[ExI] neurons

[William Flynn Wallace]

In The Future on the Mind, by Michio Kaku, he says as follows (facing page
342):

"Define complex in terms of the total amount of information that can be
stored.  The closet rival to the brain might be the info contained w/in our
DNA.  Three billion base pairs containing one of four aids, therefore total
amount of info is four to the three billionth power.  The brain can store
much more - one hundred billion neurons, *which can either fire or not fire*.
Hence there are two raised to the one-hundred-billionth power initial
states of the brain.... the states change every few milliseconds.  A simple
thought may contain  one hundred generations of neural firings.  Hence
there are two raised by one hundred billion, all raised to the hundredth
power possible thoughts contained in one hundred generations.  Brains are
ceaselessly computing.  Therefore the total number of thoughts possible
within N generations is two to the one-hundred-billionth power, all raised
to the Nth power.

My question concerns the underlined clause:  there are three states to a
neuron:  increasing its rate, decreasing its rate, and staying the same.
Kaku says that a neuron fires or not.  This seems to say that a neuron is
idle, waiting for stimuli, whereas I think that no neuron ever is not
firing.

Am I confused again, or is he wrong?  bill w
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