Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #10859
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Phillip A. Ryals" phillip@ryals.com
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 14:31:06 -0800
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: BEAM: Tendency toward miniaturization
>To understand a little why I believe a-life is possible, here is a thought
>experiment:
>If we were to take an electronic circuit that acted exactly like a
>biological neuron
>(scientists have done this), scale this down to the size and power
>requirements of
>the real thing and begin to replace the neurons in the human brain with
them,
>when would we cease to become a living conscious entity?
>Would it be after the first one, 50%, 99%,!00% ?
>And I guess here is my main point, how would we be able to tell the
difference?
Well... you're making an awfully big assumption there. When have
scientists made an electronic equivilent to a biologic neuron? It may
appear to be reacting the same way to a signal at times, but the neurons in
the brain react to many many signals from other neurons and transmit many
many other signals out. How many electronic circuits have the ability to do
this at biologic speeds? And do we *really* know everything about neurons?
This circuit could appear to react correctly, but we may be skipping over
many important details that we don't even know yet. (Insert electro-neuron
here, there goes a memory!)
And how would one go about 'scaling' this down? One thing we've learned is
that many mechanisms don't work right if they're scaled up or down. (A two
motor walker scaled up, for instance. :) So what is the likelyhood that an
electronic circuit could be scaled down to the size of a neuron(!) and still
work at the same speed. Remember, one is electronic, one is bioelectronic.
That's a big difference.
-phillip
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