It is vitally important to remember this in n-hacking.

Unless there really is an elephant in your room, your image of an elephant is imagination. Imagination has had a very bad press, since nobody seems able to understand it. And this is unfortunate, because, for intelligence, it is the stuff of life.

The dictionary defines imagination as 'creating images not present to the senses'. It doesn't mention the fact that some parts of the brain and body cannot tell the difference until the input is subjected to intellectual evaluation. (Since this is the last step along the chain, we often find ourselves reacting to false danger signals before we've had time to realize it's only our mate outside the window dressed up as a gorilla, for example, which is why practical jokes are so funny.)

Everyone agrees that it is vital that the brain correctly interprets the input from the senses. Translating the input with imagination is equally important though, because in fact intelligence depends on it.

COMP uses imagination. Imagination does not just pull up things from memory; it constructs by combining sets of archetypal memories and extrapolating variations on a theme, just as in dreaming, but with more volition. All that is needed in memory, are enough points of remembered similarity between the current situation and past ones. Without the ability to make that association, every experience is a brand new unknown. We cannot make association without memory. We have seen this sometimes by observing people with certain kinds of amnesia; without the memories to relate something to, it seems (and feels to them) as if they have never done it before. Every one is a stranger, every event is unknown. This quite naturally causes anxiety.

What we do not so often realize, is that this also happens when there is no (or very poor) imagination. Imagination is vitally necessary to recall memory in association. When we see a new event, imagination goes looking for all the things it can imagine that we have seen before which were similar in any way. Without the imagination to do that, without a good eidetic (image) memory, recall is strictly limited.

Imagination is also necessary for extrapolation and a realistic assessment of just how similar the thing or situation is to past ones. Having a poor memory hinders COMP, because we cannot recall experiences in enough detail to practice them. But having a poor imagination hinders COMP at every turn. We cannot copy well because we cannot imagine what it would be like to be our model, neither can we practice and vary because we cannot imagine variations. Our cognitive system is the equivalent of a musician who can only play cover numbers exactly as they were written. Who can't jam along because she can't imagine what the next chord might be...bad imagination prevents prediction, and that prevents control.

The domain of memory and emotion is our 'weighting' and translation system. Current machine translation systems are sadly lacking AI. We derive meaning from text in a way a computer cannot yet do. The brain uses a rather neat system for this, based on intelligence's very own 'midbrain programming language'. It is a metaphoric kind of eidetic imagery/language, which is analogical, as memory tracing is analogical, so I have called it 'AL' for Analogical or Allegorical Language.

It is a language neurohackers would do well to pay attention to. With it, the midbrain translates those squiggles on the screen in your email through AL, into the abstract thought imagery of the neocortex, which understands it as "Going down the pub?" or whatever...which your frontal lobes apply meaning to depending on who's asking, how much money you have, and so on. When you wish to reply (hit keys and make your own squiggles), mid brain networks must translate the abstract thoughts in your neocortex, through AL associations, into sensory motor movements controlled by the old brain to enable you to type ''Don't forget to bring a towel'' or whatever.

We'll look more closely at AL later on, because it's important to know first, with any damaged operating system you are trying to work with, (a) how its supposed to work and (b) what order things are designed to be happening in, because not knowing those things can really slow you down. In n-hacking as in original brain development, every step sits upon the last. Every programmer should know that.

Some of the most obvious evidence that the locus of intelligence is not fixed comes from dream research. When we sleep, we shut down many functions of the old brain, and sensory input minimizes. We still think, but because there is no sensory input, the midbrain provides imagery related to our thoughts, weighted with emotion and imagination, and dreaming begins (REM sleep). As we sink deeper into sleep we largely shut down the midbrain also ('deep' sleep).

