Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #10886
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: robertm@idcomm.com (Robert Morris)
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 18:29:27 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: BEAM: Tendency toward miniaturization
At 02:06 PM 2/25/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Having made those comments, here's why I think Phillip's scepticism is
>well founded. Partake of another little thought experiment with me.
Wow, first you defend my position, then you try to knock me down yourself :)
Continuing with your thought experiment,
True, many businesses are badly run and are not effective, they do manage
to work
and I am sure others will agree that there are many more businesses that
are run effectively.
This is as you pointed out, has its similarities with the brain when viewed
as a
system. While there are many brains out there that are not completely
effective or operate correctly
(mental retardation, Alzheimer disease, schizophrenia, etc. - people who
probably
wish that they did have a reset button) they do work and there
are many more out there that do work effectively.
So, you see there is hope that we can someday build a brain equivalent to
our own,
it may not be perfect or always effective, but it will work.
Notes:
I could not find the original article about simulating neurons that I had
read but
here are some other similar ones.
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/981121/nerve.html
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,3164,00.html
And here is the article about the quantum experiment I previously mentioned.
http://physics.nist.gov/news/releases/n96-18.html
Now, back to building robots,
Robert Morris
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