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Re: starship-design: HIGHLY OPTIMIZED TOLERANCE



>
> Ok, but I will just use a joy stick and throttle sensors from my analog
> computer. As the human brain is one of the best and biggest analog computers
> around (especially mine ;=)), I will take 20 other brains from
> starship-design list or clone of mine with me for redundancy. :=)

Just an aside, but the human (as well as other animal) brain is not an analog
processor, it is digital. A neuron either fires or it doesn't. The difference is
that organic brains are asynchronous; they don't require a clock signal, and don't
ask me how they sort out signals without one. My guess is that they work on more
of a parallel processing scheme. I am a fan of analog, myself, just for the
record, but it just ain't the way things really get done.

I agree, though, on the capability of the human brain, PROVIDED it is properly
fed, rested, exercised, and entertained, and not distracted by god-knows-what, say
an urge to sneeze. The list of distractions is endless, and you really should have
at least 20 on any really critical job. Miscalculating a vector angle by the
tiniest fraction can put you ludicrously far off target over interstellar
distances, just to cite an obvious example. I'd really rather trust such stuff to
machines, and we've already got them in use today. Check out the Hubble telescope
as an example of this.

Also, I like the idea of the triple redundancy computer arrangement. It's the old
"I tell you three times" concept, which showed up in some Robert Heinlein novel,
way back when.

Keep looking up,

Curtis