X-Message-Number: 25160
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:15:56 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #25156 - #25158

To Yvan Bozzonetti:

I have said and will repeat that any device able to imitate our
brains is likely to LOOK biological. Just how it works internally
is of course quite another matter. The reasons for this are simple:
growing connections, when there are enough separate neurons, 
becomes much less burdensome than starting with all possible
connections and then pruning them down.

I'm not sure that you really know anything about how neurons
work. I don't have time for a detailed discussion right now, but
would suggest that you look at the latest version of Shephard,
NEUROBIOLOGY, or a very nice recent book (enough so that I may
buy it for myself), a collection of articles ed by JH Byrne and
JL Roberts, FROM MOLECULES TO NETWORKS: AN INTRODUCTION TO
CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR NEUROSCIENCE.

Even if FPGAs can be arbitrarily reprogramed, they still don't
make it. You see, our brain is reprogramming itself, which 
includes such things as neurons growing new connections and
eliminating others. Furthermore, I doubt strongly that an 
FPGA can be said to contain any "figurative" (ie. parts that
work like) neurons at all. On this issue we are arguing matters
of fact; if you simply gave me some references (EXPLICIT ones,
as explicit as the ones I've just given you above), you might
silence me on this point. I will add, however, that I never
said that a brain must necessarily work BY biological means,
only that it must work LIKE biological devices. 

I may be wrong here, but here's how I understand FPGAs are
used. We need a circuit the size of a chip. If the circuit
isn't exceptional or unusual in some way (connections which
simply didn't exist in any marketed FPGA) we use an FPGA for
our device, setting it up to work as we desire. Once we have
our device, we don't go about constantly changing it.

           Best wishes and long long life to all,

                Thomas Donaldson

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