X-Message-Number: 14907 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 08:23:19 -0800 From: Kennita Watson <> Subject: Neuron imitation Lee Corbin wrote in Message #14901: > Thomas Donaldson wrote in Message #14891: > > ... Even a little reading on just how neurons work makes me > > wonder whether a computer in the present sense could really > > imitate us at all well. ... > Do you believe that it will never be possible ... to successfully > imitate a person? That is, even if humanity's total resources for > the next billion years were dedicated to the project, it simply > will never be possible...? Joseph Kehoe posted the following URL in Message #14892: >http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_528000/528109.stm > Scientists have produced the world's smallest transistor.... The > 50-nanometer transistor - roughly 1/2000 the width of a human hair > - is known as a "vertical" transistor because all of its > components are built on top of a silicon wafer. Another key > difference is that a conventional transistor has only one "gate," > which switches current on and off. The vertical transistor, > however, resembles a rectangular block with a "gate" on two sides. A question from the peanut gallery: how big is a neuron? We've gotten this far in 50 years; it seems to me that another order of magnitude decrease in size and another order of magnitude increase in complexity, and we should be able to simulate the operation of a neuron in about the size of a neuron. Never mind identity, or even connections between neurons; just operation of a single neuron. How far do we have to go? Live long and prosper, Kennita -- Kennita Watson | I vote Libertarian. | Find out why. http://www.kennita.com | http://www.lp.org/intro Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14907