Welcome to Tom Ray's home page


  • Curriculum Vitae.

  • Brief biography.

  • Some photos of Tom Ray.

    Research

  • Have a look at some of my Publications.

  • In my current research, the architecture of the human mind is being understood largely on the basis of interpretation of published reports of subjective experience, synthesized together with an exclusive data set provided by the National Institute of Mental Health Psychoactive Drug Screening Program (NIMH-PDSP). Mental illnesses are understood through the writings of individuals who have suffered the illness (e.g. Carol North on schizophrenia, Donna Williams on autism, Kay Redfield Jamison on manic depression), and psychoactive drugs are understood through the writings of those who have experienced them (e.g. Aldous Huxley on mescaline). The NIMH-PDSP assayed twenty-five carefully selected psychoactive drugs at my request against over fifty receptors, transporters and ion channels, and this data has been combined with data for ten addition drugs (largely assayed by NIMH-PDSP) gathered from the literature. The synthesis of the subjective data together with the molecular data has made it possible to determine the mental effects mediated by twenty-one receptors in eleven groups. This is a new body of knowledge which has revealed a portion of the chemical architecture of the human mind. I am now in the process of understanding how variation in the proportioning of these various elements in individual minds, contributes to the peculiarities of the personality, and in extreme variations or interactions, to a variety of mental disorders: schizophrenia, autism, depression, disorders of rage, post traumatic stress disorder, and addiction.

  • In the summer of 2001, I began an exploration of the newly created genome databases, with a broad interest in whatever interesting discoveries might be made there. I am using the genome databases to study the origin and evolution of gene families. I am also exploring the possiblity that the genomic data may provide new approaches for understanding the human mind. The new genome databases can provide a complete catalog of chemical communication systems in the brain. They have the potential of providing a comprehensive understanding of the processes of development and differentiation that generate the architecture of the brain. And by comparing human and ape genomes, they can point to the genetic and neural structures that make us uniquely human.

  • From 1990 to 2001, I conducted research on digital evolution, which means exploring what happens when evolution by natural selection is embedded in the medium of digital computation. This work began with the creation of Tierra, a system in which self-replicating machine code programs evolved by natural selection. This work received considerable media attention. In 2000, I implemented a new system called Virtual Life, which is a derivative of Evolved Virtual Creatures originally created by Karl Sims. In June of 2003 I began a collaboration with Ivan Tanev to develop the VirtualLife project in new directions. This kind of work is known to many people as Artificial Life. I have some thoughts on evolvability.

  • From 1974 to 1989, I was a tropical biologist who studied the evolution and ecology of a variety of organisms inhabiting rain forests. My work focused primarily on the foraging behavior of vines in the family Araceae, however, I also studied ants, butterflies, and beetles. Most of my field work was conducted in Costa Rica. After 1982, I worked principally at Finca El Bejuco biological station located in the lowland rain forests of northern Costa Rica, which I built, and own and operate. I was deeply involved in rain forest conservation in Costa Rica.

    Various

  • Want to travel to Costa Rica (photos and links)? My daughter is Costa Rican, and this is where I do my Rain Forest Conservation work, research in Tropical Biology, and hang out at Finca El Bejuco, my home, ecolodge, and laboratory in the rain forest.

  • In August 1998, I joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma, as a Professor of Zoology and Computer Science. I am originally from Norman Oklahoma, a wonderful place to live.

  • I am teaching Evolution, Bioinformatics: Applications, and Bioinformatics: Programming

  • I have a daughter, Ariel Ivy Ray, born in 1993.

  • I am studying Japanese by translating Traditional Japanese Children's Stories into English. Here are some Japanese Smiley Faces.