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From: marcoj@ai.rl.af.mil (James D. Marco)
Subject: Re: Men : Analogical or Digital ?
Message-ID: <marcoj-2206950602160001@fester.se.rl.af.mil>
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References: <3rjvt4$cub@gnu.mat.uc.pt> <3s9hpu$eh0_001@csihq.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 11:02:16 GMT
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In article <3s9hpu$eh0_001@csihq.com>, jday@csihq.com (John Day) wrote:

> In article <3rjvt4$cub@gnu.mat.uc.pt>,
>    Pedro Miguel da Fonseca Marques Ferreira <pmferr@pardal.dei.uc.pt> wrote:
> >It has been some time now that a coleegue of mine and myself found
> >ourselfs discussing about the following question:
> >
> >       Is man brain analogical or digital ?
> >       (or is it none...)
> >
> >I defend the idea that man's brain is analogical. I justify that
> >idea with the following reasoning ( for example ) :
> >
> >       The colors our brain can distinguish are 16.7 million.
> >       Those are color levels.
> >       So i think the human brain does a analogical to digital 
> >       conversion of the analogical ( maybe ) stream of info
> >       coming from our eyes.
> >       What do you think of that ?
> >
> >I just wanna know what other people think about it.
> >Just post on this article!
> >
> >( i prefer that to email you know ...)
> >
> >       Thanks...
> >       Pedro Ferreira
> >       pmferr@pardal.dei.uc.pt
> >       D.E.I.  -  F.C.T.U.C.
> >       Coimbra University
> >       Portugal
> >


Given:Current theories indicate that neurons 'fire' according 
      to some threshold value. The action of firing is all or 
      nothing. (Hence, stimulation of a color receptor neuron 
      is digital, based on photons (digital quanta!) of light 
      energy.)  
  
Then: The human brain is digital at the base level.

NOTE: A digital signal of speed S1 cannot be differentiated into 
      individual quanta by an instrument capable of detection 
      at speed S2 where S2<S1. Hence, a sufficiently fast digital 
      signal will apear to be anolog with all the attributes.  
   
      Example:   The needle on an AC voltometer does not drop to 
                 0 on each pulse of a 60cycle AC line. The 
                 momentum of the needle/spindle acts as a buffer,
                 holding the needle steady. (It neither registers
                 0 nor the highest actual voltage.) 
                 The smoothing supplied by momentum of the needle
                 /spindle assembly makes the AC signal seem to be 
                 analog, clearly, not detecting the movement of any 
                 one electron of the current passing through the wire.

     (Just a passing thought . . . ) 

                              &;-)           marcoj@ai.rl.af.mil
