Re: [oc] Beyond Transmeta...

[Richard Herveille <richard@asics.ws>]

>
>   This is correct while the signal is travelling in a single nerve cell,
> however the propagation at the interfaces between cell's are limited by
> ordinary diffusion, which slows it down a bit ( quite a lot ).

Correct the axons in more modern beings are covered by a special coating. This 
coating decreases the propagation delay from cell to cell considerably. Think 
about it in ways of a highway; cars can go fast but only straight, they have 
to wait for the next exit before they can make a turn.

The propagation delay from cell to cell - or better everywhere where there's 
no special coating - is very slow actually. There's a reason why lower 
animals react more slowly than higher animals besides being cold blooded vs. 
warm blooded (which is, among other things, a reaction to higher nerve 
throughput).

>   I think the batter hit's where he expect's the ball to be, and I am
> not to sure that not the visual cortext can bypass to ( the little
> thingi in the back, I don't know its brittish name ) in order to get the
> batting done. Also I don't think the batter think, I think he is
> reacting by using a trained curve fitting algorith.

In Europe we would probably talk about a football keeper stopping a penalty 
kick. Both reactions are reflexes. Trained curves that do not need any 
response from the brain (!!!), because the brain is way to slow to deal with 
them. A reflex is the fastest response possible by nerves. The initiator 
sends a signal the the nearest most primitive motion nerve knot (usually the 
spinal court), the nerve knot immediately responses.

A good example of this is your hand/arm backing off when you touch something 
hot. The hand/arm already backed off, before your brain 'knows' the item was 
hot.

>   Actually the brain doesn't signal process at 20 kHz, the ear does a
> fft ( by it's construction ), and the brain matches the signal processed
> data against a template, also no 'thinking' involved.

In brains terms thinking is pattern matching. It's a matter of being aware 
that it happens (cognitive versus non-cognitive), your hart beats without you 
having to tell it to beat each time. On the other hand only a few people 
'know' how to control their hardbeat (some can even stop the hart at will).


> >>  however it is good at hiding it's own fallancies.
> >
> > At least the brain can imagine that it is hiding it's own fallacies.
>
>   Not so, my brain certainly has no such alleged fallancies ! ;-)

A good example of a brain hiding it's fallacies :-))

>   Seriously, it would be interesting to know how much thought that went
> into different matters, and how much pattern matching and so on the
> brains does.
>

Even more interresting is the left/right side story. It appears that one side 
responses to an event, and the other side tries to explain the reaction.
Example: split brain persons (persons where the connection between the left 
and right side of the brain are destroyed) are shown pictures, each eye a 
different picture. Classic example is where one eye sees a naked women, and 
the other a car. Common reaction - at least for men - is to giggle. When 
asked why they giggle they respond that it was a funny car.

Richard



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