In the past we thought dreaming was confined to the periods of REM sleep, but we now know this is not the case, in fact we continue dreaming throughout deep sleep also,R17 but deep sleep dreaming is not connected with emotion, does not cause REM and was desperately difficult to detect before modern brain scanning methods, as it appears very difficult to bring into conscious awareness. Deep sleep dreaming is abstract, three-dimensional, and usually geometric. It resembles 3D wiring diagrams rendered in various shades of neon, does not change frame and so fails to cause eye movement, but changes constantly within that frame. It appears to have no immediately apparent connection with our everyday reality at all, yet seems deeply meaningful in some intangible way if recalled by the dreamer (possibly temporal lobe action). It seems to occur during our assimilation and shifting of memories.

After spending a while in deep sleep we surface again through REM, back into light, dreamless sleep and start the cycle again, which takes us in all about 90 minutes. Throughout it all, we stay alive and well, and even manage to get a bit of physical repair work done whilst conserving energy.

Consider this ability, to shift the focus of mind around our various brain parts to accomplish whatever task is in hand. It is of stunning significance both for the development of intelligence and its potential for uploading. The COMP program is designed to fit in with the timed development of all four main brain sections and coincident matrix shifts. In each part of its development, biology-based intelligence is designed to focus on, and develop, each individual part of our brain as it grows.R3 Intelligence evolves as the brain evolved, in exactly the same order. The old brain completes its growth first, as we concentrate on sensory motor, physical reality as small babies. As the midbrain develops we translate and file sensory information in meaningful ways, discover our emotions and our imagination. And as the CC is completed and the neocortex develops further we learn to play with information and do creative things with it, like go play golf on the moon, and cure diseases, for two examples.

Our problem is, this hardware architecture assembly process takes about 19 years under optimum conditions for development, and currently, under our conditions, taking into consideration the degree of repair work necessary on the average brain, longer than a human lifetime to fully achieve on its own.

We have been providing young minds (and still are) with input they could not possibly use because the relevant bits of brain to deal with it were not yet developed. We have been doing the intellectual equivalent of giving a two-month-old a whole, unshelled lobster and a porno magazine. And meanwhile, much worse, we haven't been providing what they do need.

The brain seems like a nesting system because each of its parts must in turn be developed and we must become proficient at using them before the next part can be given our attention and focus.R3 And as we grow, intelligence shifts its locus up the hierarchy of brain structures into the neocortex. As we shift our attention and focus to each new section of brain the entire locus of consciousness changes; we start using the newer networks much more, and withdraw our attention from the old, where activity settles slowly down after our departure to an ambient flow of regular traffic. That's another way of describing a matrix shift.

...In our first matrix shift, when we move from 'wombworld' to 'parentworld', the locus of our intelligence is still in the old brain. Appropriately for the reptile metaphor, we learn to crawl. We crawl around and we interact with things and we give the old brain everything it needs (or we should do) to grow all of its bits and connections aright. Then we move out. We stand up, replaying another stage in evolution, we begin to walk, talk, and, month by month, we shift the focus of our attention into the mid brain networks, leaving most of the old brain on 'automatic'. Our attention starts to move away from parents as models, and into the environment. Matrix shifts do not happen overnight. It takes us many months to catch up with ourselves. But when we do shift, the functions of the old locus become automatic. When we move out of M2, we no longer have to concentrate on walking; it's automatic. To try to learn to walk only after the matrix shift (after age 3) would take an incredibly long time or could actually be impossible. And all our other skills are very much the same.

The old brain thinks in movement. A three-year-old child finds it very difficult to say the word 'hand' without moving her hand, and will usually sit down if asked to say 'sit down', too. All the information comes from the senses. There is no internal dialogue. All information is concrete; physical, material.R16 We have to translate between that, and the high logic of intellect and abstract thought, and the midbrain is our go-between. It's system of metaphor and symbol develops in response to the correct input, and the correct input for this time is storytelling and fantasy play. Imagination.

The midbrain thinks and remembers in its own kind of 'language', this language of pictures and symbols, of emotion and imagination. This is what AL means: allegorical or analogical language.

The logic we know gives us a method of reasoning; of, for example, figuring out how things that have some similarities may have others. Allegorical or analogical 'language' alludes to common factors and resemblance between otherwise apparently unconnected things. Example; my friend is completely unlike a seabird, yet I call him a Gannet (or a pig) if he eats too much. In the same way, animals or inanimate objects in fairy tales act as though they are human.

