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From: ffjjd@aurora.alaska.edu
Subject: Re: 100 Billion Neurons Nonsense
Message-ID: <1994Jul1.135542.1@aurora.alaska.edu>
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Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks
References: <eZ1Noc4w165w@sfrsa.com> <2utltf$2fi@unix1.cc.uop.edu> <2uupb0$kc7@orion.cc.andrews.edu> <Cs8BEJ.BJv@armory.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 21:55:42 GMT

In article <Cs8BEJ.BJv@armory.com>, rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
> In article <2uupb0$kc7@orion.cc.andrews.edu>,
> Todd Freeman <freeman@andrews.edu> wrote:
>>Another point that should be brought up is that we still do not even
>>understand the neuron itself let alone it's interactions. Just lately in
>>Discover Magazine (forgot which issue) they had an article about the
>>quantum mechanics of a neuron and its relationship to other neurons.
>>Reading this article it is hard to think of a way to explain at all how
>>neurons work...yaa sure signal in signal out with weights attached but
>>it seems that neurons have dicision making capabilities internal to
>>themselves which can decide other decisions not directly seen in the
>>output of the neuron.
>>Todd
> -----------------
> Yeah But: If a brain's function were governed by tiny random things that
> caused much bigger things, (chaos theory), then you could bump into
> somebody and change their religion!!! I don't think you can get "robust"
> out of your principles of scale there!
> 
> In fact, I'd bet that the size of a synapse is just insurance and slop in
> the logical certainty of a weighted value, and that it doesn't have to be
> anywhere near that close. Otherwise your lousy diet could make you totally
> insane!!!
> 
> Nawh, evolution is not a planning builder!!!
> We are! We can soon do a MUCH better job than nature ever did!
> -Steve Walz    rstevew@armory.com
> 
I heard that beneath the thermodynamics of the jet engine that there
are little molecules that are making decisions in the quantum world.
Gee, and I always thought the pilot was flying the plane.
