From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!olivea!uunet!idtg!dow Wed Dec 18 16:01:58 EST 1991
Article 2171 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: dow@idtg.UUCP (Keith Dow)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Scaled up slug brains
Message-ID: <349@idtg.UUCP>
Date: 16 Dec 91 21:09:11 GMT
References: <40677@dime.cs.umass.edu> <12723@pitt.UUCP> <60372@netnews.upenn.edu>
Organization: Integrated Device Technology, Santa Clara
Lines: 54

In article <60372@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>In article <12723@pitt.UUCP>, geb@dsl (gordon e. banks) writes:
>>I also think evolution is a very strong case and have a hard time
>>seeing how there was suddenly a catastrophic change where the parent
>>used one form of neurobiology and the child suddenly uses another.
>>If we use phonon pumping in our neurons, it is a good bet that the
>>worms do too.
>
>It's not such a good bet.  In fact, phonon pumping makes it easy to
>explain a catastrophic change in mental evolutionary history.  The
>pump rate is a critical parameter, which when below a certain point
>the condensate will not form.  The phonon count is a soft parameter.
>The theory only has a phase transitionin the statistical mechanical
>limit as the number goes to infinity.  At low enough counts, there
>will again be no condensation.
>-- 
>-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


It still is a good bet.  Statistical mechanics only defines phase transitions
for infinite systems.   Physicists just extrapolate finite systems to infinte
systems.

Second, I have a VERY hard time believing there is Bose-Einsten condensation
inside the human brain.  I am not suprised that a chemistry journal published
that article on it though, since they also published the first works on cold 
fusion.  Since the brain operates at about 300 degrees kelvin, there is no
shortage of phonons. 

The few claims I have heard for Bose-Einstein condensation are for materials
below 10 degrees kelvin.

Superconductivity can't be a Bose-Einstein condensation since no bosons
exist above the transition temperature!  The Cooper pairs are formed
at the transition temperature and below.  That which does not exist, can not
condense.

Since humans evolved from the level of slugs and other lower life forms 
(i.e. graduate students), what is the problem with the idea that gradual
improvements lead to what we are now?

Also, from a physicist's perspective, the fundamental principles of neurons 
are known.  I said this earlier, and it still hasn't sunk into some peoples
heads.  ALL of chemistry is just solutions to Schroedinger's equation.  Some
of you can cry all you want about it, but there is no good evidence that the
above statement is wrong.

Of course the human brain is too complicated to solve using Schroedingers
equation.  But that doesn't mean we have to evoke mystical BS to understand
it.  What evidence is there that we can't determine what the human brain is
doing by measuring the electrical and chemical changes?  I haven't heard
of any that is worth talking about.

Cheers


