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From: omni@topazio.dcc.ufmg.br (Lucio de Souza Coelho)
Subject: Re: Thought Question (brain != discrete state machine)
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References: <1995Jan12.022935.26572@Princeton.EDU> <3fmba3$nmf@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <3fmn70$cpa@pentagon.io.com> <vlsi_libD2oKoJ.GKw@netcom.com><jstrout-220195211307@jstrout.extern.ucsd.edu> <61@reservoir.win-uk.net>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 11:01:42 GMT
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In article <61@reservoir.win-uk.net>, shane@reservoir.win-uk.net (Shane McKee) writes:
|> 
|> Now, I may have been out of this thread for a while, but here goes:
|> If you can model the entire universe in a Turing Machine (OK, this
|> would require quantum gravity I suppose), then anything inside
|> this model can also be modelled. This includes brains. It also
|> includes analog components, whether neurons or whatever. If this
|> is *not* the case, then we're going to have to drastically re-think
|> our notions of our science to be able to explain the fundamental
|> behaviour of *anything* never mind brains & consciousness.
|> 
|> Does this make sense?
|>  

In my humble opinion, yes. This amazing possibility could be however a chance to
verify if the brain is a Turing machine. If the Universe isn't Turing-computable
but *is* brain-computable (that means that we can understand all its phenomena),
surely our brains are a superior machine. Although this possibility,  I see no
evidences that the Universe isn't Turing-computable. (Or pehaps paranormality,
witchcraft and related things are evidences of non Turing-computable phenomena
:-)

Lucio

-- 
Lucio de Souza Coelho
omni@dcc.ufmg.br
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
"Mais tanto faz um tanto faz no tanto faz que tanto faz tantos fazes tanto
                       fazendo"
