The human brain as a system of complex nervous processes and patterns, can be explained in terms of its stratification into interacting functional areas that serve purposes of the cybernetic behavioral integration of the human organism. From this model, the mind can be seen primarily as the "ghost in the machine": i.e., the emergent property of symbolic awareness that is the outcome of the functional organization of the brain. When we figure out this functional organization, perhaps, we may be able then to design soft-ware programs or even hard-ware digital-analog computer configurations that actually replicate in some genuine and realistic way the standard of Artificial Intelligence.

Earlier research in aphasias, particularly among those suffering battle wounds during and after World War II, has coupled with more recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging techniques to reveal with unprecedented detail the functional organization of the living brain and what happens when certain specific sections of the brain are destroyed. We cannot achieve this functional insight into the inner workings of the brain and its behavioral associations in the world by the dissection and pickling of a dead brain. We cannot ethically operate and expose upon a living brain or experiment with a living brain in a manner that would provide us systematic insight into its functional centers of organization.

In the performance of complex operations, like reading a book, or watching a movie, or surfing the web, certain regions of the brain are turned on and utilized in a definite pattern. And the human brain appears to have this remarkable capacity, not only for almost unlimited learning and limited recovery, but for actually improving its skill performance of complex action sets over the structure of the long run, what some have referred to as the "wisdom paradox." 

The mind then, can be seen as the emergent property of the functional organization of different areas of the brain, of which there are many, and we can track long term trajectories in the development of the mind and the organization of the brain as a function of the life-experience and learning that an individual undergoes in the course of a life-time. This calls to question the plasticity of the brain, and, more specifically, the functional plasticity of the organization of the brain, to not only perform certain complex sets of tasks, but in time to develop short-cuts and improvements in this task performance. A modicum of transference of function from one area to another has been noted--for instance in cases of deaf people who lack verbal speech, or people who are blinded.

Two basic processes of higher order brain function appear interrelated--pattern recognition or "pattern formulation" on one hand, and problem solving, on the other. The lateralization of brain function is not completely or well understood, but it has been suggested that the right side is preoccupied with pattern recognition, and the left-side with problem solving. More important perhaps than the mystery of functional lateralization of the brain has been the development of the neo-cortex and its functional differentiation and development on both sides of the brain. The layering and interiorization of brain connections, and the possible differentiation of brain function by layer, brings an added dimension of complexity to the entire problem of its functional organization.

My dog responds to me intelligently in many ways, and can even do simple tasks and tricks when I show and train it. But there are some things my dog just doesn't seem able to do--like see its own reflection in the mirror, as a reflection of itself at least, or recognize on a page a drawing or meaningful representation. I think teaching a dog to read or write has a long way to go. Even Koko, the best known and most successful of the signing Great Apes, appears to have after many years of training and practice, a vocabulary of only about a thousand words. Of course, a thousand word vocabulary is probably the minimum number of words necessary for a basic human language about the world, but the average child achieves this capacity and repertory by about three and a half years of age, and probably sooner.

Learning new behavioral sets or repertories of reaction and habit, for instance, may rely on different parts of the brain than when experience and expertise with an complex task and its performance are well developed. As people age, and as they practice and get better at doing what it is they do, their functional activity and reliance of the brain shifts and changes in its functional patterning. These shifts can relate to alterations of behavior and personality, changes in mood, temperament and emotional response.

Understanding the functional organization of the brain through the consequences of specific aphasias and brain process imaging techniques is an important first step towards understanding the foundations of human intelligence and mind. I hypothesize that there occur central integrative structures in the brain that have general and specialized functions in tying together other areas of brain activity and serve the purpose of binding this activity into a seamless, "filmstrip" whole. I hypothesize that the breakdown of these central structures, and of the functional integration of the brain, can account for various forms of mental illness, especially schizophrenias and I think certain personality disorders and psychopathologies. 

The flexibility of web-based meta-system frameworks offers the prospect of fully modularizing and individualizing such frameworks to maximize their value to people. The challenge of defining individualized meta-system frameworks entails profiling individuals within a meta-systems framework and determining the selection of characteristics that match the profile. This profiling of course can go on at different levels.

Creation of individualized meta-system frameworks also would require modularization and availability of alternative components of such frameworks that would provide people with a wide range of choices in the design and implementation of such a framework.

Meta-system frameworks and voluntary adaptation to such frameworks will only occur when such frameworks are made attractive to people, not so much as members of a common community, but as individuals with their own unique set of needs and interests in life. It has for some time been my opinion that each person would come to a meta-system framework in a unique and different way, and would end up defining and implementing such a framework in a highly individualized manner. What the same framework would mean to one person may not be the same it would mean to any other, though such a common shared framework would provide the basis for a common meta-culture and for communication to occur between very different people.

