Re: Re[2]: computer-go: Pattern matching

[Daniel Hallmark <dgh@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 11 Nov 1999, Jeff Massung wrote:

> Question: when you smell a rose, does your brain do a search through all 
> smells you know until it finds a match? or is the proper neuron stimulated 
> automatically?  I'd say the latter, simply because of being able to forget 
> something and the way in which I smell a rose and this of a red rose and 
> someone else yellow (ie, the synapse connections are different).  To me, 
> this is the current disadvantage of computer vs. human, the computer must 
> pattern match, instead of just "seeing" it.


The original assertion was "I _know_ what a rose smells like" ... "If you 
can prove to me that such knowledge, stored in my brain, can be emulated 
by a computer...".

You are saying here that the human brain performs data retrieval or
pattern matching in a manner which is qualitatively different from that 
performed in many/most/all AI applications.  I would not argue that 
point.  My point is that the _information_, "what a rose smells like", can 
be emulated by a computer, even if current hardware and programming 
technique would make the process terribly inefficient.

Daniel