
Does the entorhinal cortex use the Fourier transform? (2013) - adamnemecek
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2013.00179/full
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enriquto
Very interesting article, despite the silly title.

Does a piano compute the inverse Fourier transform when it plays a sound? Of
course, it is exactly what it does, but it is not very informative, put that
way.

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mannykannot
I would go further, and say a piano is not calculating anything, as it is not
performing symbolic manipulation. I am not sure that the case is so clear for
assemblages of neurons in general (are patterns of spikes symbols?), but
modeling a physical process computationally does not make the case that the
process itself is a computation.

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TeMPOraL
> _but modeling a physical process computationally does not make the case that
> the process itself is a computation_

IANA Mathematician, but I was under impression that it does exactly that, in a
sense that if a physical process gives you results of an abstract computation,
you can use this to get minimal bounds on energy requirements. Changing a bit
has minimal theoretical energy cost in physical reality.

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mannykannot
I guess it depends on if you think a computation is a manipulation of symbols.
The sort of physical processes involved in a piano making sound are not
symbolic manipulations, and being modelable through symbolic manipulations, or
giving the same results (at whatever level of abstraction) as a symbolic
manipulation, is not the same as being a symbolic manipulation.

