From: Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Date: Thu Oct 22 1998 - 12:23:51 MDT
Joe E. Dees, <jdees0@students.uwf.edu>, writes, regarding the possibility
of shrinking the brain:
> Obtaining the unpatterned materials is easy. Arranging them in a
> functional configuration is the hard part. Joe
We do have a model for how the neurons in the brain work. It is not
complete, and it may not even be accurate, but it is based on the
best information available.
Broadly speaking, neurons act as nonlinear weighted adders, with various
points on the neuron being excited or inhibited by chemicals released by
other neurons. The overall excitation level gets filtered by a nonlinear
function, in many cases roughly a threshold filter, and this determines
the degree of output excitation released by this neuron. At the same
time, longer-range chemicals are floating around to modulate the overall
sensitivity and excitation level of the neurons.
Based on this type of understanding, the actual information processing
done by a neuron appears to be limited. You can approximate it crudely
by a very simple mechanism. We don't know yet whether such a crude
simulation would be adequate for intelligence, but given the inherent
imprecision and associated fault tolerance of biological systems, it is
plausible that this would work.
No one would claim that the matter is closed, but given our current
understanding of neurobiology, it is reasonable to propose that the brain
could be greatly miniaturized and accelerated while still supporting
intelligence and consciousness.
Hal
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