On the previous page we briefly explored how evolution gave rise to a collection of neurons, localised within a small area of a replicator, whose task is to gather and coordinate responses to data from sense organs; this collective being called the brain. Here we shall continue with the theme of evolution and see how the brain evolves functionally, developing key processes that are the foundation of everything we seek to replicate. We must bear in mind as we start to describe the primary functions of the brain, the evolutionary purpose, noted on the last page, that it serves at heart; to produce an apt response to sensory stimuli. War Though natural selection may act on the slowest, dimmest and most ill-adapted replicator to slowly evolve it to become suitable for its environment, the real beauty, and speed, of evolution through natural selection comes through conflict. Environmental danger is a natural fact of life; one's environment can change in such a way as to kill the individual, group, species or ecosystem. For early replicators there was little that could be done to combat this (except through ecological diversity, but that is another matter). The primary threat, however, always was and continues to be assault; one of the easiest ways for a replicator to gain resources is to take them from another that already has them. Accordingly, conflict tends to exert the strongest selective pressures on replicators, and is the driving force behind most significant adaptations, especially the brain. The origin of memory For replicators then that had evolved some senses, it is possible through the machinations of evolution for a so called "hard-wired" response to be built into their senses. They see a blue fish, they swim away because their ancestors had always had the tendency to avoid the said predator. The unfortunate friends of their ancestors that, by the chance of their neural inter-connections, had not been inclined to swim away had more likely been eaten by that fish and not passed on their genetic information as much as those that had. But, if a replicator is able to have the experience of seeing and swimming away from a predatory red fish and survive the encounter and in some way retain the neurological imprint of that encounter then they will stand a better chance of surviving the next time they encounter said red fish; this is memory. One can see here that memory has provided the same evolutionary benefit as the hard-wired response did with the blue fish, but without the need for natural selection to act, i.e. no replicator had to die for the benefit to be "acquired" by the individual and thence perhaps the species as a whole. Thus, memory is, relatively speaking, a massive benefit for replicators' chances to successfully pass on genetic information. It is important to appreciate that memory is not akin to a digital "copy" of the event in the mind of the replicator, and, at first, was not a separate section of the brain that stores the information like a hard drive while the processor keeps ticking away; at first it was simply the plasticity of the neurons that retained the inter-connections established by that first experience. More experience would reinforce such connections and produce a stronger response in the future. Memory is a part of the sensory system itself. Yet, this is not the complete picture, for to fully understand a memory, the function of its creation and recollection must be understood, and this leads us to Interpretation... The origin of Interpretation This is probably the most subtle of the steps here, and also the most important to understand. We have just seen how the senses and the brain have come into being, and how memories utilise the experience of the senses, but something has been missed for the function of Interpretation is buried within that of memory. The word, "interpretation", is commonly used in the world of artistic criticism, where one understands it to mean the opinion, or insight, or way in which something was considered or received, by an individual. We talk of "his" or "her" interpretation as an object, a thought or point of view; a noun, and the verb simply as the act of producing this noun. To differentiate then, we shall talk of Interpretation, capitalized, to indicate a more fundamental mental process; the fundamental process of the mind. Take a look with your eyes, if you will, at any object around you now. A book, a plant, a cloud, another person. How is it that you recognise these things? We know that photons are emitted or reflected by many surfaces, and these produce a pattern of electrical signals in our mind that corresponds with what is seen. But how do we "know" where the book ends and the desk begins? To be sure there is a difference in the appearance of both, a different pattern, but for our minds to see that pattern and recognise it is a very difficult process to conceptualise. This process is the computational identification of our sense data with experienced data, what many call "pattern recognition", and this is an intrinsic element of memory: Without the ability to abstract the senses and retain that record, and subsequently identify that abstraction at a later date, memory cannot function. Our minds are Interpreting all our senses at every moment of our waking lives. They process, filter and analyse the data from all the available senses and spot patterns that they have seen before; these retained patterns, or abstractions of the sense data, we call Entities. Thus, Interpretation is the identification of a commonality between two things, the commonality between two Entities. Accordingly, we can now understand that basic memory is simply the formation and retrieval of experienced Entities through the process of Interpretation. Summary
Created 27th June 2008 Revised 29th June2009 |