viscerella@webtv.net (viscera) writes:
> 1. It ought to be possible to build a computer that does not require
> hardware. Is it? From liquid, free electricity or light?
Wouldn't that be hardware? After all, hardware doesn't have to be hard in the physical sense.
On the other hand, as far as I know, nobody has yet demonstrated the feasibility of such a system. I would guess that the Navier-Stokes equations for some suitable boundary conditions *may* be able to do Turing computation (fluidistors certainly can, but maybe also flows constrained by other flows).
> 2. Can a system be made, an artifical intelligence, which is
> sensitive...which , when subjected to a battery of sensory input, will
> become selective and adjust its own sensitivity and continue to 'learn'
> based on it's sensory needs?
I can't see why not. Artificial neural networks have shown both the ability to adapt to the range of inputs and to build feature detectors suitable for the input. Having a good architecture for the network and the right learning rules is of course essential.
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