Real preachers are dangerous.
A man without spirit is whipped.
A real preacher could help them reconnect with spirit.
Real preachers are dangerous.
The Computer and the Brain (1958) is a published version of the Silliman Lectures which John von Neumann was invited to deliver at Yale in 1956. Although they were prepared by March 1956, they were never given, since Von Neumann was by that time already too sick to travel to New Haven. The author worked on the manuscript until his death on February 8, 1957. The manuscript remains unfinished, as his widow Klara von Neumann explains in her preface to the posthumous edition. However, the booklet can be read as a complete essay.
The essay of 82 pages is structured in two parts. The first part discusses the computer: its procedures, control mechanisms, and other characteristics. The second part focuses on the brain. The neural system is systematically compared with the computer in terms of the state-of-the-art at that time in the computer sciences. In what seems to have been the groundwork for a third part—but it is not organized as a separate part—Von Neumann draws some conclusions from the comparison with respect to the role of code and language. These conclusions are perhaps the most intriguing part of the book because Von Neumann addresses reflexive issues which had not previously been addressed in the cybernetic tradition (Corning, 2001; cf. Wiener, 1948).
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The computer
After stating that he himself is neither a neurologist nor a psychiatrist, but a mathematician, Von Neumann embarks upon the first part of this essay by explaining the components of a computer in the language of a computer scientist. First, the difference between analog and digital computers is explained. This distinction will have some relevance for the discussion of the brain because—as stated in the second part—the brain can prima facie be considered as a digital computer. However, upon further reflection, some elements of analog computing (e.g., the chemistry) will also become relevant in understanding the functioning of the brain.
For similar reasons, Von Neumann introduces the difference between serial and parallel computing schemes (on p. 8). As we know, the operation of the brain is massively organized in terms of parallel processing, but certain elements of serial processing cannot be reduced to parallel processing. The author will argue in the second part that these considerations may therefore be important for our understanding of the functioning of the brain.
A third difference of the same kind is the one between “plugged control” and “logical tape control.” In the analog machinery, electromechanical relays control the processing at the physical level, while a logical control stored on tape can be superposed over this basic, “fixed connections” control. This allows for variety in the control system because the latter can be considered as independent of the underlying machinery. Digital machines can recombine organs for each basic operation, while analog machines in principle must contain enough organs for each basic operation, depending on the requirements of the problem at hand.
The remainder of Part One focuses on these higher-order control modes for digital machines. Two modes are distinguished: control by sequence points and memory-stored control. A branching point can be considered as typical for control by sequence points. For example, the system can be so constructed that it performs differently when receiving a positive or a negative current. The wiring can be increasingly complex.
Memory-stored control had replaced control by sequence points to a considerable extent already by Von Neumann’s time. While the sequence points were physical objects, the orders in memory-stored control are ideal entities which are attributed to registers of memory. Although Von Neumann recognizes that this is the direction of future developments in computing, he discusses this difference because the brain also has a physical dimension. Thus, one would expect mixed forms of control in the natural case. Some of the functions can be fully expressed in Boolean formats, but there may be advantages in having intermediate steps performed analogously.
For example, a density of pulses can be evaluated analogously and then be used for logical control. However, the main advantage of digital computation becomes manifest when one considers the precision of the computation. In the second part of the essay, Von Neumann estimates that the computer of 1956 had already outperformed the natural system of the brain in terms of precision by several orders of magnitude.
https://www.leydesdorff.net/vonneumann/
>It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea fully-grown
Exoteric interpretation.
What is the esoteric interpretation?
Red v. Blue symbolism?
Who is the woman carried in by the winged being?