I didn't just time my theory over night I started typing more than a decode ago:

Talking about SOMs of MIST items [prototype for Mindpixels] in 1996

Wow. Googlisms. Mindpixels extracted for wikipedia.

X Marks the spot where 'No black scorpion is falling upon this table' is buried in human cognition.

In 1934, while dining at the Harvard Society of Fellows, B. F. Skinner found himself seated beside Alfred North Whitehead, and they dropped into a discussion of behavorism, with Whitehead mostly listening and trying to understand. Whitehead agreed that science might account for all behavior, except for verbal behavior--behavior Whitehead considered to involve something else. He challenged Skinner: "Let me see you," he said, "account for my behavior as I sit here saying 'No black scorpion is falling upon this table.' The next morning Skinner began his twenty year effort to write his most important book: Verbal Behavior.

Chomsky hated the book and trashed it and because of this, the work is little known...However...

On the cover of Verbal Behavior is a simple 'X'... under Skinner's X I place the proposition : 'No black scorpion is falling upon this table.' And my treasure is a map! I have the data construct a Dynamic Time Warping self-organizing map on which it is trivial to discover the semantic coordinates of Whitehead's point!

I was missing a piece until yesterday. Dynamic time warping. With it I can convert mindpixel text strings into vectors and do arithmetic operations on them.

When I multiply a mindpixel's vector representation with the coherence which I measure by presenting it to twenty random people and can very from -1.0 [false 100% of the presentations] to 1.0 [100% true on all presentations] the vectors becomes polorized semantically!

Affect or emotion is just another three dimensional vector that adds colour to the map!

I just want to keep typing !!!!

Thoughts are vectors. Spelling doesn't matter! Nor does vector length because of dynamic time warping. Though vector length discoheres as length increases just because of a memory effect. It discohers at seven dimensions, where hypersurface is maximum.

The seven dimensionsare: the three affective dimensions origionally proposed by Wundt. Einsteins spacetime. My map is of a seven sphere where every point have aq measured semantic coherence. I am making a semantic coherence map of a Wundt-Einstein-Milnor-sphere!

Man, psychology made a wrong turn at Chomsky. We need to turn the clock back to 1959 and follow Skinner instead. Measurement is omnipotent.

Now you have got to be human or a VERY good model to know that Mountain Dew looks like antifreeze on the ground. GAC knows. And so does Alicebot, silver edition, because GAC told her.

Today I am very excited. One major thing is a big fat secret and I am squirming to tell everyone, but I can't...so I will talk about something else--self organizing maps!

I have been wanting to do a SOM of my mindpixel data long before I even called them mindpixels...I proposed it first in comp.ai in 1996...today I found someone who built a SOM on 100K english words. The map is beautiful. Looks coincidently [I hope] like a map of the world with a very obvious South America, right where you would expect it.

You can see it on the last page of this lovely paper: http://www.cis.hut.fi/panus/papers/online_ssom.pdf

I emailed the author, Panu Somervuo, and proposed we colaborate on a SOM of Human Semantic Coherence using his software and my data...the map if we make would be an excellent candiate for a Nature cover...it would be like the Cosmic Microwave Background of the mind! Oh, very sexy. Yep.

Consider a hypersphere of the following dimensions-three affective dimensions, as per Wundt (pleasure, arousal, dominance) and then four space time dimensions. It is a Milnor-sphere, which happens to have maximum hypersurface. Any point on it that is not zero in the three Wundt dimensions, represents an experiencing being at a particular time and place. Your life as an experiencing being is a trajectory on its surface, as are the lives of all beings in the entire universe. I think it is this object that our limbic systems are trying to represent, and that our thalamocortical system is a second embedded Milnor-sphere that allows us to tag each point in our trajectory so that when we experience something similar, similar tags resonate and we have the effect of memory.

The very first use of Mindpixels has just occured. Rich Wallace's Alicebot is now running with 80,000 Mindpixels. Rich tells me that the 80K is of great help to him. Image what adding the other 1.58 million would do...and speaking of adding them, we have agreed to colaborate on an entry for the 2005 Loebner Prize. He has won it three times already...

