ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY HUMANIST GALAXY OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS WILLIAM CALVIN March 27, 2020 THE CEREBRAL SYMPHONY: Seashore Reflections on the Structure of Consciousness by William H. Calvin. Bantam Books, 1989 (i-xx, 219 pages) BOOK OUTLINE Note = Numbers in parentheses refer to pages PROLOGUE — Finding Mind Amid the Nerve Cells (1- Quote = “We shall, sooner or later, arrive at a mechanical equivalent of consciousness.” by Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) Quote = "I believe that we now understand how our brain creates the narrator of our conscious experience, the conductor of that cerebral symphony --- not in all its complexity, but at least in principle --- and that knowledge of the narrator machinery [storyteller] is going to revolutionize our concept of consciousness and make it much easier to appreciate the richness of our cerebral symphonies." "Consciousness is fundamentally a process --- not a place or product. How is the fundamental question --- not the Where or What of the classical “seat of the soul” searches." "I address the mechanisms of animal consciousness, discuss how human consciousness elaborates that, and propose how humans could create machines that would have much of what we call consciousness." "This book covers both the neurological mechanism and its machine mimic: We are conscious machines (among other things), and we can probably create mechanical consciousness as Well. Creating “mind” in a machine comes closer to “playing God” than any amount of genetic tinkering—and to exercise suitable caution, we must understand our own mental processes and how they occasionally fail us. As in several of my previous books, I have again used a narrative style to permit the nonscientist reader to temporarily skip over any difficult sections and resume the travelogue. And I have again taken a few (hopefully inconsequential) liberties with time and place in order to keep this narrative from becoming as cluttered as real life and a real diary. The Marine Biological Laboratory celebrated its centennial in 1988; I hope that, in passing, I manage to communicate some of the special flavor of Woods Hole, an intellectual atmosphere built up by thousands of thoughtful people over the century." by the author, William H.Calvin 1) MAKING UP THE MIND — Morning on Eel Pond (7- Woods Hole, on the southern tip of Cape Cod. Cormorant, skunk, and robot behavior — How do they decide what to do next? () Thinking about thought — Movement programs and “brainstorming” creativity () Why pianists and ferryboat captains cannot rely on feedback — When the perfect plan is needed () Our sense of self, of voluntary decision () 2) THE RANDOM ROAD TO REASON — Off-line Trial and Error (27- Trial, error, and selectivity. Purpose and chance in philosopher’s eyes () E. coli’s random walk () Selling short Darwinism again () Experience as the elimination of bad guesses, but we humans can think through an action without acting () Owner’s test for boaters (and prospective parents) and why planning ahead isn’t common () 3) ORCHESTRATING THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS — Prefrontal-Cortex Performances (45- Venturing out Cape Cod () Stupidity in freeway (and cormorant) design () Elaine’s head injury, amnesia, and the stages of recovery of function () The fantastic juxtapositions of nocturnal dreams () Injury to motor strip, premotor, and prefrontal cortex () Planning sequences and a violinist’s performance at the MBL Centennial () Sense of volition and how dreams violate it, promote the notion of a soul that wanders abroad () Monitoring narratives, telling the truth () The frontal lobe’s role in worry, compulsions, and schizophrenia () 4) VARIETIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS — From Coma to Reverie (69- Coast Guard Beach, the Outermost House () Horseshoe crabs and dangers of overdoing defensive armor () Consciousness as overused word — Sleep/wakefulness, awareness, perception/cognition, even worldview () The Narrator seems the most important aspect of consciousness — but that brings up the homunculus problem, and the need to know the parts from which an explanation can be constructed () 5) THE ELECTRICALLY EXCITING LIFE OF THE INHIBITED NERVOUS CELL (91- Churchyard — graves of Otto Loewi and Stephen Kuffler () Fin de siécle arguments () Loewi’s discovery of puff of perfume used to bridge gap between two nerve cells () Atropine and a heart-stopping story. Kuffler’s inhibitory neuron and how it turns up its sensitivity when deprived () Basic research as the major industry of Woods Hole () Guam. Arms races between plants and insects. Cultural versus biological evolution. Emergents from combinations such as hybrid