But this begs the question of exactly what is an individualized meta-system framework. I would say it is a highly personalized way of organizing life, especially a productive and meaningful life, that is congruent with a larger meta-systems framework that has global scope and relevance in the largest of senses. This would mean that though one person might be a pig farmer or fish monger in China and another person a chicken dealer or vegetable seller in Nigeria, there would be a common possible framework between them that would allow the articulation of each to occur within the same shared context, even permitting cooperative exchange to occur between them. This is wholly possible by means of the Internet. 

The prospect of bringing to realization individualized meta-system frameworks is actually the problem of creating a world in which individual freedoms and liberties can be more effectively realized, and ultimately, greater levels of human happiness and hence quality of life. The rise of digital systems of automation, of scale-free Internet-works, and of worldwide wireless communications, makes not only possible, but increasingly feasible, the prospect of the achievement of increasingly individualized systems that efficiently mediate human adaptation to their environment at all levels.

Providing people the means by which to configure their own frameworks in their life, through their empowerment, is what meta-systems development is ultimately supposed to be about. If it is or remains only the vision of a single person, like myself for instance, then it is nothing and will come to nothing in the larger world.

Individualized meta-system frameworks would as well create a common framework for promoting greater tolerance of individual differences and greater flexibility for dealing with differences. The object of a meta-system framework is that different systems and subsystems can be coordinate and interfunctional in a non-destructive manner.

It follows that any strategy that allows us to realize upon individual levels a range of configuration of meta-systems frameworks for different people is a strategy that is headed in the right direction. As I have previously hinted, the Internet and Worldwide Web provide, probably for the first time in human history, the very means for accomplishing this kind of strategy, as it potentially permits any person access to any information, and potentially, any product/service in the world. There is a lot more that must follow from this. So a revolution of information is only a beginning, not an end.

Development of the Internet and the attendant "digital information revolution" portends the emergence of the basis for global human meta-culture. The Internet offers a truly scale-free framework by which transmission of culture can be achieved at any point in the globe at any time. Of course, preexisting human social structures and formations are inclined at some point to impeded and interfere with this kind of developmental process occurring, though in the long run it will be inevitable unless the human race manages to destroy itself or at least send itself into a new Dark Age. 

But the development of a global meta-culture that is embedded and that is capable of becoming a foundation for the re-identification and symbolic unification of humankind under a common, albeit complex ideological umbrella, remains dependent upon effectively overcoming corporate-level resistance from human-made obstacles and screens of resistance that carry the weight of convention, tradition, ethno-national community, ethnocultural identity, etc. 

I have lived in both a communist and a capitalist system. The human substrate in each is more or less the same, fundamentally. Neither system, from the structural standpoint, appears to work flawlessly or without contradiction, especially when carried to extreme. Communism is inherently inefficient, requiring ultimately totalitarian direction--extreme capitalism is inherently unequal and exploitative, requiring ultimately insertion of some form of social control. I would claim both kinds of systems, when pushed to the extreme without balancing or regulatory mechanisms, end up being exploitative and harmful of large social systems and ultimately stifling of human development of such systems.

I propose that the spread of e-commerce and of new information managed economies provide us with a third alternative possibility that is neither one extreme nor the other, that permits and promotes healthy competition without necessary monopolization and that allows equitable distribution of resources without unnecessary "Uber" control. I have made the acquaintance with at least one kind of model, that of "Co-opitalism" that is being articulated on the web in at least one forum, though I believe the model being articulated is probably insufficient in scope or organization to the real problem being addressed. I see it as a kind of marriage of opposites, of a framework for network that promotes on one hand cooperative organization, especially encouraging small business development and pioneering entrepreneurship, on one hand, and on the other competitive meta-systemic contexts that might be constructive rather than primarily destructive.

The arguments justifying such an alternative world systems framework have not been sufficiently thought-through or developed as of yet. Neither have the traditional ideologies associated with received structural orientations been fully elaborated or explained. The main point is that we should not remain stuck in the mud with received viewpoints and potentially obsolete symbolic ideologies that limit now our way of thinking about the world and possibilities for doing things in alternative and previously unexplored ways.

The point is that the emergence of Internet based infrastructure may provide a new and unprecedented form for exchange, transmission and distribution affecting the relationships of people to people and of people to resources. It provides new means for social organization and restructuring of human society and systems. Emergent from this process may be the possibility for a new form of economic system previously unrealized in any extensive manner. It would be a kind of economic system that is inherent to the structural possibilities of e-commerce.

Of course, these kinds of systems are not inevitable in the sense that they require human willpower and effort to make them happen. They are emergent and latent in the possibilities provided by the Internet revolution, but there yet remain very serious obstacles to their realization. Achievement of such structures in a unified systems sense will depend upon achieved  worldwide structural integration on a number of levels. It is not likely that political or social integration will happen anytime soon, though economic integration appears to be moving rapidly forward in spite of other differences.

