The Fractal Brain Theory

The Fractal Brain Theory, or the Symmetry, Self Similarity and Recursivity Theory of Brain and Mind, is a Revolutionary new way of looking at the nature of intelligence and also genomics. It is the key to a powerful and new kind of Recursively Self Modifying Artificial Intelligence. Wai H. Tsang presents an exciting new synthesis of all things psychological, linguistic, neuroscientific, genomic, evolutionary, informatic, computational, complex and fractal. Dealing with the most central puzzles of mind science and AI, and weaving in some of the most fundamental concepts in mathematics such as symmetry, geometry, functions, discrete maths and formal axiomatic systems. This book presents nothing less than a seamless unified theory of Brain, Mind, Artificial Intelligence, Functional Genomics, Ontogenesis and Evolution. Also covering topics such as the quest for the Perfect & Universal Language, Recursively Self Modifying Algorithms, Super Intelligence & Technological Singularity.

This collective volume is the first to discuss systematically what are the possibilities to model different aspects of brain and mind functioning with the formal means of fractal geometry and deterministic chaos. At stake here is not an approximation to the way of actual performance, but the possibility of brain and mind to implement nonlinear dynamic patterns in their functioning. The contributions discuss the following topics (among others): the edge-of-chaos dynamics in recursively organized neural systems and in intersensory interaction, the fractal timing of the neural functioning on different scales of brain networking, aspects of fractal neurodynamics and quantum chaos in novel biophysics, the fractal maximum-power evolution of brain and mind, the chaotic dynamics in the development of consciousness, etc. It is suggested that the ‘margins’ of our capacity for phenomenal experience, are ‘fractal-limit phenomena’. Here the possibilities to prove the plausibility of fractal modeling with appropriate experimentation and rational reconstruction are also discussed. A conjecture is made that the brain vs. mind differentiation becomes possible, most probably, only with the imposition of appropriate symmetry groups implementing a flowing interface of features of local vs. global brain dynamics. (Series B)

Reviews the most intriguing applications of fractal analysis in neuroscience with a focus on current and future potential, limits, advantages, and disadvantages. Will bring an understanding of fractals to clinicians and researchers also if they do not have a mathematical background, and will serve as a good tool for teaching the translational applications of computational models to students and scholars of different disciplines. This comprehensive collection is organized in four parts: (1) Basics of fractal analysis; (2) Applications of fractals to the basic neurosciences; (3) Applications of fractals to the clinical neurosciences; (4) Analysis software, modeling and methodology.

Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? This book synthesizes ideas borrowed from philosophy, religion, and science. Topics range widely from brain imagining of thought processes to quantum mechanics and the essential role of information in brains and physical systems.

This book is about a 21st Century mythic adventure and spiritual odyssey. A real life Dan Brown novel where science meets reality, the mystical meets the mundane and the esoteric or hidden is made manifest. More mind bending than the Matrix movie and as strange as any Philip K. Dick take. This is a true story of one man's quest to understand the nature of Mind, Brain and Consciousness, during the course of which he discovers the nature of the universe and the divine. It is contemporary mythology involving the quest for the modern Holy Grail of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which would lead to the Holy Grail of the common understanding that is found at the heart of all the world religions, i.e. Gnosticism in Christianity, Kabbalah in Judaism, Sufism in Islam, Tantra and Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism, Vajrayana Buddhism and Taoism; also the secret behind Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, the Templars and the Ancient Mysteries of Greece of Egypt.

An argument for a Copernican revolution in our consideration of mental features—a shift in which the world-brain problem supersedes the mind-body problem. Philosophers have long debated the mind-body problem—whether to attribute such mental features as consciousness to mind or to body. Meanwhile, neuroscientists search for empirical answers, seeking neural correlates for consciousness, self, and free will. In this book, Georg Northoff does not propose new solutions to the mind-body problem; instead, he questions the problem itself, arguing that it is an empirically, ontologically, and conceptually implausible way to address the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms of the relationship between world and brain; philosophers should consider the world-brain problem rather than the mind-body problem. This calls for a Copernican shift in vantage point—from within the mind or brain to beyond the brain—in our consideration of mental features. Northoff, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, explains that empirical evidence suggests that the brain's spontaneous activity and its spatiotemporal structure are central to aligning and integrating the brain within the world. This spatiotemporal structure allows the brain to extend beyond itself into body and world, creating the “world-brain relation” that is central to mental features. Northoff makes his argument in empirical, ontological, and epistemic-methodological terms. He discusses current models of the brain and applies these models to recent data on neuronal features underlying consciousness and proposes the world-brain relation as the ontological predisposition for consciousness.

How does your mind work? How does your brain give rise to your mind? These are questions that all of us have wondered about at some point in our lives, if only because everything that we know is experienced in our minds. They are also very hard questions to answer. After all, how can a mind understand itself? How can you understand something as complex as the tool that is being used to understand it? This book provides an introductory and self-contained description of some of the exciting answers to these questions that modern theories of mind and brain have recently proposed. Stephen Grossberg is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who has, for the past 50 years, modelled how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. This research has led to a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. The work embodies revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarify how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved. It provides mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, including symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, autism, amnesia, and sleep disorders; biological bases of morality and religion, including why our brains are biased towards the good so that values are not purely relative; perplexing aspects of the human condition, including why many decisions are irrational and self-defeating despite evolution's selection of adaptive behaviors; and solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence that provide a blueprint for autonomously intelligent algorithms and robots. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about shared laws that are found in all living cellular tissues, from the most primitive to the most advanced, notably how the laws governing networks of interacting cells support developmental and learning processes in all species. The fundamental brain design principles of complementarity, uncertainty, and resonance that Grossberg has discovered also reflect laws of the physical world with which our brains ceaselessly interact, and which enable our brains to incrementally learn to understand those laws, thereby enabling humans to understand the world scientifically. Accessibly written, and lavishly illustrated, Conscious Mind/Resonant Brain is the magnum opus of one of the most influential scientists of the past 50 years, and will appeal to a broad readership across the sciences and humanities.

This fascinating book explores the connections between chaos theory, physics, biology, and mathematics. Its award-winning computer graphics, optical illusions, and games illustrate the concept of self-similarity, a typical property of fractals. The author -- hailed by Publishers Weekly as a modern Lewis Carroll -- conveys memorable insights in the form of puns and puzzles. 1992 edition.

This book will challenge how you think about time. Physics describes time as spatialized, static, and reversible, while we experience time as textured, flowing, and unidirectional. No model is better suited to capture time's quantitative and qualitative aspects than the cyclicity, creativity, and infinite depths of fractals.

This collective volume is the first to discuss systematically what are the possibilities to model different aspects of brain and mind functioning with the formal means of fractal geometry and deterministic chaos. At stake here is not an approximation to the way of actual performance, but the possibility of brain and mind to implement nonlinear dynamic patterns in their functioning. The contributions discuss the following topics (among others): the edge-of-chaos dynamics in recursively organized neural systems and in intersensory interaction, the fractal timing of the neural functioning on different scales of brain networking, aspects of fractal neurodynamics and quantum chaos in novel biophysics, the fractal maximum-power evolution of brain and mind, the chaotic dynamics in the development of consciousness, etc. It is suggested that the margins of our capacity for phenomenal experience, are fractal-limit phenomena . Here the possibilities to prove the plausibility of fractal modeling with appropriate experimentation and rational reconstruction are also discussed. A conjecture is made that the brain vs. mind differentiation becomes possible, most probably, only with the imposition of appropriate symmetry groups implementing a flowing interface of features of local vs. global brain dynamics. (Series B)