vigor; holists versus reductionists () 10) DARWIN ON THE BRAIN — Self-organizing Committees (205- Hit-or-miss toolmaking () How do I move my hand? () Autonomy versus instruction from higher levels () Command neurons — why labeled lines aren’t needed () Sequences and frontal lobes () Committee properties; how neural like committees can be shaped up for text-to-speech “reading aloud” () Committee self-organization without an instructor — moving the “Canadian” border when “California” expands into “Oregon” () I1) A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME — Bootstrapping Thought Through Throwing (233- Our ballistic recreations, and how dogs train us () Reaction time problem with hammering, throwing, kicking; must make the perfect plan (like a player piano roll) as corrections are impossible () Tolerable error in timing throws and evolving multitrack sequencers () Law of Large Numbers for reducing jitter in time of rock release () Hallelujah Chorus analogy — gang together for precision () Building a heart, and the regularity of the beat () Shifting from “variations on a theme” mode to “precision” mode — Auditioning songwriters, then having them all sing together as a chorus. () 12) SHAPING UP CONSCIOUSNESS WITH A DARWINIAN DANCE — Emergence from the Subconscious (255- Infant’s development of a sense of self, a narrator of our mental lives () Dog versus chimpanzee insight when on a leash () Trial and error’ s history () When not throwing, can use Darwin-Machinelike neural tracks for planning what to say next () Dreaming’s unrealistic scenarios constructed from existing schemas () Marshaling yard metaphor () Sequential aspects of consciousness can come from a Darwin Machine too () Hazards of remembering everything () Lateral inhibition circuits for declaring “the best” — Does this provide our “unity of consciousness”? () Is the subconscious all of the tracks but the best one, which is what one is “conscious of’? () Chunking due to seven-unit buffer length. () I3) THE TRILOGY OF HOMO SERIATIM — Language, Consciousness, and Music (277- Multiple planning tracks create a Darwin Machine analogous to biology’s variation plus selection — If operate tracks independently, get a Darwin Machine for planning all sorts of future scenarios () The problem of value — How does machinery judge “better” and “best”? () The economists’ Subjective Estimated Utility function as the scorecard. Ready, get set, and go: Random Thoughts Mode of the Darwin Machine () Variations on-a-theme mode when we focus our attention () Choral Mode of near-clones from “get set.” () Constructing sentences with sensory and movement schemas (“nouns” and “verbs”) in a Darwin Machine () The emerging consensus among sequencers () Music may be another secondary use of the same neural machinery in the off-hours when not needed for throwing or talking () The Woods Hole Cantata concert at the Church of the Messiah in Woods Hole, scientists en famille. () 14) THINKING ABOUT THOUGHT — Twilight at Nobska Lighthouse (301- Niche specialization — Can the cormorants and the Great Blue Heron manage to share the resources of Eel Pond? () Getting around niche-fixity with a nice jump to a new function and the virtues of discovering an “empty niche” () Labor Day in Woods Hole and the hazards of amateur truck drivers () Sunset from Nobska Lighthouse and the green spots escaping sunset () Stringing things together and free will () Subconscious problem-solving and premature closure — fundamentalist hazards of frameworks () The virtues of noise () And why it would be logical to rename the cat “Darwin.” () I5) SIMULATIONS OF REALITY — Augmented Mammals and Conscious Robots (317- A night on the beach — Constellations as human creations () Could artificial consciousness contemplate the heavens in the same ways that we do? () The visit of the harbor seal — Would animals thank us for augmenting their look-ahead ability, if that included worry and suffering? () Robotic concepts as a mirror of mind understanding itself. () Building a Darwin Machine for language and planning ahead, but when might we declare it conscious? () Exporting intelligence to protected places away from the fragile Earth — society’s many recent retreats from knowledge. () Downloading a person’s brain into a work-alike computer: Cautions from chaos () Training a Darwin Machine to be a personal auxiliary that comes to think like its trainer () Is the minimalist view of mind a Darwin Machine, or is there something simpler? () The many free bonuses from our Darwin Machine — Language, consciousness, music, poetry, games () The beyond-the-apes human characteristics that Darwin Machines may account for, and those it cannot () The evolving universe within our heads () POSTSCRIPT (341) NOTES (343-378) ABOUT THE