Correct.

The human mind is clearly not a Turing machine (see Penrose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind
)

I (50 years in the computer business) strongly doubt that we will ever see a general speech recognition machine that approaches human capabilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGxKhUuZ0Rc

Equivalent to … what was it, 15 billion semiconducting parallel processing circuits in the palm of one hand, I think it was.

That would pretty much exceed one person’s brain, but perhaps not 100 genius level brains put together.

No, you’re wrong here, because you’re presuming a skill that computers don’t yet have, particularly not to the level that humans do:

pattern recognition

Y’all should understand — humans are literally AMAZING pattern recognizers. It’s what we’re spectacularly good at. We’re so good, we see patterns that AREN’T there. That’s what “Numerology” and “Astrology” and the like are all about.

Computers can do SOME things well in this regard — they’re better at pulling THOUSANDS of data objects up and finding SIMPLE patterns in them.

But complex patterns, like “if ‘t’, then ‘a’, if ‘y’, then ‘x’, if ‘t’ then NOT ‘a’, but ‘z’, then ‘f’ — the more complex the alternatives get to be, the harder it is for the computer to do it right.

And it will NEVER infer from what has been coded, the way a human would.

Example: I have a cat. It has fleas. Tell me how you would go about getting rid of the fleas.

Well, a computer program might realize — heat kills fleas, so throw the cat in a furnace.

You and I would know automatically that was not an acceptable answer, but the computer does not know enough to INFER that, since the cat would also die, that’s not an acceptable solution at all.

Don’t confuse beating a grand master at chess, or even winning on Jeopardy, as a sign that computers understand things. These are well-defined problems, and even so, with the latter, there were some very oddly incorrect choices and answers arrived at. Hunt through youtube for post-win analysis of the Watson v. Jeopardy Champs, they speak of how it came up with some very very wrong answers in one or two cases.

It can work fairly well for a wide array of languages and dialects for a small number of words, especially if you take the time to “train” it to your own tongue/dialect.

But generic voice recognition is still a hard task not well accomplished.

When I AM trying to speak to one, I attempt to place as little inflection and speak in as “robotic” a manner as possible. “Yes”. “No.” “One. One. Five. Three. Seven. Bee. Cee. Ef.” with the periods representing full and clear stops for a substantial fraction of a second.

Realize that much of what makes humans humans — “common sense” — is not available to computers at this point. When we hear someone, a lot of time we’re actually figuring out what they said as much as hearing it. We hear something that sounds like “x y z” and only as we process it do we realize they said “Ecks: Why ‘Z’?” because we place it in context. We do more than hear, we THINK about what we hear, too.

So reliable, general-purpose voice recognition is still a good ways off.

One time I slammed my elbow down on a desk and the nerve compressed, producing extremely strong signals.

A lot of natural stretching also tends to pull on the nerves, and people experience a weaker form of it when they hit the limits. Stretching doesn’t make nerves regrow or grow longer, but it can rearrange the internal muscles and tissues so that they stop pulling on the nerves.

http://www.clubbell.tv/

Something like that and the education there in, should improve joint health for Neo. But softer and slower movements, like Taiji Chuan, would have a lot less impact on the nerves and muscles. Depends on fitness and energy levels which one would be better rehabilitation.

I have to swing a steel sword around without poking myself with it, so shoulder flexibility and strength matters, a lot, to me. If joints get damaged, bad things start happening.

I know you’re trying to be helpful, and I’m not taking offense.

In my case though it was always, unequivocally nerve pain. For example: all of my pain was in the distribution of the ulnar nerves. My pain was clearly neuropathic, a type of pain which is very very different from muscle pain or other pains. It involves disturbed sensations primarily, of tingling, burning (especially burning, as though scalded, all along the path of the nerves), tremors and weakness in the fingers enervated by those nerves, and a host of other things too tedious to mention but very clear. What’s more, when they did surgery on me and exposed the nerve at the elbow, they discovered that the nerve itself (even though this was 9 years after the original injury) was very red and swollen, and had been pinned down by an unusual amount of scar tissue that they had to dissect away.

And I am about 85% to 90% better now than I was before the surgery.

There’s really little doubt it was a nerve injury, and no doctor I went to ever doubted that. The question was whether surgery would help, and if so which one, because the nerve was thought to be compressed at at least two levels.

It has been a constant difficulty.

There are about two dozen explanations I consider for this reality, but it is a strange reality.

So what, that is life.

The damned machines ought to be able to understand all of them, though. There are little vowel differences, but mutually intelligible.