ABSTRACT
The most promising new technology capable of influencing theory now appearing on the scene is the large-scale parallel processing "supercomputer". This kind of information-processing giant has now been engineered to a point that, in principle at least, it should be capable of enlisting a vast number of computing elements, a number that is comparable to the number of neurons in the human brain. The parallel processing supercomputer is achieving numbers of synthetic or programmed neurons that are so great that it is feasible to begin to think of the possibility of simulating human brains. However, loading a supercomputer with initial conditions and recovering the myriad details of the resulting response remain major difficulties. Currently, the most promising path to an overarching theory of mind-brain relationships lies at the microscopic network level in which neuronal organization is the key. Top-down theories can never be definitive because of the underdetermined nature of critical evidence.
