  This explanation of what a brain is and does rests on informational first
principles, because information theory, like its parent theory thermodynamics,
is mathematically sacrosanct, itself resting on real-valued probability.Just as
thermodynamics has enabled hyper-potent physical technologies from the internal
combustion engine to the hydrogen bomb, so information theory has enabled
hyper-persuasive technologies, from color television to addictive video games.
Only a theory of what a brain is and does based on those same principles makes
legible and transparent the mechanisms by which such hyper-persuasion works. In
information-theoretic terms, a brain is a specialized real-valued real-time 3D
processor detecting discontinuities in spacetime outside itself and
reconstituting in itself a continuous reality based on them. This continuous
approach is difficult to reconcile with any computational architecture based on
separate neurons, and in fact the vast discrepancy in efficiency (of order at
least a hundred million) between those architectures constitutes the
calculations of this paper. This remarkable signal-processing requires strong
prior hypotheses embedded in 3D edge-detecting algorithms, priors which
unfortunately also open an unpatchable security hole to automated persuasion.
So a 3D model of the brain is essential for understanding how and why
persuasive technologies alter our perception of reality, and for protecting us
against systemic, systematic cognitive manipulation.
