BlockChain Brains

Specialization of Brain Areas

 

Human brains are broken into regions that specialize for the performance of highly specific tasks. There are regions for speech, language comprehension, hearing - all different components of the mammalian neocortex. Larger structures exist, including the forebrain, midbrains, and hindbrain which abstractly control different realms of necessary information processing. Our hindbrain will regulate simple things such as breathing while the forebrain controls problem-solving and various organizational activities. By dividing the brain into regions that are also divided, the brain is able to tackle many problems very efficiently. Although, there are many cases where brain injuries lead to some brain areas taking over the work of injured or missing brain regions in order to maintain optimal information processing. A brain's ability to redistribute work to  regions that are not specialized for the task suggests that while evolution may have finetuned the blueprints of our neurology, the system itself is able to be flexible. 

Viewing the brain as an ecosystem of living beings whose desires are driven by survival, a novel implication appears. Given a brain area of unsatisfactory output, the brain will redistribute the information processing to other areas to maintain the system. Redistributing information processing also redistributes vital resources that neurons require for long term survival. Taking each brain area to be a community of cells that is cooperative in order to receive nutrients from the brain, this community will have the incentive to process some specialized information at an optimal level, most likely defined by evolution through the eons. Incentivising these cell communities, the brain will reward with nutrients and punish with starvation. Taking the computational approximation of a neural network algorithm, these neural communities will obtain their necessary  optimization indicator for when something has worked or not. This incentivization system is built with a punishment heavy bias but, potentially, it may be found that the system rewards brain areas when novel conscious experience elicits a positive emotional response. Using blockchain, these neural networks would be trained by producing output information for blocks and then either punished or rewarded for their work, telling the network how well its performance was. This is how we gain skills that require some predictable outcomes rather than complicated processes that require long term experience, which the blockchain’s contribution to memory will make possible, discussed below. 

Approximating these neural communities as neural network algorithms will be important for future applications for general artificial intelligences. Another feature of the brain is that these brain areas do not process quietly, but converse with other areas and distribute information in such a way that we are able to experience the causality of different senses. When I hear a police siren, I will expect to see a police car appear in my vision. Further, not only are we able to expect such inferences, but we are also able to expect chains of inferences and remembered past causal chains of interconnected sensory processing. This leads me to believe that the brain is somehow maintaining some time-dependent record of its sensory processing and that this record is of one cohesive whole. Stipulating the wholeness of this sensory record is intended to imply that conscious experience be a single stream of content provided by our brains that process sensory data. Taking this record analogy seriously, we must then ask whether such a record may be maintained across the brain, having approximately independent communities of neurons in their respective areas caring for their utmost survival. 

The easier question, first, is why this record should exist; simply because the survival of the whole is the survival of the parts and memory allows for learning, individual adaptability, and an overall better evolutionary fitness. How our record  actually formed and maintained may have many answers. Despite the arena of possibilities, there seems to be a simple and likely candidate that would have been a shame for nature to have neglected. The general idea is that of the blockchain most prominently in use within cryptocurrency and smart contract technologies. Given a network of individual actors, these actors will hold a common ledger that contains all the transactions of the network. The idea here is that there will exist no central nodes within the network that have complete authority over the legitimacy of the ledger and that all nodes in the network will follow a protocol to reach a consensus on what additions to the common ledger are truthful. These consensus protocols come in various flavors and tones but overall, these are two main background structures that most are based on, usually being a hybrid of the two: proof of work and proof of stake. In the same way that nodes of blockchain networks come to a consensus, so may the areas of the brain maintain and form a common ledger of information processing rather than monetary or equity transaction. 

 

Blockchain Brains

 

Blockchain is composed of two things: a network and a consensus protocol. In the realm of technology, the networks are simply computers that either use or process the information that the system is required to. Consensus protocols are varied and some are complex, but all are based on two simple concepts: proof of work or proof of stack. Most modern cryptocurrencies under development are constructing protocols using hybrids of variations of these two basic protocols. As far as I am aware, these protocols assume rational actors as users and contributors. A weakness may be non-rational or unpredictable actors whose sense of self-preservation is impaired. Extending this to the brain, it may end up being the case that if brains may be approximated to blockchains sufficiently, that areas may be or become non-rational actors that destroy the system. 

