Quad Nets: Device Models of Brains

Quad Nets is a new approach to investigating the relationships between brains and psychology, with a focus on how a person exercises freedom. This page organizes the chief scientific and engineering presentation. A technical background will be helpful. However, many of the concepts can be grasped visually.

Other parts of the new approach:
  • Embodiment of Freedom-- a "common-sense" presentation of scientific and psychological principles centered around a person exercising freedom;

  • a simplified version of the Quad Nets approach, a version called timing devices, which shows that brains are not computers and includes a paper in .pdf format;

  • a page showing the central principle of cyclical selection using mechanical metaphors -- although Quad Nets are based on principles of thermodynamics that are different from principles of mechanics, mechanical metaphors may provide insight.

  • "On the intellectual pathology of cosmological principles in natural sciences" -- a short essay (under 2000 words) stating a philosophy of science that challenges conventional approaches and supports my alternative approach. .pdf file.

A formal presentation of the Quad Net Model is set forth in a research paper, with Abstract, Contents and related materials set forth on a separate page. The chief idea is that pulsing elemental devices are hooked together in a tiled spatial arrangement, called a Quad Net. A stream of energy flows into each elemental device and is periodically discharged in a pulse that can cause interactive responses in nearest-neighbors. There are ways to control the pulses and the interactive responses so that elemental devices discharge collectively in desired pulse waves and pulse bundles. Pulses are like neuronal pulses in brains that drive the muscles of animals. The controls are like volume and channel controls on a radio.

I suppose that Quad Nets can be embodied in electronic form and manufactured in sheets, e.g., in a grid embedded in a flexible, stretchable plastic matrix with attached controls. Conceptually and in the Images, sheets of Quad Net are treated as construction materials for increasingly complex assemblies.
 
Step period (msec):
fine Quad Net:
coarse Quad Net:
fast

20
60 		 

40
120 		 

80
240 		 

160
480 		slow

640
1920 		   
© Robert Kovsky 2006
The animated Image shows a hierarchical system of Quad Nets where a purple pulse wave in the coarse (large-mesh) Quad Net is driving green pulse bundles in the fine (small-mesh) Quad Net. It is like an elevated railway above city streets only here wavefronts travel together. As shown in the enlarged view of junctions and spatial elements (adjacent Image), the coarse Quad Net (blue framework and yellow junctions) is connected to the fine Quad Net (black framework with red junctions) using a 1-to-9 arrangement of projections that end in orange junctions. Red, yellow and orange junctions function like three classes of synapses between neurons; and pulsing elemental devices in the spatial elements function like neurons. (This system is based on Images 5 and 6.)
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Quad Net Images

Images from the Abstract of "Quad Nets."
The Images provide a visual and conceptual overview of the Quad Net Model. Images 1 through 6 come from the introductory Survey, § 1 in the "Quad Nets" research paper available on a separate page. Beginning with Image 7 ( Primal Quad Net), you can follow the progressive construction of Quad Net devices up through the Phase Transfer Controller (Images 30 - 35). Images 36 through 38 show the Principle of Shimmering, that generates co-existing phasic fragments during a "critical moment of selection."

Superior views of Images are provided by computer, in contrast to Images printed on paper. Some Images of Quad Net constructions should be examined at several scales of magnification to balance views of collective structure with those showing granular detail.
Index of Images
Images 1 through 3
Images 4 and 5
Image 6
Image 7)
Images 8 and 9
Image 10
Image 11
Image 12
Image 13
Images 14 and 15
Image 16
Images 17 and 18
Images 19 and 20
Images 21 through 24    
Image 25
Image 26
 Image 27
Image 28
Image 29
Image 30 (including 30b)
Images 31 and 32
Images 33 and 34
Image 35
Images 36 through 37
Image 38
Image 39
Images 40 and 41
Images 42 through 44
Images 45 through 48
Images 49 through 51
Images 52 through 54
Images 55 through 57

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Copyright © 2006, 2007 Robert Kovsky

7/22/07