Brain = Computer?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

In what ways are human brains like computers?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 09:52 (twenty-three years ago)

It's often said that one important difference between human brains and computers is how memory works. There's not supposed to be a close analogy between computer and human memory, because computer meemory occupies a finite amount of space, whereas human memory doesn't, because it works by connections. But is that only true up to a point? You hear about ppl being able to memorise the sequence of a whole pack of cards, but not 5, 10, 50 packs.....

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 09:54 (twenty-three years ago)

you always wish your one was better than it is...get clogged up w/ useless data...& they're grey.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 09:56 (twenty-three years ago)

+Dominic O'Brien has set a new World Record in memory. He successfully memorised 54 decks of playing cards (2808 cards) with a single sighting of each card. The event was held at Simpsons In The Strand, London on Wednesday 1st May 2002 and lasted over 16 hours in total. Dominic was allowed a maximum of 0.5 percent errors (14 cards) and only made eight. The memorisation process took nearly 12 hours and the recall took four hours. A fantastic achievement.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 10:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark - that's still a finite number of connections though. Hence possible to model (even if you model in the failings).

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 10:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm reading Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" at the moment. He points out another crucial difference. With a computer, you build it, you switch it on and it starts working. Brains, however, start to work whilst they are being 'built' (in the womb).

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

hah, is that book any good? he was an old prof of mine

― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:08 (twenty-three years ago)

well, I'm enjoying it - I read it on the bus to work in the mornings. I find sometimes that he lacks the clarity of, say, Peter Medawar or Stephen Jay Gould, but he's certainly a good author to read after Gould, seeing as Gould was always wary of attributing too much to our genes and would often write essays abt how too much has been attributed to genetics in the past and the dangers of so doing (e.g. Francis Galton and the eugenics movement). Pinker's introduction was very lucid - he explains how for various political and historical reasons, it has become a no-no to attribute any human mental/behavioural characteristic to nature, as opposed to nurture. He does get bogged down sometimes and I feel he occasionally assumes a knowledge of Chomsky's linguistic theories - will definitely have to read some of Chomsky's work now.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Brain in womb does not start to work straight away from the first cell. So even it has a turning on point, whilst still forming at the same time. Same could be said with a computer, you can quite easily keep adding memory and other peripherals while it is on, having its very first central piece as a CPU with a clock in it.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Remember reading somewhere about analogy switches (think it might have been Zizek). The writer made the point that you start with computers serving as the analogy for brains; the mechanisms of the computer are compared to the operation of the brain (it can remember stuff and perform calculations based on information). Then, in the 90s, the analogy gets switched - the organic starts to be explained using the mechanical.

Whilst the first period is easier to explain through simple familiarity - we have brains, what's this new fangled computer jiggery-pokery (or peekery, early 80s programming fans) . But when both have become ubiquitous, the prioritising of the computer indicates something, which is probably tied up in the cyborgisation of the human race yada yada yada.

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Derek Warwick to thread.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Never heard of him - is he related to Dionne?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Did you mean Kevin Warwick?

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, it must be theis faulty memory chip in my -bzzzt- brain than made me think he was a boring rubbish mid 80's racing driver.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

KW is from the Men Tel Corporation

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Screeecccchhhhhh.

At your service Pete. Does sir fancy Le Mans? Maybe a one-off stint in a crappy team. Maybe a rally or two, or perhaps a heritage hill climb event to be shown on Bank Holiday Monday?

― Derek Warwick (daveb), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Many of these responses seem to treat the subject as "brain=pentium" instead of "brain=computer"... The brain processes information differently than a pentium, but both are definitely computers.

― Stuart, Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Er, they are both electrical?
I think they used to be like telephone exchanges, and before that they were like plumbing systems (Freudies still think they are)

No doubt there's some newfangled zeitgeisty biochemical explanation for them these days.

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:41 (twenty-three years ago)

brain = guilt sack.

― Mark C (Mark C), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Brain in womb does not start to work straight away from the first cell.

In which it is proved that Pete does not believe in D*anetics. And wisely so.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

I used know a girl called Diane Etics at school though. I believe in her - but always poke my tongue at people in THAT shop on Tottenham COurt Road.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the analogies are misleading and rarely useful, personally.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 18:23 (twenty-three years ago)

You're all using the term "computer" to refer to specific types of computers. A computer is a device for processing symbolic data. Brains are computers. Period. Comparisons of brains and various human built computers from the 20th century are interesting of course, but be specific.

― Dave Fischer, Wednesday, 22 January 2003 19:58 (twenty-three years ago)

five years pass...

"Whole brain emulation (WBE), the possible future one‐to‐one modelling of the function of the
human brain, is academically interesting and important for several reasons"
sandberg and bostrom are at it again. checking it now
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/Reports/2008-3.pdf

― Sébastien, Tuesday, 4 November 2008 01:00 (seventeen years ago)

Kurzweil talks alot about this too, doesn't he? Recently he said in the next 20-25 years we will be able to map a complete human brain, unless my memory is faulty..

― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 4 November 2008 03:37 (seventeen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.