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Article 4487 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Infinite Minds?
Message-ID: <1992Mar16.165050.4693@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 92 16:50:50 GMT
References: <1992Mar11.214547.28524@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Sender: news@cs.ucf.edu (News system)
Organization: University of Central Florida
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In article <1992Mar11.214547.28524@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> santas@inf.ethz.ch  
(Philip Santas) writes:
| 
| In article <1992Mar11.135759.4941@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas  
Clarke) writes:
| >In article <1992Mar10.165603.11788@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> santas@inf.ethz.ch
| >(Philip Santas) writes:
| >| There seems to be no evidence against "digital functioning" of the human
| >| nerves. Furthermore, humans have no problem to accept digitized picture
| >| and sound.
| > [deleted text: description of experiment]
| >
| >The question is open, the D/A-process-A/D and/or the
| >transducer/network/transducer chain may or may not be quantum mechanically
| >equivalent to an analog amplifier. 
| 
| Excuse me, but aren't digital circuits including elements that have
| analog function? Even if your nerves are made of analog elements,
| this does not mean that your neural system behaves this way.
| There is evidence that supports the digital functioning, and I do
| not see any reason why we should rush to abandon this theory BEFORE we
| get evidence for the contrary.
|  
I am from the school that  we don't really understand something until we can  
build it (maybe not even then).  When speech recognition and machine vision  
reach human (animal even) levels of competence using purely digital techniques,  
then I will accede that there is no need for invoking quantum physics (or  
Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, or the soul or ...) to explain the  
functioning of the brain. 
 
Until that day comes, it remains a _philosophical_ possiblity that the brain  
does not function digitally.  The digital functioning model is the most recent  
round in a debate that starts with the Greeks.  While its successes are  
suggestive, the model is not universally accepted, and many grow tired of  
waiting for conclusive evidence against its competitors.


But aren't CDs wonderful! 


