I was thinking about the so-called paralellism of the brain which is a poorly fitting metaphore at best... To explain the high resiliency of neural circuits to minor variations in structure the term "redundant" seems more appropriate...
The computers we build can be viewed, in this context as "Many on One" devices, in that many processes run on one computing element. Many parts of the brain are "One on Many" devices in that a single computation has many contributing computing elements. Each computing element is largely independant and makes only a small contribution to the computation. Because of this the circuit can sustain significant dammage before the overall functionality is permenantly impared. A theory along these lines would also have to consider the cortex and attempt to reconcile its apparent CAM nature with its apparent resiliency to its own flakey hardware. This is quite a bit more difficult. One possibility is that Calvin is wrong and the cortex is some other type of circuit... My current thinking is that the CAM model is almost correct in that the cortex is a class of automata that transmits *signals* between cells rather than states. In this mode, a dead/blocked cell would not pose a difficulty as the signal could propogate to any of the adjacent cells in the hexagonal matrix and and still reach its target with only one additional actor. * *> * * * >* * With a signal that needs to get from >* to *>, the loss of the cell in the middle means that the signal would have to move around only two additional cells and the redundancy in the left and right work-around paths ensure that the signal is received at roughly its intended intensity. A square matrix would not be as efficient... ^ *** *X* *** ^ Whith a strict NSEW law would require the signal to move through 3 different cells instead of 2. So the cortex does not fit the One on Many model still may be redundant in this other way... The problem then is to design a pattern analyzing/synthesizing CAM... Gah! I've rambled too long... [SEND]! -- I WANT A DEC ALPHA!!! =) 21364: THE UNDISPUTED GOD OF ALL CPUS. http://users.rcn.com/alangrimes/ [if rcn.com doesn't work, try erols.com ] ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
