JOHN C. LILLY, M. D. Programming and Metaprogramming in THE HUMAN BIOCOMPUTER
All human beings, all persons who reach adulthood in the world today are programmed biocomputers. None of us can escape our own nature as programmable entities. Literally, each of us may be our programs, nothing more, nothing less. Despite the great varieties of programs available, most of us have a limited set of programs. Some of these are built in. In the simpler forms of life the programs were mostly built in from genetic codes to fully formed adultly reproducing organisms. The patterns of function, of actionreaction were determined by necessities of survival, of adaptation to slow environmental changes and of passing on the code to descendants. Eventually the cerebral cortex appeared as an expanding new highlevel computer controlling the structurally lower levels of the nervous system, the lower builtin programs. For the first time learning and its faster adaptation to a rapidly changing environment began to appear. Further, as this new cortex expanded over several millions of years, a critical size cortex was reached. At this level of structure, a new capability emerged: learning to learn. -John C. Lilly. M.D. Also by John C. Lilly, M.D. THE MIND OF THE DOLPHIN MAN AND THE DOLPHIN THE CENTER OF THE CYCLONE JOHN C. LILLY M . D. is a graduate of the California I Institute of Technology and received his Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942. He has worked extensively in various research fields of science, including biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, and neuroanatomy. Dr. Lilly has done many years of