X-Message-Number: 14950
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 17:16:47 +0100
From: Henri Kluytmans <>
Subject: Re: Simulating People and Animals

Pat Clancy wrote :

>In fact there are activities of the mind that would seem 
>strongly not to be describle by any sort of finite, deterministic
computation 
>(which is the only kind you get from a computer). The detailed arguments, 
>much better than I could present, can be found in various books ("What 
>Computers Can't Do", Dreyfus; "Emporer's New Mind", "Shadows of the 
>Mind", Penrose; "The Undiscovered Mind", Horgan; more on request).

I was going to mention some books that argue the other way, (from : 
Hofstadter, Dennet, Minsky, Kurzweil, Moravec, etc.) but Lee Corbin 
already did so...

>One of the arguments against the AI proponents is precisely that computer 
>programs still are unable to simulate the most simple/primitive of animal 
>activities - 

On the contrary, simple primitive animal activities (functions) can 
already be simulated.

I can remember simulated organisms with simulated 
neural nets that where genetically evolved using certain 
survival rules. These virtual organisms developped movements 
and also behaviors (competition strategies) you also see in 
real biological organisms.

(After some searching I found the website !!!! See :
 http://www.biota.org/ksims/blockies/index.html  )

Many of the activities of the neural nets in the human eye 
have been reproduced in artificial neural nets.

Of course only simple functions can be reproduced yet, because 
the current artificial neural nets are still limited in size.

I could do a survey for more examples...

>Well, my feeling is that it doesn't matter how many millions of years of 
>development take place, or what state of the brain is being simulated - 
>it just won't happen with a Turing machine.

To avoid any miscommunication : Do you consider 3D cellular automata 
(CA) based neural nets (containing millions or billions of artificial 
neurons) which grow and evolve inside cellular automata machines (CAMs) 
(in based FPGA field programmable gate arrays, hardware) a Turing 
machine ?

When I used the term "Turing Machines" I was always reffering 
to step by step symbolic computing systems with only a low 
number of processors. I was not refferring to massively 
parallel systems, like hardware implemented neural nets, 
although in principle they also should be considered Turing 
machines.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14950