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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25160