(Did I misuse "plethora"? English is not my first language, sorry if I shouldn't use plethora)
> How do you know that intelligence cannot be implemented in a mechanism simpler than the biological hardware implementation or simulations thereof?
I don't know if intelligence cannot be implemented in a simpler way (I certainly hope it can), I am concerned here about understanding the biological implementation of intelligence. I say that simulations are useful because the models that we may make of the emergence of the mechanisms of intelligence in networks of neurons would be very hard to understand without being implemented and simulated.
However, if you are interested in the artificial implementation of the intelligent behavior of some organisms, you could maybe still benefit from understanding how this intelligent behavior arises in these organisms, and take inspiration from these mechanisms.
> Sorry to pick at you for this, but how can you be certain of the many claims you've made here?
I didn't make revolutionary claims regarding the functioning of biological neural networks. The fact that neurons are sensitive to relative spike timing is evident in mechanisms like spike timing dependent plasticity (http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Spike-timing_dependent_p...). The "complex chemistry" that I mention is behind cognition is evident if you open any neurology book, for instance Principles of Neural Science by Kandel.
Then, I say that simulation (and in particular simulation of development as well as learning) is the right road to understanding biological neural systems, but I took care to mention that it is what I believe, not what I know.
Your use of plethora was completely right. For some reason giardini thinks it is a very obscure and "intellectual" word but I disagree. In Google's English corpus it is used about 1/3 as often as the word "neuron". http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=plethora%2Cneur...
> How do you know that intelligence cannot be implemented in a mechanism simpler than the biological hardware implementation or simulations thereof?
I don't know if intelligence cannot be implemented in a simpler way (I certainly hope it can), I am concerned here about understanding the biological implementation of intelligence. I say that simulations are useful because the models that we may make of the emergence of the mechanisms of intelligence in networks of neurons would be very hard to understand without being implemented and simulated.
However, if you are interested in the artificial implementation of the intelligent behavior of some organisms, you could maybe still benefit from understanding how this intelligent behavior arises in these organisms, and take inspiration from these mechanisms.
> Sorry to pick at you for this, but how can you be certain of the many claims you've made here?
I didn't make revolutionary claims regarding the functioning of biological neural networks. The fact that neurons are sensitive to relative spike timing is evident in mechanisms like spike timing dependent plasticity (http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Spike-timing_dependent_p...). The "complex chemistry" that I mention is behind cognition is evident if you open any neurology book, for instance Principles of Neural Science by Kandel.
Then, I say that simulation (and in particular simulation of development as well as learning) is the right road to understanding biological neural systems, but I took care to mention that it is what I believe, not what I know.