A fractal CPU

[John Smith]

Computer chips are printed on a single scale.  That is a very small scale is beside the point, because it is not so small that their is any major danger of a misfire of current, a mistransmition of a bit (on or off). Our neurons, by contrast, are connected by fibers that, thought already microscopic, branch fractally into smaller and smaller and scales, and at the synapses, transmit by chemical reaction.  This system seems prone to error, and indeed, mistakes and losses of memory are nothing new to human or animal experience.  I, however, being the Bible-believing oddball that I am, don't believe that God makes mistakes.  So I believer their must be some advantage in fractal neuro-pathways.  So what is it?  Here's an idea:  The smaller in scale you go, the closer you are to the quantum level, the more heisenberg's uncertainty principle impacts the system, the more likely a synapse is to "misfire" a bit (on or off, yes or no), and the less the misfire matters.  The misfire creates a new bit, a change in the information.  Now if this bit is not compatible with the task the brain is trying to complete, it is erased or ignored, stopped at that smallest scale.  If however (and this is the good part!) the new bit turns out to be useful, it would be carried into the level up, where it is evaluated in light of still more information, and this continues through the branches between and inside the neurons until only that information which fits with reality and aides with solving a problem accumulates.  If this sounds like a slow way to accumulate information, think of it this way: suppose each neuron only produced one (1) bit of information every ten minutes on average.  With the millions of neurons in your brain, and a couple of hours, and the information you already know, it wouldn't take you long to think of something no computer would have thought of.  Our brains (might) percolate information out of randomness!  Now, suppose you applied this concept to computers, replaced each circuit branch with a smaller scale network, working down as close as possible to the quantum level.  The same thing theoretically should happen: Only that information compatible with running the input program would percolate through into the output.  If nothing else, it would make for some tough PC game AI.  Any thoughts on this theory or its applications?

PS
You could even use a fractal chip and a standard chip in tandem, like the right and left sides of the brain.

[cKleinhuis]

ehrm, james gleick pointed out in his book "chaos" from the eighties, that chaotic structures ( e.g. a stable wave on a river, the saturn hurrican hotspot, or even the human body ) inherit stable behaviour, i mean you can not kill a man by a scratch, you can not destroy a stable wave by just passing through it, and the red dot on saturn surely wont go away any time soon, you are right assuming that "god" doesnt do any errors, in my eyes "god" is just using what is best - self organized stable systems, fewer to do for the "allmighty one"

[filagree]

The first thing that occurred to me is that information 'fitting' with reality might operate vastly differently between the thoughts, say, of a madman & someone technically considered rational. If a person can become unmoored than imagine what might (hypothetically) happen if a computer went nuts. That said, it's an interesting theory.

[cKleinhuis]

stop inducing personality in computers, and global financial crashes have already been there ( last year when instead of 100 millions 100 trillions went over the bill board ) those things are nothing more, and will nothing be more than machines build by humans ( dont come with neuronal nets, they are implemented on limited state-machines, that are just tools ) what i want to say it that they dont go evil, but they can let atomic plants explode, due to wrong number interpretations, cut your leg of due to a false negative result in a scanner on a wood cutting machine, and on and on, and if the state machine is build on fractal principles nothing is won ... it should work with REAL neurons and synapses to really scare the hell out of me ... but even this wont be scaring in my lifetime ....

just ask your computer what is wrong with him, or ask another computer what is wrong with your broken computer, as long as the other computer can not tell what the problem of the other computer is there is no smartness ....

... but for fractal chip designs .. probably possible, but consider large scale electron pathways need longer times, hence the reason to make em as small as possible to reduce distances, and in fact you have kilometers of electronic pathways built in a single cpu core ... perhaps we would need more error pruning due to more massive parellel processing, e.g. run same computers parallel and check if results are the same every time ... this is already done in safety computers e.g. flight control systems for big passenger airplanes ...

question for the wisenheimers: "what distance can be travelled by light in one tick or tack of a cpu, when cpu is driven by 10Ghz"?

[filagree]

Well, I used to like tic  tac candies. Darn #*!%? wisenheimer. Good night. Er, actually, good morning .

[John Smith]

Ok, three things:
(1) Thanks for replying.
(2) Let me clarify something.  I wasn't suggesting that fractal chips replace regular chips, and I had always pictured the fractal patterns as in addition to the main pathways.  I wasn't clear on that so my bad.
(3) Did I detect a note of hostility in the replies I received?  I admit that believing in a live intelligent God is not popular in the scientific community, or in the world at large, for that matter.  It's not pleasant to consider the possibility of having to answer to someone more intelligent and more powerful than you.  All the same, you start with the facts, you arrive at God.  If you start with the facts and the assumption that God doesn't exist, you end up where most of the scientific community is, because for some reason, people think that atheism is somehow scientific.  Frankly, though, modern science is based on quantum mechanics and relativity, and both theories in their present form demand the existence of realities beyond our limited perception of a small portion of 3-d space.  In the face of so many unknowns, such an assumption as atheism is unscientific and unscholarly.  Newton believed in God, Copernicus believed in God, Kepler believed in God, even Einstein believed in a God, and Stephen Hawking won't deny Him or confirm Him because even though he doesn't like the idea, he's an honest physicist, and has no scientific grounds for denying him.  I've been educated in evolutionary theory, quite thoroughly in fact; and I think it's a great idea, a triumph for wishful thinking, but Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is the preferred one.  I understand that you are voicing your opinions, that is after all what this chat is for.  Well, now you know mine.

