Re: What did that thread indicate?

"feedbackdroids" <feedbackdroids@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> For one thing, it's almost certain from my readings that consciousness,
> and life for that matter, are really examples of self-organized
> criticality, as mentioned above. SOC occurs in situations where you
> have: (a) many interacting elements,

My networks have that.

> (b) positive and negative feedback
> [it's *always* feedback which is the biggie],

I will be playing more with that down the road. And the very simple
temporal nature of my nodes create feedback from one pulse to the next.

But I find it interesting to try and think about what the idea of negative
feedback realy means in the context of energy flow. I guess it must mean
that an increase in the feedback flow must cause a decress in the flow it's
affecting?

I think it's reasonable to say my nodes do that. It's odd however because
since my nodes have two outputs, what actually happens is that a feedback
signal would cause a negative feedback effect to one output and a positive
feedback effect to the other output.

> (c) nonlinear effects,

My nodes do that. It's a switch so it's very nonlinear.

> (d) energy flows from outside, and

The pulse flows through my network act like energy flows. That's becuse
they are conserved like energy. You can't kill a pulse or form a new one.
All you get is what flows in from outside.

> (e) dissipative structures, which
> transform the energy flows into organization.

It's hard to see exactly what that means - the idea seems a little vague,
but I think my networks basically have that effect in the sense that a
single engery flow input will disapate thoughout the network creating
structure changes. But it's not quite like matter which will change
structure as a result of an energy flow, but then stay locked into that
structure until the next energy flow passes by. But I guess the internally
maintained sorting gap in each node actually does work just like that. IT
changes value slighty with every pulse, and holdes it value until the next
pulse flows through.

> These are the basic
> ingredients of living systems in general, and the brain in particular.
> You might check out some of the latest books on complexity theory
> [Gribben, esp Kauffman's work], complex networks [Barabasi, Strogatz],
> and gene networks [Marcus, Ridley].

Hey, I just ordered a few of Dennett's books. I can't begin to keep up
with all your suggestions. :)

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Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
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