From: Martin Striz (mstriz@gmail.com)
Date: Tue May 16 2006 - 16:27:58 MDT
On 5/16/06, Phillip Huggan <cdnprodigy@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> But to me, the firing of a synapse does not look like signal processing.
Synapses (and higher levels of organization) are the mechanisms that
provide transition states to map inputs to outputs. That's all you
need to do processing. You could do it with a Lego set, albeit a
really big one.
> If
> I had to call it any one term I would choose chemistry. It isn't the
> release of the neurotransmitters that is important, it is the receptor
> surfaces and underlying structure activities that give rise to qualia.
What data do you base these conclusions on? Have you found a suitable
measuring device for qualia?
The conclusions you've drawn are revolutionary. You should publish.
This could get you a Nobel Prize.
> A
> silicon mind would (because the chemistry of silicon is far different from
> carbon) have different receptor surface topologies and different functional
> underlying structural stuff.
So what? You haven't provided any reasons why that should matter.
> And that is assuming an analogous
> configuration for carbon-based brain geometries can be found (silicon is
> much less versatile than is carbon).
> With computer signal processing, the analogy to a neurotransmitter is a
> packet of data.
You're hung up on the synapse too much. There are higher levels of
organization that are probably more important. Plus, I'm beginning to
hate analogies. They're good at the most abstract levels, but tend to
create more confusion than understanding when you move to levels of
greater detail, where precise mappings between features becomes less
frequent.
I could find the computer equivalent of the ribosome, but what have
learned about ribosomes?
> But that data is the substance of the system. For humans,
> neurotransmitters are only important because they modify receptor structures
> and connected superstructures.
Does it bother you that receptor structures across vertebrate,
ostensibly qualia-bearing species varies greatly, without rhyme or
reason?
Martin
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