X-Message-Number: 26882
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 09:32:02 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: RE: comments of Yvan "answering" mine

Hello Yvan again:

You comments about my postings totally miss the points I was making.

First of all, the advantage of parallel processing is that it can
act faster than a single processor. No one would deny this; it is
why companies have spent millions to make highly parallel computers.
Moreover, with enough processors, even if they are individually
slow, we can (on some tasks) make a computer that will work much
faster than any conceivable single processor. Yes, in terms of Turing
processors, a highly parallel computer is identical to a single
processor, not because Turing was ignorant of the real world but
because he was interested solely in the computational possibilities
of a computer. As living beings in a hostile world, the time we 
take to do things becomes very important. Any use of Turing's Theorem
to design robots able to do even primitive lifelike actions will
break down for just this reason.

I will freely admit that the Net forms a large collection of 
connected processors with the number of processors changing
constantly. However, just as with Turing's ideas, TIME IS VERY 
IMPORTANT. I was pointing out that brains do the same thing as
the Net, but far faster. Your example of the Net fails badly in
that feature of TIME. 

Any attempt to imitate a whole working brain must deal with the
speed of processing of which it is or isn't capable. We can certainly
produce very slow simulations of networks of neurons; and these
would certainly be interesting as objects to study just how our
brain's neurons work. However they would be useless as devices 
able to act like real brains in the real world, precisely because
of the problem of TIMING.

In short, your comments forget or (deliberately?) omit the problem
of TIMING, which for any true imitation of a brain must match.

             Best wishes and long long life for all,

                  Thomas Donaldson

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