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try random combinations and trust to luck (and intuition). The brain may very well
solve real problems this way, by random searches for quick solutions.
Random variables come into play in a cue editor. Simple circuits can randomly
remove cues, search memory, and restore them while randomly removing others to
obtain a return. Having good cues is very important. A cue editor is a logical
subcircuit that can store a basic set of cues, if they are conflicting, and edit them in a
random way, in the background.
As further indication that memory searches occur randomly, dreams, as every-
one knows, are brief illogical episodes usually soon forgotten. A person is dimly
aware of dreams during light sleep partly because there are no overpowering
sensory images to block them out, as there would be during the day. Dreams,
according to one theory, are a result of the repeated application of random
underdetermined cues and multiple returns, some of which pass through the recall
referee into STM because of their emotional content. Repetition of dreams some-
times causes them to be noticed as a person wakes.
Brainstorming may be like this, in which a random attribute is applied to a cue
editor that causes unexpected returns. There usually are many returns, but only the
most recent, most alarming, or most interesting scenarios are permitted into con-
scious STM by a recall referee.
Inspired Decisions
Currently there is no way to explain, let alone design machines that have common
sense, truth judgment, understanding, artistic appraisal, and other hallmarks of
human intelligence [
10
]. There seems to be a hidden source of computational
power. Visionary pioneers have surveyed the possibility of quantum computing
within a brain [
11
]. No doubt there are important quantum mechanical behaviors
within ion channels and within synapses and elsewhere, since ions and their
electrons are small and subject to quantum theory. One interesting hypothesis
suggests quantum computing within the microtubules of neurons, proposed to
generate higher consciousness [
12
,
13
]. Others see quantum tunneling of electrons
between synapses as creating consciousness [
14
]. For anything new, there are
skeptics [
11
,
15
,
16
].
Quantum computations in neurons are an unproven hypothesis. Nevertheless
quantum mechanics is a valuable metaphor for certain brain behaviors [
11
,
12
].
Thinking about quantum mechanics is fun, and exercises the brain, which is a
healthy activity. A later chapter discusses recent avenues in the search for brain
quantum computing.
In contrast to the qubits of quantum theory, it may be possible for recursive
neurons to take on qubit properties, such as holding true and false simultaneously
with given probabilities in a probability space. Recursive neurons may also serve as
controlled toggles for parallel processing, such as needed in a recall referee.
Recursive neurons configured to act like qubits are termed simulated qubits. They
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