Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!bingvaxu!sunybcs!lammens
From: lammens@sunybcs.uucp (Jo Lammens)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulation verus reality
Message-ID: <5106@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 9 Apr 89 00:17:42 GMT
References: <827@htsa.uucp> <5790@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Sender: nobody@cs.Buffalo.EDU
Reply-To: lammens@sunybcs.UUCP (Jo Lammens)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 23

In article <5790@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( SINGH S    - INDEPENDENT STUDIES    ) writes:
>Very thought provoking!!! Since processes in the brain are chemical
>reactions, I am wondering what models are the best we have to capture
>the rules of chemical-chemical interaction that allows information 
>processing of an intelligent sort to take place. Can the properties
>of the chemicals be abstracted into something as imaginary as 
>cellular automata? How WOULD we analyse the brain in such a way to
>be able to decipher the dance of chemicals that is the esscence of
>being human?
>

I wonder if there's any point in doing that. If you want to understand
how a car works, you don't analyze it in terms of chemistry and quantum
mechanics, although it is probably possible to do so - at least in
principle. If you want to achieve high-level understanding, you should
probably use high-level descriptions. That's basically why nobody
wants to use machine code any more to write a complex program,
although it is possible to do so - at least in principle.

Jo Lammens

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