jlevy.pa@XEROX.COM (07/01/88)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 88 12:26 EDT From: jlevy.pa@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: AIList Digest V7 #46 replicating the brain with a Turing machine In-Reply-To: "AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU's message of Tue, 28 Jun 88 23:05:00 EDT" To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Andy Ylikoski asks why you can't replicate the brain's exact functions with a Turing machine. First off, the brain is not a single machine but a whole bunch of them. Therefore "replacing it with a Turing machine" wouldn't get you there. Turing machines have an inherent limitation in that they are not reactive i.e. they are unable to react to the environment directly. On the other hand, the brain is in direct communication with a number of input devices (eyes, ears, nose, touch-sense, etc.), all of which are sending data at the same time. An interesting question is whether the brain's software suffers from the Church-Rosser problem which is present in functional languages - basically, you cannot, in a functional language, see that a certain source of input is empty and later detect input on it. It seems that this is not so, since we are able to close our eyes and later open them, seeing again. Just speculating... --Jacob References AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU's message of Tue, 28 Jun 88 23:05:00 EDT -- AIList Digest V7 #46