On Sun, 1 Apr 2018 at 8:26 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:50 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > *> The problem is the biological neurones only understand smoke signals. >> * > > > Not so, we already understand that some neurotransmitters send smoke > signals that excite neurons while others send a inhibitory signal. > > > >> Not only that, but the smoke signals change depending on how the wind is >> blowing, > > > It's not the wind its diffusion that send the signal on its way, which > means exactly where the signal is sent is* NOT* critical and the time it > takes to transmit it can't be critical either. So you think technology will > find that duplicating this meager feat will be insuperably difficult. Why? > Sending a signal with a tiny informational content very very slowly and > successfully hitting a HUGE target seems to me to be the easiest part of > the entire thing. > I don’t think it’s impossible, but if you want a neural implant to work like the biological equivalent, it must communicate with neurones via neurotransmitters, it must modulate it’s responses according to circulating hormones, it must develop new connections and prune old connections, it must upregulate and downregulate its responsiveness to neurotransmitters according to its history and multiple local factors, and probably other things that we don’t even know about. So what us needed is not just a little computer, but complex nanomachinery. It might be easier to simulate an entire brain than make an implant. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
