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>Or is the signal processing being performed "directly", through the essentially analogue operation of the neurons? You almost described a transistor. :) The
by fooker 9y ago
>Or is the signal processing being performed "directly", through the essentially analogue operation of the neurons?
You almost described a transistor. :)
The physical world, at our scale in inherently analogue.
(Might be digital at a quantum level, but we don't know that yet.)
- pjc50 9y agoThe point I'm trying to make is that computers "do arithmetic" through digital operations where there is a symbolic representation (through assigning analogue state to discrete symbolic values). Not through transistors operating continuously in their linear region. Inside neuronal systems there doesn't seem to be a direct symbolic representation - and if there is, the neuronal patterns of somebody doing calculus on paper versus e.g. catching a ball are entirely different.
- fooker 9y agoThe symbolic representation is just a language though. We might not be equipped to understand a language different from the formalisms we came up with.