Fascinating! For many years I tried to understand and model the noise immunity of a mammalian brain. While optimizing the training algorithms of neural networks one of the most difficult problem is convergence. The higher the performance (or the gain) of the system, the higher the probability of system divergence or oscillation. This phenomenon always reminds me a patient whose hand is trembling. Interestingly, the medication protocol of a post stroke patient, to some extent, is similar to the stabilization of an oscillating (unstable) artificial system. Decrease the overall system gain, introduce a certain amount of phase shift.
The major advantage of a digital system over an analog one is the size independent noise immunity. Small size analog computers are very efficient and fast. A combination of a resistor and a capacitor may result in an integrator or a differenciator depending on the connection. However, as we increase the size and complexity of the system, the signal to noise ratio drops and at some point the analog computer becomes useless.
When my kids were babies I observed the development of hand eye coordination. This process Reminded me the back propagation algorithm I developed for neural networks in terms of system delays and accuracy vs number of training runs.
You were into some deep stuff!
Fascinating! For many years I tried to understand and model the noise immunity of a mammalian brain. While optimizing the training algorithms of neural networks one of the most difficult problem is convergence. The higher the performance (or the gain) of the system, the higher the probability of system divergence or oscillation. This phenomenon always reminds me a patient
I presume you are NOT talking of mine!
Actually, parallel processing and analogue networks are the holy grail of present day digital systems. But the brain has another difference, not mentioned in the article. It does not rely on a binary (yes/no - one or zero) system. The brain can have degrees of yes. (The decimal system has "NO", followed by 9 increasingly definite degrees of "Yes" )
This gives much more compact storage, in return for occasional inaccuracy. In the article, the tennis player sometimes misses.
They did mention in the article that the brain uses both digital and analog processing.
Computers can have analogue networks, but they are still digital, as in "On" or "Off". The brain's synapses can have a couple of "In between" stages, rather like a ternary or quaternary code. One can simulate this in a computer, but since the machine is binary, the simulation would never work as fast.
@tnorman1236 I did build a simple ternary logic gate a long time ago.
The output went from negative (0) to nul (1) to positive (2) then back to negative, each time it was pulsed.