Project Evolution
This project has evolved over the years. For a long time it was just a personal ambition to build a computer system that would learn on its own and sooner or later"go critical" at a stage where it continued development on its own.
My earliest efforts were toward development of physical systems that were in some respects analogous to arrays of neurons. Later experiments focused more on using digital computers to simulate neurons.
As I worked at pursuing the development of a simple demonstration of a simple working system, I spent more and more time contemplating what would be the ramifications if I were successful. The question of developinf a malignant system kept recuring.
After doing some early work on the ARPANET I began ot see the possibility of building a system of many cooperating computers.
I continued to experiment on a series of home computers using DOS, Minix, and Linux. Upon retirement, I began to pursue my goal, working alone, with 2, 3 and sometimes 4 PC's using Windows 95, 98 and XP as well as a series of Linux distributions. Eventually, I became discouraged. I wasn't making all that much progress I wasn't keeping up with the technology.
At some point, after a lot of net surfing and instant messaging on the Internet I realized that I could probably attain my goals and much more by enlisting others in my project. I have been communicating with a handful of prospective collaborators from around theworld and the definition of the project is evolving.
Today is see the project an an effort to encourage people around the world pool their talents and technology to build a dynamic system of computers and communication networks that both manage global problems and support individuals in their everyday lives. In March 2005 a made a decision to build a Super Brain (SB). I had considered such a project for a number of years bot had planned to do it on my own with software I developed on my own computers. I had nearly given up on the project as being too ambitious for someone my age. Then I decideded to just ask for help and do it anyway. At this stage I need to come up with some definition of what this SB is. I am not limiting the concept at this point. It can include clusters if someone wants to provide them. It may be something like cluster? I see my super brain as a distributed net of heterogeneous processors communicating,adapting like net of neurons, a neuro-like class. The objective is not to study but to integrate developing technology into a useful whole capable of coping with the big problems. There are many efforts going on that are comparable. My effort would be an approach with a different perspective. What you call a cluster would be a special case of implementing my idea in hardware but my idea includes the software to utilize the cluster, the application. I want motivated, autonomous software. I want to mechanize the development project so that it sustains itself.