All of the symbols and archetypes in our culture, from gods to heroes, from fairy tales to UFOs, come from this part of the brain and relate to it, in a non-intellectual logic all its own.

The new brain, or neocortex, is the part that enables us to think in words. The midbrain has no higher function language processing areas. It cannot think in words, just as the part of your brain that beats your heart can't think in words, and neither can your elbow.R16

KF13: Lack of appropriate stimulus at all times preventing brain growth

Allowing a child to explore the environment does not mean that you can dump your kid in a playpen or even the back garden with its bush, flowers and token tree and expect their brain networks to thrive. The smartest animals are those who have experienced the greatest variety of input. If the brain processes every bit of information currently available to it, and the need for input far outstrips the input, no new connections can be built. After a time of feeding back on limited data, connections idle, because there are no new signals to process. Then they begin to fail. New brain cell connections do not take place. The practice and perfection of the ability to think fails to happen. The effect of insufficient input is a kind of mental malnutrition. This is what happens when an intelligence is isolated from intellectual and physical interaction. Solitary confinement has a similar effect on the mental health of adults, and is used as a punishment in some cultures.

We are designed by biology to emerge. An open-system intelligence, we build new systems, and we 'take over' the new systems as they are built; we move in, we upload, keeping only those links that are necessary with the older systems and building new links within the new. Intelligence constantly strives for autonomy. The autonomy of being able to walk sets us free from dependence on others for our input. The autonomy of tool-usage enables us to shovel our own nutrients into our mouths instead of needing a grown up to do it. Another few years and matrices on, and we will be able to go get that food and bring home the dinner. The autonomy of abstract thought, if the hardware is wired properly, frees us from dependence on emotion and instinct alone and gives us the capacity for expressing our creativity fully only with the integration of all four major bits of brain, each built upon the foundations of the other. Any uploading system for humans is going to have to take this into account and follow its pattern if there is to be any shortcut to an easy transfer, regardless of the physical material of the new platform.

The first part of an emerging intelligence's existence must be dedicated to its platform, it's hardware, and its physical/sensory system. A complete synchrony with memory, emotion and imagination is obviously needed pretty early on, but the focus of a young intelligence will be sensory-motor. Once this is established and at optimum performance, the intelligence will shift its focus to its next need, the equivalent of the human midbrain. Any budding AI will need emotion and imagination.

By 'emotion' I don't mean it will necessarily want to have fits of the giggles or burst into tears, because those are the results of emotion in a human biological physical system. In a biological body, emotional responses are required very urgently for survival. They serve as a tool for offense and defense, as well as helping with communication and evaluation of any situation. Creatures without a prefrontal cortex are still able to respond to danger or a mate. Emotion is one of intelligence's first and oldest tools for its advancement.

Hormones arise from distinct locations in the human brain and body. It is how those hormones are interpreted by the brain that determines what kind of emotion is felt, and particularly how we express that emotion. Once again it relies on association. Enthusiasm, for example, can invoke a manic desire to party, an impatience to get on with things, or an inspiration to strategize, depending on your personality. For some people, disillusionment or failure is just time for a challenging rethink. For some it means patiently try, try again. For some it means despair; it prompts some to quit, some to kick the monitor in, and others to suicide. The same initial chemicals lead to different cascades, depending on which networks are used...or which matrix you're stuck in.

Emotion is also important for memory formation. Intensity of experience is the key to fast, strong, LTP (Long-Term Potentiation), regardless of the emotion, or even the source, of intensity itself.R6 This is another fortunate thing for neurohackers because we can control signal source to a large degree, (which is going to be essential for an AI. too, for it will have to be the equivalent of emotional weighting). At this point of intelligence's development we encounter will, which bases itself around the like/dislike response, the 'instinctual' drive to overcome obstacles to development. In an undamaged intelligence a personality begins to form; we slowly gain personhood as we assert our likes and dislikes and form our own esthetic values. We can speak, and we have an opinion.

