From reid@xxxxxxxx.xxxx Fri Feb 19 15:10:07 1999 X-Digest-Num: 66 Message-ID: <44114.66.290.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:10:07 -0600 (CST) From: Christopher Palmer If you follow Moore's Law, and count the number of neurons it enables us > to simulate, you'll see that my prediction, though not certain, is > respectable. The problem is not one of hardware inadequacy, which is all Moore's Law refers to. An 8088 is probably *fast* enough. :P The problem is that we don't understand the problem (human language). > Extend us off silicon into optical/protein/full nanotech computers, and > you'll agree that real-time better-than-human language translation of bad > handwriting and drunken accented speech is inevitable. ? I can do that already without biomechanical augmentation. :^) Adding human brains to hardware is not solving the problem, and would probably kill the human anyway. :^) Basically, *Wired* is full of science fiction and bad philosophy. > "English is hard" is meaningless, but "English is harder than Spanish" > is both meaningful and measurable. What, exactly, does it mean? And how are you measuring 'meaning' and 'difficulty' and 'Spanish' and 'English'? ---------(( Christopher Reid Palmer : www.pconline.com/~reid/ ))--------- the characters i am, made into a word complete -- Meshuggah