Neural modeling field (NMF) theory mathematically implements the mind mechanisms including concepts, emotions, instincts, imagination, thinking, understanding, language, interaction between language and cognition, the knowledge instinct, conscious, unconscious, aesthetic emotions including beautiful and sublime. NMF provides a foundation for modeling evolution of languages, consciousness, and cultures.
NMF is a multi-level, hetero-hierarchical system [1]. The mind is not a strict hierarchy; there are multiple feedback connections among adjacent levels, hence the term hetero-hierarchy. At each level in NMF there are concept-models encapsulating the mind’s knowledge; they generate so-called top-down signals, interacting with input, bottom-up signals. These interactions are governed by the knowledge instinct, which drives concept-model learning, adaptation, and formation of new concept-models for better correspondence to the input, bottom-up signals.
Here we describe a basic mechanism of interaction between two adjacent hierarchical levels of bottom-up and top-down signals (fields of neural activation; in this aspect NMF follows[2]; sometimes, it will be more convenient to talk about these two signal-levels as an input to and output from a (single) processing-level. At each level, output signals are concepts recognized in (or formed from) input, bottom-up signals. Input signals are associated with (or recognized, or grouped into) concepts according to the models and the knowledge instinct at this level. This general structure of NMF corresponds to our knowledge of neural structures in the brain; still, here we do not map mathematical mechanisms in all their details to specific neurons or synaptic connections. The knowledge instinct is described mathematically as maximization of a similarity measure. In the process of learning and understanding input, bottom-up signals, concept-models are adapted for better representation of the input signals so that similarity between the concept-models and signals increases. This increase in similarity satisfies the knowledge instinct and is felt as aesthetic emotions.
At a particular hierarchical level, we enumerate neurons by index n=1,2..N. These neurons receive input, bottom-up signals, X(n), from lower levels in the processing hierarchy. X(n) is a field of bottom-up neuronal synaptic activations, coming from neurons at a lower level. Each neuron has a number of synapses; for generality, we describe each neuron activation as a set of numbers, X(n) = {Xd(n), d = 1,... D}.