Proof of work is essentially the concept that any individual actor who invests substantial effort into adding to the ledger will do so truthfully, for if they were to be malicious and discovered, the ledger they worked so hard to construct will be destroyed and discarded. In short, effort for something is proportional to one’s desire to perpetuate that thing. In typical protocols, individual actors, called miners, are forced to solve an extraordinarily difficult mathematical problem using highly expensive computational resources in order to create a unit of transactions, called a block, with some reward for their efforts. Once the candidate blocks are created, the network finds the first made and adds it to the chain of previous verified blocks. The first block is chosen because it is more likely that the miner who does the quickest work will be the one that had the least malicious intent, having little time to plot and produce deception. 

Proof of stake works off a different perspective of how to pick those actors that are most likely to be truthful. In this method, actors are not required to do computational problems, but are required to have a substantial ‘stake’ in the product of the ledger. Say there is a ledger to which holds some content to which certain actors have a substantial amount of that content. That actor is assumed to desire the perpetuation of that content, their content. Losing their content would equate to losing their equity, which is what would occur if the system was found to have malicious behavior, to be compromised. Using these individuals that are uniquely attached to the survival of the networks, they assume that candidate blocks proposed by these big-players will be truthful and that the bigger the player, the more likely the truthfulness of their blocks. Perhaps a better term for this method should be proof by stake, for it is a proof of block trust by stake quantity rather than a proof of someone's stake. 

What do these protocols have to do with the brain? A lot, actually. All brain areas process data, a.k.a. do work, and each brain area has a substantial stake in the processing of specialized data with the incentive of survival for their quality. In these ways, the brain reaches a consensus by doing work, proving that brain areas are working to perpetuate the system (possibly so that they maintain their throughput), and by having informatic stake, proving that they have immense stake by taking over a substantial amount of processing over other brain areas. Totally these two seemingly separate protocols into one consensus mechanism, one may observe that this is not a hybrid protocol, but a parallel protocol that incentivises brain areas to maintain their volume of activity and specialization of information processing. Although, this is missing one component: integration of information across brain areas. It is here in the integration process where the ledger and blockchain come into play and the proof of stake is most useful. Despite one brain area controlling a substantial amount of specialized brain processing, other brain areas will minimally aid in that processing. Giving aid is not entirely selfish because these other areas are actually forming alternative opinions that will be contrasted to the original brain area’s results. To reach a consensus amongst these areas processing this specific information, the area of the highest stack must provide consistent output with the areas of lower stack. By allowing areas of lower stack to have a large say in the production of blocks, these blocks may allow for the integration of many different types of information to be consistent. If a block is produced with inconsistent processing, then the systems of highest stack are punished while those of lower stack are rewarded. Like heat, the consistency of information will diffuse through the brain's areas until, over some time, a production of consistent output blocks is produced.  

 

Dreams, Time, and Conscious Memory

 

By incentivising brain areas to produce output that is consistent with other senses through this proof of consistency protocol, it is able to form a holistic perspective of what is happening using the senses. To sum up this proof of consistency: given many actors in a network, all unequally processing information and having various stakes, a valid block will be constructed when the candidate block of the actor with the largest stack is consistent with those of the candidate blocks of the actors with smaller stakes. The difference between cryptocurrency blockchain and brain blockchains is possibly most evident here because with cryptocurrency, simultaneously valid blocks may not be consistent, but brains process the data into some informatic structure that may be approximately isomorphic between brain areas. In fact, the level of divergence form isomorphic structure may be the indicator that the brain uses to determine whether or not areas produce consistent output. When one brain area tells me that I see a doxin, another area should not say that I see a wolf, or cat, or hot air balloon. With these protocols of consistency, stake, and work, the brain inputs sensory information, reliably processes it, and maintains a holistic perspective of what is sensed. 

