Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!tness7!tness1!nuchat!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: *IF*? Message-ID: <2292@sugar.UUCP> Date: 10 Jul 88 15:16:30 GMT References: <58.22CCF148@isishq.UUCP> Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX Lines: 24 In article <58.22CCF148@isishq.UUCP>, doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson) writes: > Thus a quantum leap in technology is needed, a different kind of > computer, to even begin to process data of any sort (even mathematical > data) the way the human mind processes data. Not at all... you can do it with heavy use of brute force. First you need to have a program that will model reality down to the quantum level. I think we have the information to do that, even if we don't have the technology yet. Now, you model a few cubic meters of space containing a human. You now have a computer program (the simulator) processing data in exactly the same way a human does. You even get the same input spectrum (as you call it). I'm not saying this is useful, but it does indicate that a very fast computer of the kind we use today could solve the problem. Application is merely a matter of stepwise refinement :->. (yeh, this is pretty heavy brute forec). Better algorithms would make it easier, of course. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "Running DOS on a '386 is like driving an Indy car to the Stop-N-Go"