Study Suggests Mental Processing Is Continuous, Unlike A Computer — Apparently this does not apply to everyone (you know who you are).
The theory that the mind works like a computer, in a series of distinct stages, was an important steppingstone in cognitive science, but it has outlived its usefulness, concludes a new Cornell University study. Instead, the mind should be thought of more as working the way biological organisms do: as a dynamic continuum, cascading through shades of grey.
found by E. Campbell
This study seems to be fundamentally flawed. They are comparing the states of a transistor or a gate the the processing of million and million of neurons over a huge amount of time. They state.
>The computer metaphor describes
>cognition as being in a particular
>discrete state, for example,
>”on or off” or in values of either
>zero or one, and in a static state
>until moving on.
Now over a long enough period of time view (or tracking) a network of computers you would see the same result. When looking at an embedded system, which is a small computer embedded in some type of appliance, it is necessary to consider extremely small slices of time such as 0.000000001 seconds. With in that instance of time it is necessary to know which gate is in what state. When wiring a computer, ALU, or embedded system and writing the firmware in Assembly language these are common considerations. This would be comparable to knowing exactly which neuron is emitting exactly which chemical and exactly how much of that chemical at a specific instant of time. I would like to see studies which pin down exact “meanings” of the chemical compositions emitted by the terminal ends of the neurons. Until we seek to understand and pin down the exact meanings and workings of a neurological system at it’s smallest divisible units we will not know how the mind or brain works.
This study seems to be fundamentally flawed. They are comparing the states of a transistor or a gate the the processing of million and million of neurons over a huge amount of time. They state.
“>The computer metaphor describes
>cognition as being in a particular
>discrete state, for example,
>”on or off” or in values of either
>zero or one, and in a static state
>until moving on.”
Now over a long enough period of time view (or tracking) a network of computers you would see the same result. When looking at an embedded system, which is a small computer embedded in some type of appliance, it is necessary to consider extremely small slices of time such as 0.000000001 seconds. With in that instance of time it is necessary to know which gate is in what state. When wiring a computer, ALU, or embedded system and writing the firmware in Assembly language these are common considerations. This would be comparable to knowing exactly which neuron is emitting exactly which chemical and exactly how much of that chemical at a specific instant of time. I would like to see studies which pin down exact “meanings” of the chemical compositions emitted by the terminal ends of the neurons. Until we seek to understand and pin down the exact meanings and workings of a neurological system at it’s smallest divisible units we will not know how the mind or brain works.