Lastly, we must talk of the blockchain itself, specifically the implications for memory and perception of time. Perhaps, the most direct is that of time perception. Simply put, a blockchain is a chain of blocks, implying that there exists a sense of this before that. The production and verification of a block added to this chain and allows one to have a chronology of information processing. It is important to realize that only the output of the brain areas is held on the ledger since the raw sensory data is destroyed by processing. Thus, whatever the brain areas do to come to their conclusions will always be lost to the ledger. Such a loss of internal happenings is perhaps best understood as the somewhat mysterious unconscious while the ledger itself would then be the record or stream of the conscious, provided that we allow a sense of the self, which is a complicated addition to our model. Such a sense of the self may be the product of an automatic re-processing of output information into the brain areas. Taking the block created by the brain and reentering it into the system as if it had come from the sensory apparatus, at least in part, for we don’t want to perceive our thoughts as reality. Although dreams point to a variability of this perception because lucid dreaming feels real and is an internal process. Thus, perhaps in the absence of external sensory information, the internal sensory stimulation takes hold, implying that our perception of reality is merely based upon the volume of throughput origin - whether we perceive a real or imaginary world. Lucid dreams and reality share the idea of memory, which is of particular importance in this blockchain model, for it is concerned with the nature of the physical storage of the common ledger or conscious record. 

To maintain a ledger, we have essentially two main options: that each area contains the full ledger or that each area contributes individually by holding small portions of the ledger. There are advantages and disadvantages of both perspectives. To hold the full ledger within each brain area is to seriously burden the neural communities, which may impair information processing speeds. Advantages of this system are that if each community held the entire ledger, damage to one area will not impede memory, but will most likely hinder remembering; for to bring information into the conscious ledger again, it must be processed and raw data, old blocks, lost.  I am not a neuroscientist and do not understand the intricacies between testing those with brain injuries. I will say that I have read that brain injuries do seem to disrupt one's ability to remember certain memories. Whether this inability to remember is because the content is actually lost of ability to process it, I am not capable of answering. Although, it seems clear that despite losing a part of the brain, it seems likely, given our blockchain model, that different brain areas will either gain the ability to process the information over time or that other memories will only lose certain senses like remembering the sight of a flower without the smell or texture. If patients lose all components of a memory, then it seems probable that brains do not hold full ledgers within each area. Additionally, from a blockchain theoretic point of view, the distribution of full ledgers to each area may be cause for alarm as this may, without the right protocols, cause forking which would result in the end of a single stream of consciousness. 

Alternatively, one may ask if, to avoid such disadvantages, a brain may give each part of the brain small pieces of the ledger in order to maintain single-stream consciousness. Organizing the ledger as a distributed or decentralized record amongst the brain regions may help with memory. If there is damage in one area, memory produced by that area is not totally lost. With one brain area damaged and pieces of memories lost, much of some memories may still exist. As long as all areas that had stakes in the specialized information processing as that of the damaged area were not lost, then the memories would still contain those same sensations, only to a lesser degree because they aren’t completely fine-tuned to process that information. This fact of memory salvaging may also be said of common ledger storage, but one major distinction between these two methods is the recovery of memory during massive brain trauma. Both methods leave the possibility for the healing of the brain through plasticity so that sense processing may be taken over by an undamaged area, but they diverge on the recollection potential of memories. If the brain areas contain full ledgers, then recalling a memory will only lead one to miss specific sense data,  like remembering the sight of a flower but not its smell or texture. On the other hand, if memories are distributed throughout the brain, they may be given sensual triggers. An example is that when someone smells lilacs, they may remember a specific memory that they wouldn’t have accessed otherwise, so the smell of lilacs was the sensual trigger for that memory. If such a distribution was taken, damage to a brain area would directly cause the forgetfulness of some number of memories that were linked to the sense that area dealt with. One may assert that another distribution of memory is possible in the distributed method; not only memory, but also memories are partitioned and distributed randomly. By using this alternative method, one may have similar stability of memory but will be susceptible to losing small amounts of memories given brain damage. Additionally, this method would be resistant to losing entire memories for the entire brain would then have to be damaged. Although, this is all essentially assuming that the brain may still process memory data despite damage. 

 

Additional Considerations

 

1. External vs. Internal

There seems to be a difference in how we perceive external and internal actions. Moving my hand feels perceptually different from thinking about moving my hand. Dividing these two realms of neural output is important because it makes possible our imagination and lack of impulsivity. The differentiation of these two realms seems to be the direct result of some difference in neurological structure for how these are both input. When I move my hand in my mind, I am directly reentering previous blocks into my brain’s processors. On the other hand, when I move my hand in reality, I am sending signals to a distant part of my body that are then sent back to confirm that my hand moved and a variety of senses confirm that it moved in the manner that I desired. Thus, it may be the speed at which these outputs return as inputs that differentiates them within the common ledger and in our conscious experience. Perhaps this is why many people find it hard to write, play, or move as fast and precise as their minds are capable of imagining. 

