Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The limitations of logic
Message-ID: <1628@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 8 Dec 88 01:43:51 GMT
References: <9020@bcsaic.UUCP>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: comp.ai
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 40

In article <9020@bcsaic.UUCP> ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis) writes:
>In <696@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) says:
>>In order for a digital system to emulate a neural net adequately,
>>it is not necessary to model the entire physical universe, as Ray
>>Allis seems to suggest.  It only has to emulate the net.
>
>Emulation, simulation and modelling are all *techniques for analysis*
>of the Universe.  The trap analysts get into is to forget that the
>model is not identical to the thing modelled.  Emulating, simulating
>or modelling a neural net, however "adequately", does not *duplicate*
>a neural net or its behavior.  You don't expect Revell models of F-16s
>to do much dogfighting, why would you expect a model of a mind to think?

(Ignoring the fact that a Revell model is not "adequate" for flight...)

Because I believe the Neuron to be overspecified for the purposes of
thought, having been required also to be alive and provide for its own
energy transport, conversion, and utilization.

I don't expect that an artificial neural network will be able to
regenerate if destroyed on a cellular level (neural tissue is limited
at this, anyway), nor indeed to grow itself in a womb; but I certainly
do expect it to be able to carry on all the information processing
innate to a real neural network.

Better, I believe the artificial net, not having itself to support, will
be capable of thinking longer, harder, and in a smaller space than the
real net.

Further, a large part of the activity of real neural networks is not thought
per se, but processing of sensory, autonomic, and efferent information
without regard to content.  Such activity is modelled adequately by
ordinary electronics such as logic devices [see McCulloch and Pitts, 1943].

I don't expect small children to need real F-16's to incite their
imaginations, why would you expect a topologically and neuromimetically
accurate model of a brain NOT to think?

				--Blair
				  "And what does it take in its coffee?"