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- Path: sparky!uunet!dtix!darwin.sura.net!cs.ucf.edu!news
- From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
- Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
- Subject: Re: Neural Nets and Brains
- Message-ID: <1992Jul24.164544.11876@cs.ucf.edu>
- Date: 24 Jul 92 16:45:44 GMT
- References: <arms.711986585@spedden>
- Sender: news@cs.ucf.edu (News system)
- Organization: University of Central Florida
- Lines: 28
-
- In article <arms.711986585@spedden> arms@cs.UAlberta.CA (Bill Armstrong)
- writes:
- > .... My point
- > was that BP nets use continuous signals and the brain doesn't -- an
- > obvious very significant difference. I was asking why people would
- > expect to understand the brain by studying a system (BP) that is
- > *different* at the most basic level of signalling.
- >
- > Don't you agree that if the brain works on 0-1 signals, then to study
- > the brain one could beneficially look at logical systems?
-
- I believe the brain may well use continuous or analog signals.
-
- While individual neuron action potentials are on or off, they
- often occcur in trains of varying frequency. The time-density of
- action potentials then forms an analog or continuous variable
- that may be processed in much the same way as a BP network.
-
- In fact, if you posit a central clock in the brain, the phase of
- the action potentials with respect to the clock provide another
- possibility for a continuous variable. Indeed, both phase and
- density could work together to make the brain a
- complex-valued neural network :-)
- --
- Thomas Clarke
- Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
- 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
- (407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu
-