In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.980316052219.18567G-
100000_at_behemoth.host4u.net>, Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com> writes
>If you believe Turing, there's nothing an analog computer can compute that
>a digital one can't. A brain is many things: it's wet, it's analog, and
>it's massively parallel. I don't think anybody believes that it's wetness
>or analogness that matters, but clearly a high degree of parallel
>processing seems important to solving perception problems quickly. This
>is the basic inspiration that drove Danny Hillis to create the Connection
>Machine, with 64,000 simple processors working in parallel.
Perhaps incredibly, Turing _did_ believe that there was something
special about the brain (in particular he could/would not rule out ESP)
and so I don't think he would ever have claimed that a Turing Machine
could do anything that a human brain could. The TM was designed to
solve a specific problem in mathematical theory, rather than as a
theoretical ultimate brain.
But now you've got me trying to think of something that an analog(ue)
computer can do that a digital one can't. Reversibility might be one
thing. I guess it's reasonable to argue that digital computers are a
subset of analogue computers, as transistors are analogue.
I'm going to stop thinking about this before I recurse.
--
Lawrence Wilkinson ljw_at_formula1.demon.co.uk
The GirlFrendo homepage: http://www.formula1.demon.co.uk/girlfrendo/
"You've got the brains, or so you say, maybe you see things another way"-bis
Received on Mon Mar 16 1998 - 10:56:50 GMT