An astonishingly intricate architecture: Visual Music of the Brain and Mind

Abstract

The overarching guiding principle of Alan Turing’s work was directed towards modelling the human mind as a machine. It is extraordinary that Turing introduced, in his early papers, ideas that are only now beginning to be investigated. Throughout his life, he considered conjectures to be of great importance because they suggest useful lines of research. In my own conjecture, I am asking the question: what is the brain’s geometry? Can it ever be unravelled, or does its complexity defy any form of visual representation? Recent research reveals that the detailed workings of the brain take place in a ‘global workspace’, where conscious contents appear to be disseminated globally to a great multitude of networks throughout the brain that are unconscious. During conscious tasks, neurons contributing to the global workspace enter into a coherent activation pattern by being tightly connected through long axons. Is it possible, therefore, that my proposed geometric pattern (an Islamic latticework) can be envisaged as a useful means of interconnecting multiple long axons in a unified global workspace dedicated to conscious thought? I share and communicate my idea through a process that combines visual imagery with musical performance (i.e. visual music). It is a method that can assist in clarifying concepts that might otherwise remain elusive or esoteric.

Turing’s Genius – Defining an apt microcosm

“…Little did Jeremy Green know, at the time, that it was his comments on Turingalila that set me off on a subsequent search into the astonishingly intricate architecture of the brain. The result -Visual Music of the Brain and Mind (Trickett 2018)has led directly to the idea of promoting this panel discussion on Turing's genius defining an apt microcosm. In Visual Music of the Brain and Mind, I ask the simple question: if Alan Turing had lived longer would we now be further advanced in our knowledge of how the brain works and how we think?…”