Parallelism, Real vs. Simulated: A Query

[Dr. Josef Skrzypek]

   I have a simple question: What capabilities of PDP systems do and
   do not depend on the net's actually being implemented in parallel,
   rather than just being serially simulated? Is it only speed and
   capacity parameters, or something more?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Good (and dangerous) question. Applicable to Neural Nets in general and not
only to PDP.

It appears that you can simulate anything
that you wish. In principle you trade computation in space for
computation in time. If you can make your time-slices small enough and
complete all of the necessary computation within each slice there seem to
be no reason to have neural networks. In reality, simulation of
synchronized, temporal events taking place in a 3D network that allows
for feedback pathways is rather cumbersome.