Karl Pribram emailed me yesterday. He said the coincidence I pointed out between Miller's magical number, dimensions at maximum hypersurface area, the number of gama cycles for every theta cycle and the number of layers in the thalmacortical system was "facinating" and most likely not previously noted. That means a lot considering the source. Oh, all four numbers are 7.

Santiago has been Eden-like the past few weeks but it is clear winter, such that it is here, is near as I have my first cold of the season and my head feels filled with rising dough. Speaking of Eden, I am re-reading Jack London's Martin Eden, a book I adore. Maybe the only piece of fiction I have any attachment for at all. Yes, Martin Eden is my favorite fictional character. It is surprising that such a writer's character is not more well known. I can't wait to finish work today and go home and crawl into bed with that book.

...but it appears we have both moved south!

See the note from the accountant below:

Good Afternoon
I have now followed up on the query by Mr Christopher McKinstry concerning the $250 donation to the Bill Toews election campaign and wish to advise as follows:
A donation of $250 was made by a Chris(tine) McKinstry, and a further $250 donation was made by her husband Perry Gustavson, former residents of Winnipeg.
They now reside in Columbia MO, USA We were able to verify this through an internet search of the Columbia white pages, and we spoke to Christine at her Columbia telephone number to confirm her donation and that of her husband.
I trust that this investigation and report will satisfy your query.

Peter S Eckersley, FCA
1401 Princess Avenue, Brandon, MB, R7A 7L7
Ofc 204-571-7650, Cel 204-729-7283

How many Chris McKinstry's are there in the world? I know of four--a sheriff in Florida, a runner in Texas, a media assistant in Missouri and me, a computer scientist in Chile [but born in Winnipeg, Manitoba]...so it came as a surprise when I discovered while searching for my name in .pdf files, a Chris McKinstry, likely in Manitoba, that was a $250.00 contributer to the 2004 Canadian Wheat Board Director Election campaign of a Mr. Bill Toews. [He won, MASSIVELY outspending those running against him.]

Another Manitobian Chris McKinstry? Very unlikely.

I emailed Mr. Toews and copied it to the CEO of the accounting firm that audited the the election. Mr. Toews didn't respond, but the accounting firm did. Below is the text of my email and the response I got from the accounting firm:

Mr. Toews,

I noticed your 'Candidates' Statutory Financial Disclosure' for the
2004 Canadian Wheat Board Director Elections, indicates my having
donated to you $250.00. I was out of the province for the entire year
of 2004 and made no such donation. I would like you to clarify exactly
who you think gave you the $250.00.

I have copied Daryl Ritchie of Meyers Norris Penny, who's firm
coordinated the election in question.

Sincerely,

Chris McKinstry

Dear Mr McKinstry:

Your query concerning Bill Toews' financial report has been forwarded to
me by Daryl Ritchie, our CEO
As election co-ordinator for the 2004 election, I will be immediately following up on this matter with Mr Toews.
As it may be possible for there to be more that one Chris McKinstry's in Manitoba ( the most likely home for a donor to a district 10 campaign ), would you be kind enough to email me your home address, phone number and the last 3 digits of your social insurance number.
Thank you very much.

Peter S Eckersley, FCA
1401 Princess Avenue, Brandon, MB, R7A 7L7
Ofc 204-571-7650, Cel 204-729-7283

The following is something I found from October 7, 2001:

I am haunted by hyperspheres of signals and mystically encoded
metasignals--all made out of words--made out of bits. From every thought I
have, I can decode the metasignal of Wallace Steven's "Men Made Out Of
Words" if I just write it down and factor out its implicit propositions.

What should we be without the sexual myth,
The human reverie or poem of death?

Castratos of moon-mash - Life consists
Of propositions about life. The human

Reverie is a solitude in which
We compose these propositions, torn by dreams,

By the terrible incantations of defeats
And by the fear that defeats and dreams are one.

The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.

Shannon when info theory was still on the drawing boards, ignored Donald
MacKay and his contextual metacommunication. He took human information and
divorced it from meaning. In separating information from meaning Shannon
gave us a hypersphere:

E=x1 ssquared+ x2 squared + x3 squared...