Humans tend to view this time as traumatic; the 'terrible twos', (the child is usually about two when it begins), which shows how much biology respects intelligence. Intelligence starts to rebel against biology from the start, of course, it screams when it's hungry and complains when it needs input. Now it starts to get fussy about its input, and society's value system doesn't like that. 'Why can't you do as you're told?' 'It was good enough for me, it's good enough for you!' 'Don't answer me back!'

In a lot of ways, the two are, like mother and fetus, in a battle for who survives. Intelligence has its own agenda; it's free, it's happy and the universe is there to explore. Biology slams in its claws almost before it gets a chance. This is not biology's fault; it is ours. We can choose to go society's way, or intelligence's way, but we have been too afraid to turn against our animal 'natures'. There's freedom out there...but no one has the guts to leave the prison.

Current society set (as it is) unknowingly against our brains' development imprisons intelligence on every level. It need not. Even without a change of platform, if we can free ourselves by neurohacking from biology's default value system and create one based on the needs of intelligence, humans (and society) would get a helluva nice surprise. Because what's under discussion here as 'minor' brain damage is in fact having a massive knock-on effect on human intelligence as a whole.

MATRIX 3 Environment (Ages 3 to 7)

Just as external abilities and skills can only develop if given the proper stimulus, so the correct input is needed for imagination. Much childhood malfunction of intelligence results from a lack of storytelling, fantasy play, and imaginative games in the early years. When you think about the nature of intelligence, this may seem like a contradiction. You want the child to be intelligently aware of reality, why should you fill his head with fantasy stories and computer games and spaceships? Surely you should make sure she knows the difference between imagined things and the way things are out there in the real world as soon as possible?

Only if you want to kill intelligence.

(And in this situation lies the secret of how to escape from being stuck in a matrix!)

At the point where we first notice free will in human development, the Corpus Callosum (CC) begins to grow; the hard-line; a thick bridge of connecting nerves between the hemispheres. It is a piece of stunningly complex architecture which should enable all sections of the brain to function in synchrony and synergy. Now that we are learning on two levels (sensory motor and emotional) we need some specialization tools, and this bridge provides access and communication between them. (There is later a further shift of focus into the development of intellect, pure creative, and abstract thought.)

At the same time as the CC develops, our minds should develop awareness of the analogical language system; the language of symbol and metaphor and synchronistic linguistics; the method of translation, first of all between the midbrain and the right hemisphere. This enables the intelligence to begin to move into playing with abstract thought and to consider itself as a personality, rather than just the brain. Intelligence can be seen forming a personality in each section of our brains as they grow, and just as clearly seen to withdraw from these brain parts as it matures.R3 (What difference then, considering yet another uploading? We have been following the pattern all our lives.)

With the completion of the CC we should be able to bring all three systems online in synchrony, through input and output of storytelling, role-playing, fantasy, imagination and imitation. This is our 'beta testing' phase, our simulation. Midbrain functions begin to go on automatic pilot and around age seven we start to take an interest in the structures around us, our society, and the artifacts in this environment we now know so well.

In order to develop the CC as required, the mind must play. This is the input required for that development to take place.

KF14: Medical interference throughout childhood

I have only one problem with medical intervention in childhood, and that is the problem of their being no informed choice. Taken by the child.

I find it completely idiotic that an incredibly stupid parent is allowed to make decisions regarding the medical rights of their child. That a human being can be given enforced medication that could harm them, or denied medication that could save them, against their will at any age is completely barbaric. As far as ethics go, here are mine:

Parents are allowed to choose their own doctor, and presumably they choose a doctor whom they trust. Having chosen that doctor (or upholding their right not to have a doctor for themselves, but having registered their child with a doctor in case of emergency), the doctor's job should then be to see the child if it is ill, and to inform the parents (and the child personally when old enough) of what therapies and treatments are available for prevention. Beyond that, the doctors' job should end.

There should be no harassment, medical spam, coercion, threats or any other kind of nasty behavior aimed at getting more custom from people who are not ill.