🚀 go-pugleaf

I probably need to add something to deal with those people who might 
argue that the brain can be simulated, hence a syntactic model is 
possible. 

I've noticed an interesting phenomenon on at least four scales in the
brain--mechanisms for amplifying patterns at a lower scale to a larger
pattern. These usually seem to involve stochastic resonance interacting
with carefully tuned dynamic systems. Thus there is a mechanism for
amplifying an output synchronism of a few neurons to a synchronism of
approximately 10^4 neurons. This involves a combination of non-linear
response on the cellular level with feedback mechanisms involving
principle cells and inhibitory interneurons. There appears to be a second
mechanism for amplifying a low level modulation of one or a few basal
dendrites into a cell-wide modulation. Bartlett Mel has evidence for a
third mechanism for amplifying synchronous stimulation of multiple
synapses in the dendritic tree into a modulation of the corresponding
dendrite. Finally, in the visual system there is a mechanism for
amplifying the synchronized arrival of two photons (a quantum mechanical
process) into a detection event at the level of the electrical synapse.
Karl Pribram, Stuart Hameroff, Paul Prueitt, and Roger Penrose seem to
believe there are other, similar processes, making up a pattern extending
from the quantum level to the level of the entire brain. I'm not sure
about this last, but there are enough of these between-scale connections
to make the question of effective simulatability very open at the least. 

I do not believe the brain can be simulated syntactically. The 
multiple-scale problem intrudes.

For those folks who posit a finite number of states for the universe based
on quantum mechanics. Please discuss how to go from quantum mechanical
theory to classical theory and vice-versa. Until you can do that, your 
argument is incomplete. Even afterwards, you will probably find that the 
simulation for the universe has to be bigger than the universe...

--
Harry Erwin
Internet: herwin@gmu.edu 
Just a dumb graduate student working on Katchalsky network models....
(And if you believe that, I have a ranch in California to sell you.)