16 Mar
1998
16 Mar
'98
10:56 a.m.
In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.980316052219.18567G-
100000(a)behemoth.host4u.net>gt;, Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> writes
If you believe Turing, there's nothing an analog
computer can compute that
a digital one can't. A brain is many things: it's wet, it's analog, and
it's massively parallel. I don't think anybody believes that it's wetness
or analogness that matters, but clearly a high degree of parallel
processing seems important to solving perception problems quickly. This
is the basic inspiration that drove Danny Hillis to create the Connection
Machine, with 64,000 simple processors working in parallel.
Perhaps incredibly,
Turing _did_ believe that there was something
special about the brain (in particular he could/would not rule out ESP)
and so I don't think he would ever have claimed that a Turing Machine
could do anything that a human brain could. The TM was designed to
solve a specific problem in mathematical theory, rather than as a
theoretical ultimate brain.
But now you've got me trying to think of something that an analog(ue)
computer can do that a digital one can't. Reversibility might be one
thing. I guess it's reasonable to argue that digital computers are a
subset of analogue computers, as transistors are analogue.
I'm going to stop thinking about this before I recurse.
--
Lawrence Wilkinson ljw(a)formula1.demon.co.uk
The GirlFrendo homepage: http://www.formula1.demon.co.uk/girlfrendo/
"You've got the brains, or so you say, maybe you see things another
way"-bis