X-Message-Number: 25904
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 08:14:46 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: To Bob Ettinger and Yvan Bozzonetti

To Bob Ettinger and Yvan Bozzonetti:

To Bob Ettinger:
We do not MAKE life by modelling it. Since I wasn't talking about 
modelling life at all, I don't know what led you to make your 
comment. I thought I had made the distinction clear. 

As for MAKING life, PRESENT-DAY electronics does not look at all
like the best place to start, Turing tape or not. It's not nearly
changeable enough. As for making a "neuron" with a cell body as
small as present neurons, lots of work goes on right now toward
miniaturizing our electronics (nanoelectronics, of course). That's
fine. The next step is to make it changeable just as neurons are
changeable, and of course include ways to make new neurons too.

To Yvan Bozzonetti:
You did not answer me, you merely repeated what you had said before
with different words. Perhaps I did not understand that you were
attempting to model a neuron rather than make a working substitute
for a neuron. If so, I apologize. 

Just like all models it will fail to catch everything relevant 
about how neurons work. As a model that's fine. As a substitute
for a real neuron, it will ultimately . Given present electronics,
you'll have something far too big to be substituted for a real 
neuron.

And if you really wish to answer me, tell me how your system will
when put together work like our hippocampus --- including the
dentate gyrus part of the hippocampus.

             Best wishes and long long life to all,

                Thomas Donaldson

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