Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!gryphon!sarima
From: sarima@gryphon.COM (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulation verus reality
Message-ID: <14741@gryphon.COM>
Date: 15 Apr 89 14:06:15 GMT
References: <827@htsa.uucp> <5790@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <5106@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <5791@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@gryphon.COM (Stan Friesen)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 35

In article <5791@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( SINGH S    - INDEPENDENT STUDIES    ) writes:
>You're right. There is no reason to analyse a car in terms of quantum
>mechanics. That is carrying reductionaism too far. We know that in
>the construction of the car, there are parts. It makes sense to analyse
>this system of parts for a true understanding of what is going on.
>
>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. Other simulations
>could be constructed with different unit properties.
>
	Good start. At least for a very low level understanding of mental
processes.  Such simulations could well give us a model of clusters of
neurons.  This knowledge could then be used to generate a simulation in
which the "parts" are tightly coupled clusters of neurons.

	The point?  Neurons are the basic unit of processing in the brain
only at one level, a rather low level at that.  It could be called the
mental equivalent of assembly language.  Most information processing in the
brain is performed by co-ordinated sets of neurons, called nuclei, tracts,
and columns.   For AI purposes I think this level might be more useful,
since it deals with coded information.
	By the way, there is also a lower level than the neuron, the synapse.
A remarkable amount of processing is done at the individual synapse.  And
even more is done in the dense clusters of interlocking synapses called
glomeruli.   We are talking about a remarkably complex structure when we
talk about the brain

-- 
Sarima Cardolandion			sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM
aka Stanley Friesen			rutgers!marque!gryphon!sarima
					Sherman Oaks, CA