Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!sunybcs!lammens
From: lammens@sunybcs.uucp (Jo Lammens)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulation verus reality
Message-ID: <5125@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 9 Apr 89 15:16:55 GMT
References: <827@htsa.uucp> <5790@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <5106@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <5791@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Sender: nobody@cs.Buffalo.EDU
Reply-To: lammens@sunybcs.UUCP (Jo Lammens)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 23

In article <5791@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( SINGH S    - INDEPENDENT STUDIES    ) writes:
>The basic unit of information processing in the brain is the neuron.
>Clearly tons of neurons put together will give us some form of
>behaviour. It makes sense to abstract the properties of the neurons
>into some sort of precise model. Then do simulations (soft or hardware)
>that show us a system of N neurons. But the model MUST be consistent
>with the actual properties of biological neurons. [...]

I think not even all connectionists would agree with your last
sentence. What I was really hinting at before is that a description at
the neural level *MAY* be too low to yield significant understanding,
even though it is tempting and certainly fascinating. It's a bit like
trying to understand how an operating system works by analyzing the
function of all the transistors in the machine it's running on. They
can be modeled more or less precisely, and for sure tons of them can
do some amazing things. But I doubt that this kind of analysis will
yield any significant understanding. Please convince me of the
opposite.

Jo Lammens

BITNET: lammens@sunybcs.BITNET          Internet:  lammens@cs.Buffalo.EDU
UUCP: ...!{watmath,boulder,decvax,rutgers}!sunybcs!lammens