[filagree]

I don't harbour any 'hostilty' ( mighty strong word, Lar2 ) re the idea you brought to the table. As a matter of fact I think ANYTHING is possible, always. I often approach a subject above my pay grade from more of a sci-fi point of view..so many of the best writers mix huge questions  of god(s), moral conundrums, degredation of the environment, & on and on. Often in sickeningly prophetic ways.

Can't speak for any other responses except that if God is in the details then a level headed answer describing some of those very technological concerns that assail us is a valuable addition to this conversation.

Anyways...Cheers

[John Smith]

You're right. My reaction was unnecessary and uncalled for.  I was the one being hostile. I would ask you to accept my humblest apologies and to expect better judgement in the future.

[David Makin]

I've been educated in evolutionary theory, quite thoroughly in fact; and I think it's a great idea, a triumph for wishful thinking, but Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is the preferred one. 

Aaaarrggghhh - knowing fractals you should both know and understand that Evolution *is* the simplest explanation even if there is a God/Creator.

Which is easier ?
1. Explicitly create everything to the last detail all at once
or
2. Create a set of rules that control an existence that may then grow/evolve ? (probably on a fractal, iterative basis, I personally believe "time" is an illusion, or more correctly just a consequence of change of state, also IMO the 4th dimension gives us relative mass not relative time).

[filagree]

Well Dave- seeing as how you actually eat a mandelbub occasionally .....Actually I am a proponent of the theory (ongoing) of Evolution*, and if this dialog goes on a bit be advised that a poem might come of it. Yes, I know ! Oh no ! As convinced as I might be, however, I must still entertain the other possibilities that guide & drive people in their lives. If it's possible, then I am comfortable with the mysteries.

Am intrigued & in (uninformed) agreement that time is an illusion, but have not yet gotten my pea brain around the equations & science of the matter. Will just continue to address it from a more, shall we say, intuitive angle. The complication in my mind is that if evolution happens OVER time, but that is an illusive currency, then what are the conditions under which it is occurring...? I'm serious !

It was good of Mr K. to move this into philosophy, and I'm glad Lar2 began the conversation.Would include one more emoticon ( what a word !) but none of them really fits.




* not necessarily hitched up to intelligent design, but more an adaptive drift through gargantuan time...hits and misses

[filagree]

Geez, I spelled mandelbulb wrong, and on THIS forum of all places !

[David Makin]

The complication in my mind is that if evolution happens OVER time, but that is an illusive currency, then what are the conditions under which it is occurring...? I'm serious !

I see "time" in that sense simply as continuing change of state i.e. a leads to b to c to d -> obviously this gives change but does not require time to be an actual spatial dimension nor does it mean that all changes within a complicated system occur simultaneously - on the other hand that leaves (in simplistic terms) no 4th *spatial* dimension - this I see as being that which any "size" of an object (e.g. fundamental "particle") in this dimension appears to us as mass and (through E=mc^2) is directly convertible to existence within the other 3 standard dimensions (and vice-versa), so a photon has no "size" in the mass dimension, an electron a very small size and a proton and neutron considerably more etc.
I should add that I really see existence as being a system of attractors, the attractors being systems of attractors that are systems of attractors.....(repeat ad nauseam *up* as well as down).
Of course starting from the obvious potential *absolute beginning* where nothing==infinity then the number of dimensions itself could possibly be infinite though personally I doubt it since we know that as one increases dimensionality in math less and less consistency results, probably with an upper bound on the possible number of dimensions in a given system - and yes I think existence is a consequence of the rules of math, nothing more, nothing less and truly with a little random thrown in since the chances of a change of state that depends on roots producing any one of a set of the n solutions is (in Physics) absolutely equal (this could also apply to whether the result of a multiply goes down path a or path b depending on the order of multiplication if the related system is not commutative).

[John Smith]

Ok.  We have gotten severely off topic, and I realize that was mostly my fault.  Since we're digressing, however, I agree that you can look at the universe in any number of contexts.  As a n-dimensional continuum, a massive web of cause and effect, the expression of some of some unknown equation, what have you.

The only problem is, these are thought experiments, and the universe really doesn't give a flip what you think about it.

[David Makin]

The only problem is, these are thought experiments, and the universe really doesn't give a flip what you think about it.

Hmmm - even current fundamental physics experiments tell us that that may not be true i.e. how/what you think about it actually affects it's nature......
Just to add - in my suggestion that it's all systems of systems of attractors you may ask why should attractors interact/affect each other - the answer being that existence is not only the "thing" but also the definition of the rules for that "thing" (similar to self-modifying code if you're a programmer I guess....).

[eiffie]

First let me apologize for straying off-topic but this thread has brought up a lot of thoughtful discussion so I will add to the noise.
On evolution I find a few things surprising. Some people think evolution supports the notion that life is ubiquitous and anywhere the conditions for life exist we should expect to find it (we are not special), when actually the opposite is true. Evolution supports the notion of a single "magical" act of creation that has never repeated in 3.7 billion years. We are special! Don't get me wrong I'm not a creationist, species did not suddenly appear but life did and only once as far as we can determine from DNA. Maybe someone can argue TNA and RNA represent seperate instances of creation (I dunno). Also Evolution may be lacking a key feature. Orthogenesis is the idea that evolution is guided by a driving force - and is said to be obsolete, but if even the simplest single cell can show intelligence (like seeking light, food etc) then how is intelligence not a driving force in evolution. Not that evolution is a straight line from small to large brains as sometimes having a smaller brain that requires less fuel is the more intelligent choice but that intelligence chooses everything from mates to the environment a creature lives in. Epigenetics tells us that every choice we make from the food we eat to the level of stress in our lives has an effect on inheritable gene expression. We are choosing our mutations. Evolution IS intelligent design. (we ARE the hand of god??) enuf bs, bye!