Natural Machine Logic Improves Safety Outside the Box of Computation

Computation, as a method and means, is restricted to the temporal attribute of coincidence and can perform only static transformations and translations confined to the space domain, in which every variable that is operated... [ view full abstract ]

Computation, as a method and means, is restricted to the temporal attribute of coincidence and can perform only static transformations and translations confined to the space domain, in which every variable that is operated upon is fixed. Frame-based data processing technology should be limited to managing data that has no safety implications for personnel or equipment. Safety functions should be served by more direct and sure methods. The temporal functions of order and partly ordered, partly coincidental exist in the continuous time domain. These operations, common in the real world, can not be performed by computation in a direct manner because they involve change. They are used as the basis of Natural Machine Logic, a non-computational, stimulus-response method of automating systems. The temporal logic elements provide a safer and more direct means of physical process control that can routinely function as the variables change. This system reacts immediately upon stimulation, its operations are inherently parallel-concurrent, and it is never busy doing something else. Natural Machine Logic is a configurable, hardware based logic that is more appropriate to handle the safety functions of a dynamic physical process than is computation, yet which can work compatibly in parallel with data processing systems.