Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!elroy!cit-vax!ucla-cs!sdcrdcf!markb
From: markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Safe optimization
Message-ID: <5368@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jul 88 06:15:59 GMT
References: <16271@brl-adm.ARPA> <408@proxftl.UUCP>
Reply-To: markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar)
Organization: Unisys - System Development Group, Santa Monica
Lines: 17

In article <408@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes:
>Well, since we are bandying about concepts without any real
>reference to reality, let me toss this possible reason at you:
>computers are discrete devices, the brain is (or at least might
>be) a continuous device.

I think that it is easy to demonstrate that the brain IS a discrete
device.  Nerve impulses are transmitted across the synaptic gaps
using certain neuro-transmitter molecules.  Since a fraction of a molecule
is nonsence, the brain is a discrete device.  Given that electric changes
and even energy are quantized, I am willing to take the position that
all realizable material devices are discrete.  There are no such things
as continuous devices (at least in this universe).

Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb
markb@rdcf.sm.unisys.com