagery for the authentic lives of persons. Quad Nets were conceived during the week between April 24 and May 1, 2005. I was in New York City with friends to attend operas and a play. My friends had scheduled more performances than I and they enjoyed dining in Zagat-rated restaurants while I walked the streets and visited cheap, exotic eateries. While walking, I envisioned a new class of electronic devices. The visions were of Quad Nets. I had been reaching towards visions of Quad Nets for 35 years. My visions of Quad Nets satisfied my need to obtain practical knowledge, in the fashion of an engineer, about the origin and nature of freedom in human intelligence. I saw how a system of electronic devices could exercise freedom much as I was exercising freedom while walking the streets of New York City. I saw that a single, common principle of freedom unites activity patterns in Quad Nets, activity patterns in brains and patterns of pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the streets. The traffic patterns are the result of patterns of signals set by traffic engineers while exercising freedom and of each person exercising freedom for himself or herself by selecting a route of travel. The patterns interact with one another through structures of time control.| The first device I imagined got the name "Broadway," after the boulevard that runs through mid-town Manhattan. Running diagonally, Broadway meets major avenues at Columbus Circle and at several "Squares," interchanges for traffic going cross-town, up-town and down-town. I saw that vehicles and pedestrians resemble nerve pulses, Broadway resembles the spinal cord and the "Square" interchanges act like spinal nerve complexes or yoga chakras, e.g., the nerve complex where the spinal cord branches to a person's arms. Imagery of "Broadway" turned into Image 19 of the Quad Nets paper. The flow of pulses in the device part resembles patterns of traffic signals and vehicles in a Broadway "Square." The activity of the device part resembles activity of a part of nervous system. |
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The central principle of the Quad Net Model - the principle of Shimmering Sensitivity that I suggest resembles human consciousness - is embodied in collective activity. Such collective activity cannot be tracked mathematically (at least as far as I know) and chief means of description are Images and operational charts.
In a dialogue with me that extended over several messages, Eric wrote:It would really help if you dissected an individual 'tial' mathematically. That is, what rules do they follow? What are the rules for how they interact with one another? Is there an example of a computation that they can perform? E.g., xor.
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Bob: without an equation to describe how an individual element works, it's impossible for me to say anything more. Even if you need six to get a cycle, it would be very helpful to know what is cycling, what the rules governing the individual elements of the cycle. It is usually pedagogically most useful to start simple, with equations that govern how an individual element (whether it be neuron, capacitor, etc) works, and then build up slowly to more interesting behavior.
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[Eric noted comparisons to:]...cellular automata, but the rules governing the behavior of individual cells is quite explicable. My main point is, that as a sociological fact, few people will read or understand your theory unless you take what you call the 'atomic-molecular' approach.
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also it would be good to fill out in more detail the input-output transform being implemented by an individual element: a drawing that specifies the inputs, outputs, and the transform between the two.
Here's my advice, from 20 years in the industry.
- Define what each unit does.
- Describe how the units interact.
- Show that the interaction causes the units to generate a representation.
The "six" units Eric referred to were Quad Net elemental devices shown in connection with the Simple Cycler device assembly in § 4.a of the Quad Nets paper.
Following the advice of Eric and Mike, elemental devices in the Simpler Cycler were reduced to become primal timing devices. Section 4.e of Quad Nets involved "one pulse triggers" and "two pulse triggers" that developed into the "one-pulse trigger rule" and the "two pulse trigger rule" for timing devices. Controller operations discussed in § 4.f (and applied in the decussation device) had been conceived with prior gate devices in mind, namely, relays, vacuum tubes and junction transistors; and gated timing devices devices followed directly.
Musical experience appeared suitable for modeling with the timing devices. In February of 2009, I conceived of connections between harmonies and timing device assemblies that developed into "An Ear for Pythagorean Harmonics," "an Eye for Sharp Contrast" and "Brain Models Built From Timing Devices. (See the (...) sitemap for the website.) Work since 2011 has been focused on Principal Projects described in a section of the (...) sitemap.