X-Message-Number: 26035
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:31:17 -0400
From: Daniel Crevier <>
Subject: To Tom Donaldson re parallel processing
References: <>

You claim that it is impossible to simulate a brain with a digital computer
because:

"There is a fundamental problem here which doesn't
come from the speed of neurons or computer processors, it comes
from the simple fact that the universe itself is working everywhere
simultaneously. Even very fast time-sharing processors will get
caught out by that, though no so easily as we ourselves would
be caught out (if we worked by time-sharing)."

Isn't weather forecasting a counterexample to that claim? Air masses can be
modeled as a multitude of little cells that 'work everywhere
simultaneously'. Yet they are routinely simulated by computers that contain
many fewer processors than there are cells in the model. And this is done
faster than real time: it allows one to predict tomorrow's weather.

Daniel Crevier

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