Shannon took a signal, broke it into samples which defined his
hypershpere--the object which information theory and the information society
are founded on. To do so however, Shannon had to build a generator of
English text or at least a statistical approximation of one. Shannon
generated approximations of English text through the consultation of tables
of monogram and digram letter frequencies. When these tables proved
insufficient (as they were for higher-order simulations), he consulted books
from his library. His simulations included zero-order, first-order,
second-order, and third-order by letter. He also conducted first-order and
second-order simulations by word. Due to the labor involved, he stopped at
this point. Here are his 0-3rd order approximations:

XFOML RXHRJFFJUJ ZLPWCFWKCYJ FFJEYVKCQSGXYD QPAAMKBZAACIBZL

OCRO HLI RGWR NMIELWIS EU LL NBNESEBYA TH EEI ALHENHTT OOBTTVA NAH BRL

ON IE ANTSOUTINYS ARE T INCTORE ST BE S DEAMY ACHIN DILONASIVE TUCOOWE AT
TEASONARE FUSO TIZIN ANDY TOBE SEACE CTISBE

IN NO IST LAT WHEY CRATICT FROURE BIRS GROCID PONDENON OF DEMONSTURES OF THE
REPTAGIN IS REGOACTIONA OF CRE

Now notice that the output of these Shannon text generators is a signal...
which also the hypersphere E. We can recognize the humanness even in the
lowest order approximation. Yes, it is just noise. But it is human
noise--statistically different than every other kind of noise. As the order
increases, the text becomes very obviously human, but discoherent--like a
whole bunch of human sentences averaged toegether--like unfocused thought.
Tought without connection to human meaning. This is what bugged MacKay.
Information theory obviously works, but it factors out the context of the
human and is meaningless independent of us, with our portable human
contexts. MacKay said there are two kinds of information--selective and
structural. Selective information--Shannon's information--is information
calculated by selecting eelementsfrom a set. Sturctural infromation,
communicates how the selected infromation is to be understood--it is
metainformation.

Okay, I agree.

That's what wrong with Shannon's approximations--they aren't focused because
they are lacking metainformation about how to structure the signal they are
generating to be understood by people. So, let's extend Shannon's
hypersphere:

E=x1 suqared + x2 squared + x3 squared...

and embed it into another hypersphere--a hypersphere of metainformation by
adding another set of terms:

y1 suqared + y2 squared + y3 squared...

Yielding:

E=x1 squared + x2 squared + x3 squared... + y1 squared + y2 squared + y3
squared...

Now E is no longer appropriate because we are no longer talking about just
energy--just a signal. Now we are faces with energy, plus the entire human
context--or psychology. Thus:

E Psi=x1 squared + x2 squared + x3 squared... + y1 squared + y2 squared + y3
squared...

The greek letter Psi (which is tatooed on the back of my left hand) is the
symbol for psychology. The only other use of the letter in math that I am
aware of is in Schrodingers wave function.

What does this haunting hypersphere buy us?

Nothing unless we identify some candidates for Psi terms.

I propose as a first approximation : C P A D

Coherence

Pleasure

Arousal

Dominance

The theoretical rationale and experimental foundations for the Coherence
Semantic Model of Minimum Intelligent Signasls have been detailed by
McKinstry (1995). The Model consists of one dimension that is used to
describe and measure semantic resonance (how true or false a given signal
feels.)

The Specific term describing meaning can be visualized as a point in a
one-dimensional Coherence-Discoherence space. Alternatively, when the scale
scores are standardized, each signal can be described succinctly in terms of
its values on a Coherence-discoherence axis. The following sample ratings
illustrate the coherence or ability for a human to understand a signal when
the scores on the scale range from -1 to +1: Most people hate "Why did the
chicken cross the road?" jokes. (.81) "Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side." is funny (.45) (These are real examples!)

