X-Message-Number: 25886 Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 07:46:32 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: To Yvan Bozzonetti, on making brains To Yvan Bozzonetti: Your plans for an electronic simulation of a brain have been trumped by research into how brains work. Neurons are NOT static entities, nor are their connections. They're constantly growing and changing, and that growth and change is what causes us to learn (acquire really long term memories). You aren't a reader of PERIASTRON so you won't be able to just look back at old issues to see citations of research on growth and change in our brain. If you don't want to take my word on this question that's OK; but since you clearly haven't listened, I will get together some references and put them on Cryonet. However some facts known to everyone who studies brains should be already known to you. Yes, there remains some argument about whether other areas in our brain grow new functioning neurons. However one area in our hippocampus in now universally accepted as growing new functional neurons (and of course eliminating others). It is the dentate gyrus. And note that the dentate gyrus is part of our hippocampus, which plays an indispensable role in at least one kind of memory. Am I claiming that an ARTIFICIAL brain cannot be built? Not at all. But it had better have components which act like neurons, and doing so with solid electronic circuits doesn't look to me like an good way of doing it. Bluntly, it's a piss poor way of doing it. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25886