AUTHOR (379-380) INDEX (381-401) AUTHOR NOTE, SUMMARY, AND BOOK DESCRIPTION ABOUT THE AUTHOR = William H. Calvin is a theoretical neurophysiologist at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Atlantic Monthly’s cover story, The Great Climate Flip-Flop, and of ten books, including The Cerebral Code, How Brains Think, The Throwing Madonna, The River that Flows Uphill, The Cerebral Symphony, and co-author of Conversations with Neil's Brain and Lingua ex Machina. SUMMARY = William Calvin's exciting new hypothesis is that the cells of our brain operate from minute to minute much like a speeded-up version of biological evolution. Our head evolves ideas by shaping up crude approximations, as when we "brainstorm". BOOK DESCRIPTION = Set amidst the Woods Hole research colony on Cape Cod. We spin scenarios, form sentences in mere seconds, grading tentative plans as we contemplate and "get set." Calvin writes about the marvelous ability of humans to think and choose, to make decisions, solve problems, forecast the future, and even create ethics, all using this mental Darwinism. EDITORIAL BOOK REVIEWS LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW = Do not be fooled by the New Age packaging; Calvin, author of The River That Flows Uphill ( LJ 3/1/87) and The Throwing Madonna: From Nervous Cells to Hominid Brains ( LJ 7/83), is a neurobiologist and scholar with an exceptional knack for writing to the layperson. The subject here is how our brain cells work in concert to let us think, but the (necessary) neurobiology and chemistry is nicely blended with a friendly voice and the eye of a miniaturist; the author combines the newest work in the field with an engaging and graceful sense of the past, and nothing stops him from accurate and often charming analogies. This is perhaps the only book where Charles Darwin and the Grateful Dead are mentioned in the same chapter. The entire book becomes an example of Calvin's theories about the accretive and evolutionary process of thinking. Excellent for general collections and essential for collections in the social or health sciences. – Mark L. Shelton, Columbus, Ohio From: Reed Elsevier Inc. FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY = Neurobiologist Calvin's wispy, New Age-flavored travelogue — abuzz with cormorants and skunks, insects and plants of Woods Hole, Mass., and its littoral environs — ensheathes his fairly technical exposition of the neurophysiology of mind. Some readers will be enthralled; others may grow impatient with his approach. Of particular interest is his theoretical blueprint for a Darwin Machine, a type of computer that uses parallel networking in a "variation-then-selection" process to generate ideas. This hypothetical device, in his forecast, will one day exhibit most of what we now call consciousness, including the gifts of imagination and creativity. Along the way, Calvin ( The River That Flows Uphill ) offers a graceful introduction to the mechanisms underlying visual perception, memory, language acquisition, problem-solving and music appreciation --- skills that the Darwin Machine, in his view, will someday possess. BOOKLIST REVIEW = A pioneering investigator of the human mind, Calvin offers a daring yet surprisingly simple explanation of thought and language. Consciousness, in this theory, emerged serendipitously when early humanoids found adaptive advantage in throwing accurately. Whether for telling stories or for shooting foul shots, human thought springs from an accelerated Darwinian competition between ideas within the brain. Some readers will resist the thesis as reductive and materialistic, an insult to poetry and religion. Yet Calvin's urbane and reflective style will charm even those wary of evolutionary philosophy, as it gives rare clarity to complex biological questions. The author's speculations about robotic intelligence will not convince all skeptics, who may also harbor doubts about the failure of his theory to explain moral guilt. But as readers walk the seashore with Calvin, they learn much about the waves breaking within their own minds. – Bryce Christensen. PROFESSIONAL BOOK REVIEWS = [1] Thinking along with Calvin is sheer delight. This book has the most vivid and lucid explanations of brain function I have see, and his discussions of evolution place him in the same league with Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins as elegant expositors in the life sciences." by Daniel C. Dennett [2] A fascinating romp through current knowledge about thought and thinking. -- The Los Angeles Times. EXCERPT Quote = “Animals are molded by natural forces they do not comprehend. To their minds there is no past and no future. There is only the everlasting present of a single generation — its trails into the