>The model for intelligence is the human brain. The brain is the only
>machine known that is capable of producing motor acts that we class as
>intelligent. The notion was promulgated at the Dartmouth Summer
>Conference that intelligence had been described by the predicate
>calculus, and that all that was needed was to mechanize the
>manipulative algebra; the platform being irrelevant. This was done,
>but with unsatisfactory results.
>
>The basis of the scientific approach is the removal of God from the
>Machine. A soul with causal powers is rejected. This is easier said
>than done when we deal with the brain. Man wants a thinker. As a first
>step, we say that the nineteenth century dodge of postulating a mind
>is just that, a dodge. We will try, always, to write soul (mind) to
>remind ourselves that intelligence is a quality of the machine, not
>the soul (mind). There is to be no thinker.
>
>It is popular among neuroscientists to refer to the neuron as passing
>messages, as passing information. Messages are only interpretable by a
>soul (mind). A neuron passes pulses. A pulse contains only the
>information, “I am here. I am active”.
>
>We assert that any study on intelligence must be rooted in the brain.
>It must concern itself with the chemistry and circuitry of the brain.
>We reject Emergentism. When we explain the brain, or a computer
>simulation of the brain, we are finished. There is no soul (mind) to
>appear as resident in the machine.
>
>The classical approach to the brain follows the Bell-Magendie law.
>Sensory input leads to motor output. This is a passive view. I suggest
>that we can take a more active view by emphasizing circuitry in the
>middle, the central pattern generator (CPG). All motor output starts
>in a CPG. Without a triggered CPG, an organism does nothing. Without a
>triggered CPG, a human is just a lump of clay.
>
>The central pattern generators are constructed by the genome. The
>brain is a structure organized by the genome. It enters the world,
>ready for action. Workers in Neural Nets could note this. The brain
>does not self-organize. The genome does the organization. The brain
>adapts itself to the universe that it encounters.
>
>The rules by which the brain adapts are set up by the genome. The
>rules are chemical. Axons grow, synapses form. Axons are retracted,
>synapses sloughed off. Synapses are strengthened; synapses are
>weakened. What else is needed?
>
>Circuitry that motivates the brain is needed, and also circuitry that
>halts a motor program en route to execution so that the brain may
>think. This need not involve any soul (mind). Various nuclei in the
>brain stem provide the gain control. The thalamic reticular nucleus
>may halt motor output, and sensory input, except olfactory.
>
>ray
>