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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
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Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 10:22:36 GMT
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In article <3eiqim$169@agate.berkeley.edu> <jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> writes:

>stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens) wrote:


>> So what is it that is not being captured in a simulation of a bomb
>> exactly?  Why aren't bombs able to be interpreted as computation?

>I have no problems with this. However (to repeat what I posted
>previously) I think that what the original poster had in mind
>when he claimed that the brain should be thought of as a
>computer, was that there is something particularly computerlike
>about the brain, separating it from a bomb.  I was replying only
>to that contention.  I have no opinion one way or the other
>about the computability of things in general, the brain among
>them.

 It's obviouss that a computer and a brain don't work in the same way. A 
computer is mainly serial while a brain is very paralell. But, an airplane 
and a computer isn't the same thing either but still, no one argues about 
how simillar an airplane and a computer are, they just accept that it is 
very posible to simulate an airplane fairly good with a computer. Of course, 
you can't go anywhere geographically with a simulated airplane since it 
exist in a simulated universe. A brain can be simulated with a computer, no 
doubt, but they are not very simillar. A brain is superior to a computer in 
fuzzy logic, recognition, etc. but far inferior in iterative and 
mathematical tasks. But what use would we have had for the computer in 
technical and administrative tasks else? But, a computer can evidently 
simulate paralellism, with a great speed loss, but still it can simulate a 
computer. A brain will have a harder time trying to simulate a computer.

Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden

