At 18:01 +0200 on 19/09/01, air-l-request@aoir.org wrote: I would like to come in with a comment from far away: In air-l 117 Aldon Hayes wrote: »In neural networks, it is the network itself, and its connections that store the information and not the individual nodes«. and he continues making analogies to the human mind and the internet as well as to the supposed network of some terrorist groups. This sort of analogy is widespread, but are such analogies also useful? I believe them to be strongly misleading metaphors mainly for two reasons: First, because we really don't know how neural networks (supposed to performe the brain functions) relate to the processes of the human mind, ie: mental content, feelings, thoughts and production of, say, scientific theory. We only know that there seems to be some sort of relationship. Second, on the internet it seems to me that the content is always stored at individual nodes and never on the net. This is also the case even if the content is distributed among different nodes. Even the code allowing the fractional parts need to be stored on a node itself. On the internet information is always stored in a physical place which can be adressed. I would also doubt the assumption that the internet is of a kind that allows it to be »an organization having knowledge that the individuals don't have«. Humans may have knowledge and a group of humans may have knowledge that the indiciduals don't have. But the internet??? It reminds me of Wittgenstein saying that even if lions had a language we wouldn't be able to understand it. Maybe a useful network theory should be elaborated to include such important differences? Niels Ole Finnemann ******************************************************************************** Niels Ole Finnemann http://www.hum.au.dk/ckulturf/pages/php/finnemann.html Lektor, dr. phil. Leder af Center for Internetforskning, http://imv.au.dk/cfi/ Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Aarhus Universitet Niels Juelsgade 84 Mail: finnemann@imv.au.dk 8200 Århus N Tlf: Dir: 89 42 19 34 - Univ: 89 42 11 11