Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!abvax!odin.icd.ab.com!dmb
From: dmb@odin.icd.ab.com (David Babuder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: How much info can the brain hold?
Message-ID: <1984@abvax.UUCP>
Date: 3 Dec 90 18:37:08 GMT
References: <7492@hub.ucsb.edu> <33870@netnews.upenn.edu> <15882@venera.isi.edu>
Sender: news@abvax.UUCP
Organization: Allen-Bradley Company, Industrial Computer Division
Lines: 53

In article <15882@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>
>I would like to contest the assumption behind this calculation.....
>
>	....  But inasmuch as
>	there is always a trade-off between specificity and range in
>	selective systems (see chapter 2), and because there is, in
>**	general, no prior prefixed or coded relation between an animal's
>**	behavior and objects and events in its present environment, it
>	is not illuminating to talk of information (except A POSTERIORI,
>	as an observer).  It is equally fruitless to attempt to measure
>	the capacity of such a system in information theoretical terms...
>
>
While I would support the conclusion that comparisons between the memory
of people, or animals, and of machines is difficult, I am confused
by the apparent statement that a set of behavior is not prefixed
or coded. Is this a misunderstanding of the statement above, a 
lack of context, or a basic difference in psychological theory, since
it appears that a number of behaviors are prefixed or coded? I suspect
the later based on the title.

If you don't mind a combination of pun and analogy, read on...

We seem to have an issue of 'information hiding' on the part of 
the designer coupled with a benchmarking problem! 
    (1) We can not see into the object, to see how the information
        is stored - we can only inquire of it externally.
    (2) Our 'debugging aide' is to look at some of the bit level
        storage and guess what might be represented - since we
        do not know what is being stored, or even if it represents
        'delta' (change from a baseline) or 'absolute' information!

This is like trying to ask a set of computer salespeople
"How many pages of information can your computer store?"

  - One vendor stores a bitmap because they manipulate images
  - A second vendor stores ascii text from the page because they
    perform text processing
  - A third vendor stores delta's from an original text because
    they focus on configuration management of source code programs
  - A forth vendor stores a series of polynomials representing data
    values such that they can reproduce a long series of data points
    while only storing a few pieces of information 

This is why I agree with the conclusion of the referenced article,
that we are not in a good position to measure/compare the 
information storage of people to machines. However, my basis is
that comparing objects whose design intent is very different
produces little in the way of meaningful results.

Dave Babuder - working for, but not representing
Allen-Bradley Company (ICCG)  A Rockwell International Company


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com