Safe optimization

[Steven Ryan]

In article <5368 at sdcrdcf.UUCP> markb at sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) writes:
>I think that it is easy to demonstrate that the brain IS a discrete
>device.  Nerve impulses are transmitted across the synaptic gaps
>using certain neuro-transmitter molecules.  Since a fraction of a molecule
>is nonsence, the brain is a discrete device.  Given that electric changes
>and even energy are quantized, I am willing to take the position that
>all realizable material devices are discrete.

Ah! But is the interarrival time of pulses continously or discretely
distributed? Are neurons synchronised so that the brain makes continuous or
discrete state transistions? When neurons form new connections (and they do)
is according to a predetermined plan or is it response from the environment==
does the brain have a finite number of discrete states?

>all realizable material devices are discrete.  There are no such things
>as continuous devices (at least in this universe).

What, no four dimensional space-time continuum?