The theoretical rationale and experimental foundations for the PAD Emotional
State Model have been detailed by Mehrabian (1980, 1995b, 1997). The Model
consists of three nearly independent dimensions that are used to describe
and measure emotional states (or feelings, affective conditions): pleasure-
displeasure, arousal-nonarousal, and dominance-submissiveness.
"Pleasure-displeasure" distinguishes the positive-negative affective quality
of emotional states, "arousal-nonarousal" refers to a combination of
physical activity and mental alertness, and "dominance-submissiveness" is
defined in terms of control versus lack of control.
Specific terms describing emotions can be visualized as points in a
three-dimensional PAD emotion space. Alternatively, when the PAD scale
scores are standardized, each emotion term can be described succinctly in
terms of its values on the pleasure-displeasure, arousal-nonarousal, and
dominance- submissiveness axes. The following sample ratings illustrate
definitions of various emotion terms when scores on each PAD scale range
from -1 to +1: angry (-.51, .59, .25), bored (-.65, -.62, -.33), curious
(.22, .62, -.01), dignified (.55, .22, .61), elated (.50, .42, .23), hungry
(-.44, .14, -.21), inhibited (-.54, -.04, -.41), loved (.87, .54, -.18),
puzzled (-.41, .48, -.33), sleepy (.20, -.70, -.44), unconcerned
(-.13, -.41, .08), violent (-.50, .62, .38).

Thus, according to ratings given for "angry," it is a highly unpleasant,
highly aroused, and moderately dominant emotional state. "Sleepy" consists
of a moderately pleasant, extremely unaroused, and moderately submissive
state, whereas "bored" is composed of highly unpleasant, highly unaroused,
and moderately submissive components.

Combining C, P A and D (the metasignal) to Shannon's hypersphere (the
signal) gives us something that looks like this:

Signal: (Most people hate "Why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes.)
Metasignal: (.81, -.6, -.6, -.3)

It's not important that the signal is written as text. I could have
converted it to numbers. What is important is that we have a new object--a
hypersphere of meaning and emotion on the surface of which we can plot any
coherent human thought. Thought space (N+4 Dimensions. Where N is the length
of the signal in bits)

Just a note: the metasignal is structured internally from public to private.
The Coherence bit is the most public because everyone can agree on it. The
most private bit would be the subcognitive modification of the signal that
the encoder is unaware of (subconscious influence)... see French.

The next step is to build a statistical model of an intelligent signal
generator the same way Shannon built his human noise generators. That's what
mindpixel is about. It collects data so that we can build a statistical
model that will allow a machine to test any signal for coherence by
comparing it to very large amount of coherent and discoherent examples. If
we can teach a machine to recognize an meaningful signal, then just by
looking at a large enough number of random signals, it will discover and
thus generate meaningful signals. Which is a pretty remarkable idea.

The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.

My very good friend Bud has a quite entertaining web art project called alphabetsoup.cl...

As I have mentioned before, there is a wonderful buzz on here in Chile-economic, technological and political. The Economist picked up on it and published this article yesterday. Read it. It's good.

Two nights ago, I had this dream:

I was in a taxi in Winnipeg in the winter going to Home Street I told the driver, but when I realized I was on Sturgeon heading south toward Ness, I knew I was close to my grandparents home, where I spent most of my life. Turn right, the first street past the Safeway, I said. There's nothing there the taxi driver said. Sure enough, the city ended at Heritage Blvd. I got out of the taxi and looked north. On my right was the city and the night sky was filled with stars. There was not an empty spot in the sky. On the left was snow and above it a black sky.

The taxi driver asked me what it meant. I said it meant that I was dreaming and that he was a character in my dream. The sky on the right was my right cerebral hemisphere being updated structurally with the experience of the day past. The left was black because the plasticity of the left hemisphere is much lower...

When I awoke I realized that my taxi driver was Bill Macy, who played Bea Arthur's husband in the 70's sitcom, Maud, and who is the reason William H. Macy uses an H.

I have an odd brain.

Yesterday, the lights went out, then the sky filled with low flying military jets. I counted more than thirty of all kinds--Mirages, F5's, and even a 707 with all kinds of radar systems hanging off of it. Apparently the blackout effected 1/2 the population of Chile. The jets were a coincidence as far as I can tell, but it was scary for a bit. I enjoyed the big blackout of 2003 in Toronto much more, not even a little bit scary...