Roy Freed

I graduated from Yale Law School in 1940 and practiced law internationally until retirement in 1986. I am proud to be regarded as the "grandfather of computer law," having introduced that subject in 1960 and been its guru internationally until retirement. I authored the first book on the subject and countless professional articles, and lectured about it throughout the world. I taught the subject as an adjunct at the Boston University School of Law for seven years. I was one of the seven founders, in 1971, of the Computer Law Association, now the International Technology Law Association, a bar association. Nevertheless, I am presenting myself, now, as a specialist on the physical functioning of the human mind as a unique processor of physical energy signals. Being freed up for mental exploration in retirement, I have been writing a book for non-scientists like myself about my pioneering related coherent ideas suggested by the existence of computers, as the only inanimate machines that literally process information, it being in the form of batches of electromagnetic energy signals. One of my novel ideas is that the human mind is a unique animate machine that both operates, roughly like computers, by means of coded discrete batches of electrochemical signals, instead of the solid parts of traditional mechanical machines, and performs thinking by purposefully processing those batches to serve as the control center of the entire body as it circulates maximally autonomously in the environment and in various societies. The other idea is that all information is those coded batches of various different types of energy signals, rather than the nebulous something people implicitly assume it to be, if they think about it at all. Specifically, in addition to internal mental signals, human communication is conducted by means of natural analog sound waves and light photons and computers operate on specially designed arrangements of digital electromagnetic pulses. Moreover, the mind is the creation of evolution, as are the natural types of information signals. Also, the mind operates in accordance with internal instructions equivalent to computer programs, being, on the one hand, the instincts equivalent to operating systems, and, on the other hand, mental application programs constantly updated from inputs from the environment. This functional approach to those two fundamental topics, which I readily gained through now scientifically confirmable introspection in light of the general way computers operate, provides long-needed understanding of human behavior from a constructive cognitive psychology perspective and has invaluable long-overlooked ramifications for various information-related professionals, especially lawyers and mental health therapists, and through them, their clients and patients. For example, it provides the long sought scientific basis for Freud's revolutionary concepts of talking therapy as a potential source of constructive inputs to counteract harmful signals within the mind, and the unconscious, more correctly seen as the subconscious. The legal implications are multifaceted, enabling many laws to be improved by being stated factually more accurately to carry out more faithfully their underlying social policies in such fields as constitutional law, tort law, personal property law, intellectual property law, and tax law. Moreover, my insights leave no role for the supranatural as a direct shaping force in human existence, while recognizing the use people might find for spirituality in its various potential entirely mental guises.