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     2. Sleep

Many people think that sleep is very important to the brain because it allows the brain to deal with the mess of mental activity from the day and that dreams are merely perceptual remnants of these restorative activities. If we are to accept this blockchain model, there exists an interesting implication of note: blocks are constructed and, sometimes, reviewed at regular time intervals. In the previous discussion, it was supposed that the blocks were being produced quickly. This is to be assumed because we may remember a minute ago, not just yesterday. It is then reasonable that blocks are rapidly produced by the brain and their intervals are not the source of any duration of restoration. Some blockchain protocols require the regular maintenance or review of ledgers in order to validate their consistencies. For the brain, this regularity of review may be implemented in order to evaluate consistency and to condense what information had been gained so that the brain's important information from the day is remembered and protected. With greater amounts of memory saved continuously, it would be easier to lose data during information processing throughout the day, thus losing potentially life-saving lessons. Perfect memories perfectly distract and being distracted could kill you. 

 

     3. Insanity

As previously alluded to, blockchain protocols assume that the actors within the network are rational. Given a non-rational actor with little to no survival imperative, the system may be put in grave danger. These troubled areas of the brain that begin to act non-rational and against their best interests will also work against the brain's best interest - survival. The loss of rational behavior within brain areas is one potential source for insanity. Another is that of a malfunction of the external vs. internal sensations. If one were to be awake and by some malfunction of the brain or body, the senses of the body were undermined, thus causing the internal senses to grow in realistic feeling life dreams, one would experience insanity. This individual would experience a waking dream and their sense of reality would be construed. Finally, if a person had brain areas that acted non-rationally and their physiological systems that control the strength of external stimuli was also malfunctioning, they would experience what I would best describe as schizophrenia. For these people would befall internal constructions as their reality at the same time as these constructions being taken over by some non-rational behavior. Here is an example: say that the part of your brain that deals with touch becomes non-rational and makes you feel as if there are bugs all over your legs, then the other brain areas will be told of this analysis and despite its falsity, they must comply and produce consistent outputs, meaning that you may actually see bugs. Further, if the physiological system that regulates the intensity of external stimuli hinders your feeling of no bugs, then you are left with mostly or only your internal sense of bugs and your brains construction of the sight and smell of bugs. You will hallucinate because your brain's blockchain has been disrupted and hacked by a malfunctioning biology on two fronts. There are also parts of the brain that deal with social awareness, which may be susceptible to the same unfortunate events, causing paranoia for the same reasons as one hallucinates. A genetic predisposition to forming non-rational brain areas seems to be a most probable source of this schizophrenic behavior. Brain damage may cause non-rational behavior of brain areas, but is unlikely to simultaneously cause the external physiological regulation system to malfunction in tandem. Why would this genetic behavior evolve in us to its prevalence? Well I see three possibilities: (1) for the vast majority of humanity, we had our children at ages (typically early twenties) before most people develop symptoms of schizophrenia, (2) we are a vastly interbred species, which causes many issues physically and mentally, and (3) being an extremely social and sometimes sentimental species, we save many individuals from death that would not survive on their own, including those with schizophrenia and many other physical or mental issues. Combining these three factors, it does not surprise me that things like schizophrenia exist. 

 

Summary

 

There exist small areas of the brain that specialize information processing in a similar way as neural networks with an incentivization of survival given by a blockchain. Brain’s blockchains use three parallel consensus protocols in order to form a single and consistent ledger of information processing. Ledgers will be decentrally stored amongst the entire brain, causing memory to be stored across the brain rather than in an entirety within each brain area. This model of consciousness is seemingly successful in explaining the differentiation of external and internal senses, a potential reason for sleep, and the source of insanity, particularly schizophrenia. All in all, this is a novel, but basic, model of how neural activity occurs and is organized within the brain. More research and analysis is required in order to discover whether this model is approximately how brains work and whether or not, due to the computational analogies listed, it may be programmed into a computer as the beginning of a general artificial intelligence.