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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Open Letter to Professor Penrose
Message-ID: <jqbDLr1Aw.A8B@netcom.com>
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Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 18:13:44 GMT
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In article <4dj472$f14a@hopi.gate.net>, Dan Hankins <dhankins@gate.net> wrote:
[...]
>Hence the ability to learn, combined with the ability to construct and 
>evaluate multiple potential courses of action, confers the ability of 
>"could have chosen differently".

Plus, if the decision process is chaotic (as is quite likely in the brain),
getting two situations that are "similar enough" to yield the same outcome is
problematic.  The issue is predictability, not determinism.  This being the
90's, these are well known to be distinct in the state of the art, but most
members of these public forums lag far behind.  We predict based upon a
simplified model; but with sufficiently chaotic systems responding to
real-time data, the best we may be able to do is emulate in real time.
That's life. ( :-), for the subtle-humor impaired. ) 

-- 
<J Q B>

