Re: machine thinking

From: Rick Craik (rick_at_@icebergideas..com)
Date: 06/25/04 

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 19:44:34 -0400

"ray scanlon" <rscanlon@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:363d693e.0406241400.553bc121@posting.google.com...
> Rick Craik writes:
>
> > The exhibition:
> > The synapse can provide a basis for a complex logic system.
> > The inhibitory type completes the binary encoding notion
> > for a two value system. The two values for simple binary are
> > {1, 0} by definition and relate to {TRUE, FALSE} by convention.
> > For this complex logic system exhibit, the inhibitory synapse starts
> > a new convention of {FALSE, NOT FALSE}, where the other type
> > of synapse is {TRUE, NOT TRUE}.
>
> This is very interesting, but it is foreign to my way of thinking.
> When one is considering the neurons that make up a central pattern
> generator, one looks to rhythmic neurons. These have a molecular clock
> that causes them to burst with an exact period. One thinks of a neuron
> like a pendulum, not a simple on-off switch. The entire group of
> neurons produces a fictive motor program that repeats itself.
>

Although I was considering inhibitor synapses, your point is
agreeable. Can I consider a synapse as an on-off switch in
relation to the other synapses?

> The notion of the brain as having states, a state that is comprised of
> neurons that are either on or off, leads to the predicate calculus and
> that has proven sterile except in philosophy.
>

The only predicate I was after is the state of synapses. Your previous
post was remarkably focused on inhibitor signals. For example, the
state of the synapses for a model neuron may have to follow a
situational law based on logic. The signals arriving may not be
of that form of logic, but the situation could be reduced to one such
logic statement. Something like synapses being reduced to OR and
XOR relations for positive and negative associations. Although
I see it as a bit more complex for a neuron in a group, the basic
idea is there.

> ray

Regards,
Rick

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