From: Phil Goetz (philgoetz@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jan 29 2005 - 22:00:05 MST
--- Keith Henson <hkhenson@rogers.com> wrote:
> At 06:00 AM 29/01/05 -0800, you wrote:
> >Suppose that humanity, instead of evolving
> intelligence on a hundred
> >trillion 200Hz synapses,
>
> Excuse me if I am preaching to the converted, but if
> you don't know Dr.
> Calvin's proposed mechanisms for how thinking
> occurs, it might be worth
> taking a look here:
>
> http://williamcalvin.com/bk9/bk9ch2.htm
Calvin's proposed mechanism bewilders me in that
Calvin is a very smart man who knows a lot about
the brain, but there is AFAIK no evidence
for the "neural darwinism" type mechanism he
proposes, and no adherents to it except Calvin
himself and George Edelman (admittedly another
very smart person). But, the notion that cerebral
cloning is a GENERAL mechanism, used throughout
the cortex, would mean that our cortex would have
to be several hundred times larger than the size
needed to carry out pre-programmed activities,
because the competing programs in his neural
darwinism would probably need a population of several
hundred, each of which was complex enough to actually
perform the action or perception or whatever itself.
- Phil Goetz
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