Animal brains and information
Animal brains are physical machines
- Built from hydrocarbons and aqueous solutions
- Processing elements are called neurons
Animal brains represent information using physical quantities
- Real-valued electrical and chemical signals, with real noise
- Transmitted on real wires or in real chemical solutions
Neuronal signaling does not use discrete symbols
- Is it possible that brains compute using real numbers?
- Recall Shannon’s results on information communication