Connectionism

A Reminder: THE VON NEUMANN COMPUTER

The thing which determines which operations are carried out and which order is the program. A program is a long list of operations.

An alternative: CONNECTIONIST SYSTEMS

The connectionist computer consists not of one central processing unit (CPU) with access to memory but of a network of 'nodes'. Each node is capable of being in a state of activation.

NETtalk

Difficulties with thinking of the computer-brain as a von Neumann computer -brain

1. Some cognitive tasks are carried out more quickly than can be accounted for.

2. Anatomically and physiologically, the brain seems not to be a serial computer. Each neuron is connected to many others in a complex ramifying network. This isn't how the components of a serial computer are connected up.

3. Data Storage

4. Some tasks we find easy are proving very difficult to simulate on a serial computer.

5. The hardware/software distinction is not easy to apply to the brain.

6. There are probably many more levels of organisation in a brain than in a serial computer.

7. Processing in non-verbal animals and preverbal human beings is surely likely not to involve language-like operations.