Gentlemen (and Ladies) of the National Academy [of Engineering]:
We have all been invited, as you know, to offer, on this occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the founding of our National Academy of Engineering, proposals for major new scientific, technological, society serving initiatives that might be undertaken by the NAE, alone or in combination with other governmental, academic, industrial or communicational organizations.
Last Sunday in Como, Italy, I was visiting the Volta Temple, an imposingly large and beautiful architectural tribute to Alexander Volta, one of our real pioneers in electrical theory and applied science, and while examining the many instruments, writings and other Volta memorabilia on display in this elegant setting, I found myself speculating upon whether one could set in motion here and now an identifiable, essentially new science and technological discipline in biomimetics, building up on the bones of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and medicine as we now know them, but introducing new major guiding and unifying principles much as physics and chemistry did when they emerged from natural philosophy as named cluster entities only a little over a century ago. Can we earn the honor of a Volta Temple recognition of service by our Golden Anniversary or even by our Centennial?
Several months ago I offered to Jordan Baruch as a candidate initiative, one branch of this Innovation tree, thinking that pursuit of this biomimetic systems design offering us far better individual health at a savings of several hundred billion dollars per year nationally would be a pretty heavy challenge to our individual risk taking abilities and willingness to commit ourselves to much criticism, self examination and hard work.
This invitation is still before you and I will hope for it to be implemented in one form or another, hopefully more than a committee to study it into limbo.
Since that original proposal, however, there has been an extraordinary concatenation
of key events, each pointing to our scientific-social readiness to accept the
Big Job if it is properly planned and implemented. Like the rare event of the
conjunction of several heavenly bodies that astrologers were wont to interpret
as presaging very important human social changes, these disparate events each
seem to offer a building block into a coherent insight and design for advance.
Let me describe very briefly these several contributing incidents. Early this summer, to my surprise, I found myself reelected to the presidency of the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame board of directors. Considering this as a license to demonstrate “invention to order”, a skill with rules and practices as ordinary as those of basic physics or calculus that should be taught routinely as class material, I devised a plan for a medical-computer-electronic high technology cooperative design for Minnesota. Our governor saw this only as a possible way to make new jobs for the state and delegated it to the directorate of a small, rapid and supplies rising medical device instruments/corporation. I cooperate gladly with this organization, but cannot yet see it mounting a major initiative. Renovated and re-presented to our Minnesota Inventions and Technology Transfer Committee, an organization that grew out of several years of effort by our St. Paul Chamber of Commerce to build an effective force to stimulate useful invention and initiative with respect to productivity. With very highly qualified membership for a state, local and Federal government, representing at high level from CDC, 3M, Honeywell, and similar Industry, University of Minnesota, small business, patent law, etc., this group recommended that such an initiative was hopelessly difficult and offered instead to assist in funding and marketing such things as my “Meter Reader”, my human phase lock loop diagnostic devices or my computerized electro surgery machinery.
In July Honeywell opened up a chink in the armor by introducing into their corporate initiatives design a program that sets aside modest funds of perhaps 60-100 k dollars in a division to be competitively requested by internal group leaders with new ideas that are not yet within corporate policy. An initiative has tentatively been accepted for aerospace development of sensors based upon biomimetic design - automated olfactory perception as in Insects, signaling as between electric sensing and emitting fishes, etc., etc. This project is to complete phase I by year's end.
Right at this time also SIGGRAPH of ACM held an unbelievably large and fine
conference on advanced graphic technology and arts in Minneapolis. This special
area of technology, vital to biomimetic engineering growth, demonstrated attendance,
presentations and exhibitions of devices and programs essentially ten times
the size and attendance previously typical of such a meeting. Their AI experts
were very ready to accept ideas of using physiological understanding of visual
processes to optimize display effectiveness with reduced cost and to consider
using humans in robotic operations such as parable robotics.
In early September, 3M medical products division invited me to present a day-long examination of homeodynamic medical diagnosis and therapy - a considerable acknowledgement that biomimetic replacement of outdated homeostatic thinking is ripe for development.
One week later Mike Cudahy, president of Marquette Electronics, wrote a strong and well thought out letter supporting my proposed Initiative letter to Jordan Baruch and volunteered to present his views in the Los Angeles IEEE centennial meeting which he did very eloquently.
Then, as an IEEE Centennial Medal recipient In Biomedical Engineering, I was invited to make a presentation on whatever I thought was important. I think I was expected to reminisce about personal memories of old time achievements in Bioengineering. Instead I tried on several new consolidations of generally used but scattered concepts that can be formulated quite succinctly into “laws”, “rules' or algorithms. A key one for examination of the concept today is recognition of the utility of the concept of Technological recapitulation of Ontogeny — a new hierarchical extension of the old biologists observation that Ontogeny recapitulated Phylogeny. We can really find guidance in what technology is ready for development by examining where it lies in our biomimetic technological embryological and neonate morphogenetic differentiation, growth and development. Priceless guidance into timely new Research, Development and Civilization is to be found here. It is not as important to prove the principle “true” or “false” as it is to put it to work in choosing new technological goals.
Next, having been appointed “Historian” for the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (of IEEE), I reexamined with generalizing algorithms in mind, the sixty years of their history I have known personally and drew freely on the fine Bakken Library of Electricity in Medicine for older art and science.
Lo and behold, a set of at least six quite powerful principles emerged out
of this study, augmented considerably by extended conferencing with my brother
Francis, Institute Professor at MIT, who, like me, would like to set the stage
for a new examination and clearer insight into higher brain and mind functions
with a view to action rather than tidying up of currently understood doctrine.
Finally last week in Italy there was a golden opportunity to present to a worldwide critical audience of experts in Chronobiology, a first attempt to develop an algorithmic formulation of biologically perceived time (and space) biomimetically quite different from ordinary clock time and its relativistic manipulations. Here we were able to get considerable enthusiasm for dimensioning and scaling perceptive consciousness, a subject that I think most of you recognize as an unspoken taboo that is nonetheless fully in force over conventional physical science and engineering.
The NAE has a remarkable diversity of expertise within its membership and their spheres of influence. We have organizers, basic scientists, device and system engineers, forensic and politically artistic operators, financial managers, even those primarily concerned with welfare of Individuals and communities. My challenge is to invite examination, restructuring and approval of what may be an initiative based on biomimetic historic insight proposing specific directions of leadership into newer, highly productive areas of engineering science and application. I have found in several presentations of this basic set of ideas, great enthusiasm and willingness to participate in this effort that allows “old dogs” to teach “young dogs” new tricks.
Those of you familiar with the inner workings of the DOD, of NSF and in all probability several other of our U.S. departments are probably aware that there is a quiet movement, now over a year old to identify and plan for several really major scientific—technical initiatives of the general order of magnitude I advocate, with nominal development to operational productive status by the end of the century. This biomimetic science and engineering of which I speak could be one of these. It is, by all means, big and rewarding enough to be shared freely.
Given the basic plan and initial approval, the expanding SBIR program could very nicely fill in the device and services needs at the levels too small for ponderous big business to find profit and motivation, yet too large for the self financed entrepreneur.
(If you have the patience), I can give you a seven line item illustration of candidate Biomimetic projects that can be put into operation within a few months — given suitable auspices. We might order, delete, rearrange and supplement this list at your pleasure.
Under similar caveats I can offer you a working list of biomimetic design principles on which expansion could bring clarity and plausibility. This would, however, take more time than can be afforded at this time, but is available completely at your pleasure.
Thank you.