From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!wupost!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Thu Apr 16 11:34:36 EDT 1992
Article 5103 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Rosen's New Book
Message-ID: <528@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:02:21 GMT
References: <538@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 43

In article <538@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
|>2) Is a turbulent flow an effective form of computation?  That is,
|>   does a turbulent flow comprise an algorithm for computing something?
|
|Phase-locking from a chaotic process is an efficient way to implement
|pattern-recognition. I can discuss other chaotic processes that provide
|effective computation (if only as a model of a non-linear process...).

Indedd so.  In fact it appears that this is the way, or at least one way,
that the human brain *does* accomplish its amazing feats of pattern matching.
[At least the waking brain wave pattern seems to be just the right sort of
chaotic system for this to work].

By the way, in reading Penrose' "The Emporer's New Mind" this was the
first major weakness I found, he dismissed the computational efficacy of
chaotic systems too glibly, and therefore failed to give them due
consideration as a possible alternative.

Other than that his discussion was excellent, as far as I could tell,
up until he started talking biology - then it slid into extreme sloppiness.
His neurobiology is 15+ year old beginning stuff, not even up to the level
I got in "Intro. to Human Neuroanatomy" at Berkeley 10 years ago.

And his understanding of evolution and the appropriate statistical models
to use with it is simply abysmal.  [The moment he said something about
life 'struggling upwards' I knew he was totally off the wall there].

At least when he was talking physics he clearly labeled his deviations from
the standard models as such.

|>3) What happens if we use an analog computer instead of a digital one?
|>   The analog computer still has the 'initial condition' problem.
|>
|I'm not sure what problem you're aluding to here. Do you mean the problem
|of calibration?

No, he means that it can still only have its initial conditions specified
to a finite precision.
 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)



