Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Language, Consciousness, Emotion, and Anticipation

The classical paradigm of the neural brain as the seat of human natural intelligence is too restrictive. This paper defends the idea that the neural ectoderm is the actual brain, based on the development of the human embryo. Indeed, the neural ectoderm includes the neural crest, given by pigment cells in the skin and ganglia of the autonomic nervous system, and the neural tube, given by the brain, the spinal cord, and motor neurons. So the brain is completely integrated in the ectoderm, and cannot work alone. The paper presents fundamental properties of the brain as follows. Firstly, Paul D. MacLean proposed the triune human brain, which consists to three brains in one, following the species evolution, given by the reptilian complex, the limbic system, and the neo-cortex. Secondly, the consciousness and conscious awareness are analysed. Thirdly, the anticipatory unconscious free will and conscious free veto are described in agreement with the experiments of Benjamin Libet. Fourthly, the main section explains the development of the human embryo and shows that the neural ectoderm is the whole neural brain. Fifthly, a conjecture is proposed that the neural brain is completely programmed with scripts written in biological low-level and high-level languages, in a manner similar to the programmed cells by the genetic code. Finally, it is concluded that the proposition of the neural ectoderm as the whole neural brain is a breakthrough in the understanding of the natural intelligence, and also in the future design of robots with artificial intelligence.