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From: kempf@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: neural networks
Message-ID: <251@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-May-86 10:51:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.251
Posted: Fri May 23 10:51:53 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 12:11:28 EDT
References: <837@mhuxt.UUCP> <297@euclid.warwick.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA
Lines: 24

> This may be a bit of  a tangent, but I feel it  might have some impact on
> the current discussion.
> The mathematical theory of chaotic systems is currently an active area of
> research. The main observation is that models of even very simple systems
> become chaotic in a very small space of time.
> The human brain is far from being a simple system,  yet the transition to
> chaos rarely occurs.  There must be a self-correcting  element within the 
> system itself, as it is often perturbed by myriad external stimuli.
> Is the positive feedback mentioned in article <837@mhuxt.UUCP> thought to 
> be similar to the self-correcting mechanisms in the brain?
> 
> Gordon Joly -- {seismo,ucbvax,decvax}!mcvax!ukc!warwick!gordon

Not having seen <837@mhuxt.UUCP>, I can't comment on the question. 
However, I do have some thoughts on the relation between chaos
in dynamical systems and the brain. The "chaotic" dynamical behavior
seen in many simple dynamical systems models is often restricted
to a small region of the state space. By a kind of renormalization
procedure, this small region might be topologically shrunk, so that,
from a more macroscopic view, the chaotic region actually looks
more like a point attractor. Another possibility is that complex
systems like the brain are able to perform a kind of ensemble
averaging to filter out chaos. Sorry if this sounds like speculation.
		Jim Kempf	kempf@hplabs