We should now at least be prepared to think about, and as much as possible, plan alternative world systems that might be possible as a consequence of the possibilities afforded by modern and advancing technologies. We should identify in a systematic way the problem sets that would be encountered in the implementation of these alternative frameworks, and the methodologies of implementation that may serve to effectively counter these kinds of problems.

The last month or so I've been toying with the idea of World Citizenship. What does it mean? What are its possible ramifications and its charter for people, especially different kinds of people--what would be its implications and its parameters? What conditions would have to be met in the world before the idea and identity of "World Citizenship" would come to be taken seriously, even acted upon in a manner that is comparable to how people treat national citizenship? 

First, it strikes me as somewhat self-evident that effective world citizenship would depend upon the achievement of a global culture, and an effective structural integration of a world system, which would provide the basis and context for such identification to take place. To promote it in any other form or fashion would be out of context so to speak, and ultimately, futile. But there is also the sense that in a closed world new ideas can be dangerous, as they form possibilities in people's collective imagination for new realities that did not previously exist. Therefore, let me talk further about world citizenship.

If we are to believe the notion of an unfolding General Systems Revolution occurring globally, inexorably in the structure of the long run, in spite of the increasing violence and potential for global holocaust, then perhaps the notion of world citizenship should not be so remote or distant in our imaginations than expected.

We can identify some of the symbolic and ideological parameters involved in the definition of World Citizenship. First I think there is acknowledgement of a meta-ethical paradigm of universal human rights and responsibilities--I would extend this to a larger framework of natural rights and responsibilities, but perhaps this is going to far for some people. Second, I think the issue of the cultural relativity of values, symbolic ideologies and worldviews needs to be taken thoroughly into account, with the idea of developing frameworks for mediating between different cultural orientations in an effective manner. It is obvious that a world system would have to be completely secular, not just in a religious or sectarian sense, but in a larger cultural interpretation of reality. I suggest that a systems based framework provides such a neutral, value free manner of looking at the world and defining things like cultural values and orientations. Third, I see the emergence of a global culture, or meta-culture in time that will effectively replace at many levels traditional ethnocultural or ethno-national cultural orientations.

Providing symbols and symbolic structures of common world identity would be an important component of this--a world flag for instance, a logo, a set of charters like a world constitution or a bill of rights, etc. I personally do not buy very much into such symbology, but I think for many ritual and crowd situations especially such symbolisms are necessary and important to achieving common social identification.

World citizenship cannot just be made the symbolic and behavioral provenience of a privileged or sumptuary elite. If it is not relevant and meaningful to the working poor of the rest of the world, then from a social standpoint it remains a meaningless form of identification. It should not be just another form of social stratification writ large that serves to separate people off from one another based upon their access to resources and their sense of power and privilege in the world.

In hindsight of dealing firsthand with the social contradictions of contemporary American society, for instance, I would assert that the guarantee, protection and uncompromising assurance of genuine political equality for all people is the most important thing to achieved in the realization of world citizenship. If we cannot create and foster a context by which political equality can be gained for all people in the world, we have no chance for creating a world that will be in the long run open, safe and secure for all people. We must remember, political equality occurs even when there is social or economic stratification. A case can be made at international trials of tyrants and their henchmen who commit large scale social atrocities that the notion of political equality is part and parcel to the notion of a doctrine of universal human rights and responsibilities, and that even if it is hardly ever realized or enforced, such a notion still implicitly applies to all situations in life by which we become ultimately judged by our actions in relation to other people.

An implicit framework of global political equality of all individual human beings extends by "domestic analogy" to larger organizational frameworks, and this becomes the basis for the paradigm of International Law governing the relations of nations to one another. If we seek the heart of this framework, I believe it rests in the human capacity to be aware of and empathize with the suffering of others, to project onto others not only what is bad, but what is good, within ourselves. Acknowledgement and acceptance of the political equality, or at least the potential political equality, of all human beings derives ultimately I think from the comprehension and sentience of the spiritual equality of human beings, a sense that transcends religious ideologies or all other symbolic preoccupations.

Mandating global political equality as the basis of world citizenship is perhaps a minimal paradigm of social integration. The emphasis upon achievement of other forms of equality, as social and economic equality, is asking too much of human systems, and presents too rigid a structure in efforts to implement these ideals.  The results are less than desirable, and there comes a point of trade-off between realization of political equality on one hand and realization of social or other forms of equality on the other. Realization of blanket social equality, or alternatively the kind of communal equality that has replaced political equality in the US, leads to the imposition of double-standards and, in the long run, to the loss of genuine political equality. This is not to say that achievement of some kind of social or economic equality in the world is not desirable, but that the tradeoff is really one between efficiency and equality. I see the achievement of global political equality, in principle if not completely in practice, to be more realistic and achievable, than a vision of a world in which everyone has the same wealth, etc. Human society is a society of individual organized on the basis of their differences, we are not a society of clones or insects, and can never be.