From: Paul Hughes (paul@planetp.cc)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 18:47:43 MDT
John Clark wrote:
> Paul Hughes <paul@planetp.cc> Wrote:
>
> >psychoactive drug induced states of consciousness are directly correlated with
> >neurotransmitter activity within the neuron itself
>
> No doubt.
>
> >That alone is proof that there is *extra* computation taking place within
> >the neuron.
>
> Was anybody questioning the fact that neurotransmitters are part of brain activity?
> By the way, neurons are slow and neurotransmitters are super slow, even today a
> transistor is several hundred million times faster.
I believe Han Moravec has on several occasions. Its not that he questions its role, he
never considers it in the first place. My entire concern is ultimately in regards to
uploading my consciousness and to the necessary computational *complexity* required to
assure that no parts of cognition, no matter how subtle, are ignored due to ignoring
the role of computation within the neuron itself. That has been my only argument and
concern thus far. Since Hans has based all the estimates I've seen only on the neural
network nodes themselves, I've been urging that we also take into account the
computational processes taking place within those nodes (neurons). Why has almost
everybody missed this point? I've still very confused on why this argument is even
taking place, since no one yet said anything that I've disagreed with in the first
place.
Paul Hughes
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