Author: Tvrtko-Matija Šercar

Abstract: From the beginning, I wrote the article using the nanotechnological process of connecting small parts into several larger assemblies of which it consists. The parts are understood independently of each other, and therefore can be read in any order, and in the article they are given in the following order: Critique of the Modular Theory; The Open-Minded Brain; Genesis of Neurons in Adults; Edelman's Theory of Neural Darwinism (ETND); Stonier's Interpretation and Extension of ETND; "The Psychology of Computers (and Robots)"; The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence 2014-2114 – AI100; Information in the Biosphere; Viruses; Semantic Metabolism according to Tom Stonier (1997); Pattern Recognition vs. Logic; Global Information Infrastructure and Automatic Semantic Indexing; Connectome, Connectomics, Bioinformatics; The Human Brain Projects (EU, USA, Japan, China, R Korea, India); and Microbiome or Other Brain. The relationship between the human brain and information technology is complementary. The brain cannot imitate technology, but we try to design the latter in the image and functioning of the brain. As a rule, there are no information-rounded units for a very specific mental operation in the brain. There are networks in the brain that include visual information about a face, auditory information about a name to recognize a certain person, which “reside” in different parts of the cerebral cortex, but are connected into a single attractor. From the first frames and scenes of a film, we immediately know whether we have already watched it. Evolution uses the principle of “less is more”. The more advanced and the later they arise in evolution, the less “software” certain regions of the brain are loaded with in advance. The functional organization of the most advanced heteromodal associative cortex, which coordinates the internal states of the organism with the external world, is not modular, but interactive and distributed. Aging-related brain atrophy is asymmetrical and affects the right hemisphere more than the left, as the right hemisphere ages faster than the left. Mental activities stimulate the formation of new neurons and connections between them. When remembering an object, such as a locomotive, it is not a stored image somewhere in the brain. The brain remembers the “locomotive” as temporary patterns of connections. However, new patterns do not create new connections, but rather strengthen existing pathways. The strength of the neural connections that create a pattern is a function of repetition and experience. The meaning of a sentence depends on where we place a comma. If there is no mechanism in our brain to recognize the pattern of the meaning of the comma, we cannot perceive the meaning of the sentence. Computers are machines based on binary logic, while the human brain is an “analog device” with complex circuits adapted to recognize patterns of connections (pattern recognition). There is no sufficiently good and comprehensive theory of how the brain works. Since the advent of computers, we have tried to explain the way the brain works with the help of a computer model. To explain biological phenomena, we use a mechanical model, and conversely, to explain computers, we use a model of our brains. In the case of artificial intelligence, we use our nervous systems to sense, learn, reason, and act. In 2014, the Centennial Study on Artificial Intelligence, programs, and policies, and their impact on people, their communities, and society was launched. The »anthropology« of robots and artificial intelligence is developing. Electronic communication systems (Arpanet, Internet, Interspace, etc.) are essential for accelerating the development of our collective intelligence. One of the essential concepts of consciousness is semantic metabolism. Information exists independently of its meaning and must not be confused with the message. The message exists before the meaning and independently of whether the recipients exist or not, but it cannot become meaningful without the recipient, and acquires meaning after being included in the internal information environment of the recipient. Recursive processing of new semantic complexes of information under certain conditions results in the creation of new knowledge structures. The functioning of cellular metabolism as an information processing system is more sophisticated than the information processing performed by a computer, and confirms the giant steps taken by biological sciences in unraveling complex biological systems. Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges of science in the 21st century. To understand how a network transmits information, the type of network, its elements, and its connections must be known. Neural tissue is fundamentally different from the tissues of other organs. The cellular structure of neural tissue and the brain is a genetically inherited product and at the same time a product of experience. In this way, the structure of our nervous systems is personalized! A “map” of synaptic connections between neurons, called a “connectome,” is supposed to show the connectivity of synapses and the flow of information in the brain. The convergence between information communication technology and biology was of decisive importance for the launch of human brain projects (in the EU, USA, Japan, China, R. Korea, India). At the end of the second decade of the 21st century, a new science of psychobiotics emerged, revealing the close connection between the brain and psyche with the microbiome, that is, the four-kilogram population of microbes that live in the human intestine. The intestinal microbiome is unique, just like a fingerprint, but the important difference is that we can change our microbiome! Psychobiotics reveals the biological foundations of the connection between the microbiome and health, as well as mental and other disorders.

Keywords: psychology, neuron, brain, neuroscience, computer, network, AI, semantic metabolism, human brain project, microbiome

Article Info: Received: 02 Dec 2024; Received in revised form: 03 Jan 2024; Accepted: 10 Jan 2025; Available online: 16 Jan 2025

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.101.4