forest, its hidden pathways in the air and in the sea.” by the anthropologist Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) The dualistic distinction between mind and brain may similarly disappear as our science matures. Science progresses not only at the laboratory bench, at the patient’s bedside, and when studying animals in the field, but also in the incessant contemplation of how things fit together — particularly the interlocking findings from different research specialties such as animal behavior, brain research, developmental biology, evolutionary theory, and anthropology-linguistics. Often such contemplation is best done when taking long walks, especially along shorelines — one might almost call this book Seashore Speculations on Darwinian Designs. The cormorant seems to cruise around Eel Pond on a schedule, covering about the same distance with each dive. He swims along the surface about the same four seconds each time, then pops back under, searching the bottom of Eel Pond with the efficiency of a search-and-rescue airplane quartering a sector. The skunks make their rounds of the docks at night, but in an entirely different style. Skunks seem to stop and investigate with far more curiosity than any night watchman I have ever seen. I can imagine programming a robot to make watchman’s rounds, looking for intruders and sniffing for smoke, but it will be awhile before robots become as sophisticated as those skunks that prowl around under the cars, into the trash cans, and gregariously interact with one another, as if gossiping about what humans throw out and who is the most profligate. Since they often hold their ground when non-skunks approach, one of the hazards of taking a nighttime stroll in Woods Hole is tripping over a skunk — at which they do take offense. (12) The skunks’ food-finding tours could be considered variations on a theme, just as in music where the familiar melody shifts into a new key, blends in another melody, plays one familiar tune off against the other as in the Goldberg Variations, and then returns to the original melody — of which the skunks’ seems to be “Grand Tour of the Waterfront.” Their motions are more complicated than the narrowly rule-bound foraging habits of a bee. I could program a robot to duplicate the bee’s patrol pattern (and maybe even that of the cormorant), but to mimic a cat or skunk seems to be too difficult. Purpose seems so different from chance. Therefore, "Darwinism suggests that you might be able to have your cake and eat it too:" Chance plus selection, repeated for many rounds, can achieve much. Can Darwinism achieve purposeful behavior, especially our planning-for-the-future behavior that has been such a powerful drive toward both civilization and ethics? Is it, indeed, the foundation of consciousness? That is, alas, not how traditional philosophers usually phrase the question. Friedrich Nietzsche said that the creative person works by instinct and checks himself by reason; Socrates had said that it was just the reverse order and so influenced western thinking for a long time. Likely neither was right. Philosophers (and many scientists too) have a problem with randomness in any form. It is probably because so many think in oversimplified cause-and-effect terms and so, following Laplace, infer that things must be “determined” if there are physical laws. And thus random outcomes (horrors!) would result from random causes. People often yearn for certainty: T. E. Lawrence wrote, “Perhaps in complete determinism lies the perfect peace I have so longed for. Free-will, I have tried, and rejected it. We keep expecting human reasoning processes to be orderly — at least as orderly as those patrol cruises of an Eel Pond cormorant. To say that the height of human achievement usually contains a large dose of randomness is heresy, though people will readily admit to a role of randomness in preventing animals from “getting stuck.” Remember Burdian’s Ass, who was equally hungry and thirsty? And who was poised halfway between food and water, and so starved? Or Hamlet’s inertia? But randomness has a far more important role than merely to act as a dice-tossing tiebreaker. A lowly bacterium would never get stuck like the apocryphal ass; indeed, bacteria and their way to food simply through selectively modifying randomness. The philosophers can perhaps be forgiven for being overly impressed with thought as the highest of the higher cerebral functions, what is left over if one stops looking for the seat of the soul. But it might be better to start with how animals make behavioral choices, like that sunbathing cormorant or the bookish skunk, and work our way up to logic. REMEMBER ALWAYS: You Are Your Adaptable Memory! 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