X-Message-Number: 14990 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 07:39:28 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: give me a proof Hi everyone! I've been very busy recently and will become even busier in the future. HOWEVER, some comments: 1. No one yet has produced a proof that a real-time computer with the features of brains would actually be imitatable by a Turing machine. 2. Just like primitive creatures, the basis of our brains' working depends not on math or logic but on the special features of our neurons as "machines". This is not just a statement about hardware, but a statement of how our thinking works. The calculations of a computer depend not on themselves but on the meaning human beings attach to them. Our own thinking depends on those basic processes, which generate (sometimes) patterns which look like logic and math. 3. Unfortunately to someone familiar with the physiology of brain cells, the models so far used lack essential features of the device which is our brain. These include those I have discussed already: the ability to grow new neurons and constantly change the connections of existing ones... plus the very simple feature that we must work in real time. I am not at all against the USE of such models, so long as we do not confuse them with complete versions of how our brain or any part of it actually works in detail. So come on, guys. I have asked a very simple question: has anyone got a proof that human brains can be imitated (even if only abstractly) by a Turing machine. And I am emphatically NOT allowing partial imitations of some part of our brain, but only the whole brain. Everyone who believes in the possibility of such imitations seems to assume their possibility, without any attempt to show it. Everyone who refuses to believe in their possibility has various features which may (or may not) make such imitations impossible. Or putting it another way: what makes you think that ALL POSSIBLE forms of thinking must be imitatable by a Turing machine? Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14990