Coding for the Brain: RNA, its Photons, and Piagetian Higher-Intelligence through Action

Abstract

Modelling human intelligence? Hyland identified three approaches: •Physiological, •Mentalistic (as if outside 3D space), and •Mechanistic. Arguably their apparent incompatibility arises from a mistaken choice of scale, centred on the synapse as a basic unit for thought. Instead RNA-codons are now proposed as those fundamental elements (cf. Hydén’s forgotten 1960s findings). This also seems compatible with both (i) information-technology’s digitisation, and (ii) Piaget’s concepts of “schèmes,” and developmental stages. For the more-complex code-structures (“schémata”) needed for higher Piagetian stages, their necessary physical configuration is then considered — packable into virus-like “boxes” (capsids —typically 125nm diameter). These could be free to relocate into cortex-“archives” — either within Rakic’s migratory new-neurons, or the bloodstream! Such ultra-miniaturisation needs to communicate by INFRA-RED signals — via myelin coaxial cables, but also somewhat free to operate radio-like, dependent on “call-sign” coding (like phone-numbers). Also any “radio-like” abilities would allow continued participation after relocation (as if mobile-phones using WiFi). Meanwhile traditional synaptic Action-Potential signalling is seen as analogue adjustment-signals: (i) in orthodox peripheral muscle-control, and (ii) as constantly updating deep-brain “wiring” via well-known Hebbian principles (an important, but secondary task — after main infra-red transmissions). Gut-contents have a surprise-role in mental abilities — a phenomenon which is also tentatively explained as a supplementary “useful-junk RNA” source. Piaget-as-Epistemologist saw “equilibration” (coherence) as the vital-but-fallible criterion for theory evaluation, both in the brain, and within science. That philosophy is applied here.