Flinders University Honours Thesis

The author completed Science Honours at Flinders University, supervised by Professor David M W. Powers. Powers completed his PhD in the US, supervised by world famous linguist Ken Pike. 

The topic of my Thesis was a unique Turing Machine with the following features-
(i) a circular tape memory
(ii) three functionally distinct read-write 'heads'.

This TM was called the TDE (Tricyclic Differential Engine). The single level TDE, though interesting enough in its own right, was limited in its ability to help AI scientists construct computational theories about the biological basis of human thought and language. Consequently, another fractal level was added. The result was the TDE-R, where the R stood for recursion, which is the method computer programs use to make fractal data structures. The TDE-R is depicted in Figure 1 below. Its fractal nature causes it to resemble a high-tech snowflake.

Figure 1- the TDE-R

As unusual as the TDE-R seems, it is empirically supported. The red line traces the data path used by the brain when it produces language utterances. At the upper end of the line, in the left frontal lobe, we find Broca's Area [1]. Damage to this region produces profound aphasia (inability to form words, even when one knows what one wants to say). The TDE-R model clearly predicts the following- that a lesion anywhere along the red line will produce Broca-like aphasia. This is indeed what is found. Lesions to the RIGHT cerebellar cortex produce similar aphasias to lesions to the LEFT cerebral cortex [2]. This is a very specific model, making quite precise predictions. Therefore, there is minimal 'fuzziness' (interpretational  'wriggle room') here. Hence the TDE-R model is very probably the right one.
 
The replacement of the TDE-R by the G-GOLEM (Grosse or global GOLEM) is described more fully in subsequent sections of this website (see Figure 2 below). They are functionally equivalent, but the GOLEM form is more straightforward to implement. An analogous process occurs in computer programming practice when a recursive form of an algorithm is replaced by its recurrent (iterative) incarnation.

Figure 2 - the equivalent G-GOLEM (consists of two K-GOLEMs, left-hand and right hand versions

1. Broca, P. In 1861, French scientist Paul Broca announced that he had identified the area of the brain that was in charge of speech. Broca's most famous patient was called 'Tan' because that is the only sound he could utter. When Tan died, Broca performed an autopsy and found a syphilitic lesion in the frontal lobe of Tan's left cerebral hemisphere.

2. Silveri, MC, Leggio G, Molinari, M. (1994) The cerebellum contributes to linguistic production.  Neurology 44: 2047-2050