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Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

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Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#141

Post by EmilioMartinez »

canjobear wrote: post #81
kristopolous wrote: post #69

They aren't the same thing. They are different classes of objects, different tasks. This comparison is kind of silly. I'd hate my computer to have the memory accuracy or the computational accuracy of my brain. I'd hate to have the creativity and inspiration of a computer. Delete being such a nontrivial operation is probably a good thing for humans. Copy being imperfect probably has something to do with the phenomenon…

When we say the brain has poor computational accuracy, we’re usually talking about the conscious brain we’re aware of. But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. These low-level brain computations are the thing to compare to AI, not our conscious thinking. Our conscious mind is more like low-precision software running on top of an enormously powerf…

How do you even define accuracy for an analog process which solves for unknown formulations? Not saying you can't, but afaik there's no ground to call them accurate. It's certaintly chucking a lot of data in functional ways.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#142

Post by The_rationalist »

deepnotderp wrote: post #109
shawnz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The brain cannot simulate a turing machine. It does not have infinite memory, which is a requirement for a turing machine. In practice we call modern computers turing-complete even though they don't have infinite memory. The brain can simulate such a machine. > The brain has no such constraint. It is analog, and therefore infinite in State representation. If this mattered, then it would mean analog computers are mo…

Isn't the recent Google quantum "supremacy" experiment evidence against the extended Church-Turing thesis?

Google has not proved quantum supremacy, it is a scam. They have proved the truism that running a physical system is faster than running a simulation of a physical system...

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#143

Post by rland »

EmilioMartinez wrote: post #141
canjobear wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we say the brain has poor computational accuracy, we’re usually talking about the conscious brain we’re aware of. But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. These low-level brain computations are the thing to compare to AI, not our conscious thinking. Our conscious mind is more like low-precision software running on top of an enormously powerf…

How do you even define accuracy for an analog process which solves for unknown formulations? Not saying you can't, but afaik there's no ground to call them accurate. It's certaintly chucking a lot of data in functional ways.

Reaction time and the physical operation of the body are things that seem obvious to me. Try to design a control system for a machine that could replicate a gymnast, for example.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#144

Post by grawprog »

ALittleLight wrote: post #121
jbay808 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when I first took a data structures course, learning things like trees and linked lists, I had a total paradigm shift with respect to how I understood my own mind. I had never really thought about the different ways that data could be organized, and how they perform differently. I figured that since this was so basic to computer science, my own mind couldn't be doing something completely different. It migh…

Recently I was thinking about how my brain answers the question "What's your favorite movie?" and how I can easily answer that question, but it's harder to answer a question like "What's your favorite movie where a gun is fired?" It seems to me that whenever I watch a movie, if I really liked it, I check my perceived quality of the movie against the quality of my current favorite movie, and if the new movie beats the…

>The question of "Favorite movie where a gun is shot" is much harder, I think, because my memories aren't really indexed that way. I can't query by "gun is shot" so I can't get the subset of movies I've seen with gun shots and pick my favorite.

And yet as much as yours or mine, or likely most people's memories aren't indexed that way, I bet if you asked enough people you'd find someone who organized their memories in some obscure strange way that would let them answer that question immediately.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#145

Post by k__ »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132
canjobear wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we say the brain has poor computational accuracy, we’re usually talking about the conscious brain we’re aware of. But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. These low-level brain computations are the thing to compare to AI, not our conscious thinking. Our conscious mind is more like low-precision software running on top of an enormously powerf…

> But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. That accuracy is more likely achieved through fast, analog feedback loops than precise calculation.

How come that in many sports people a good because they basically know everything by heart?

Prof. basball batters, for exampley, are completely baffled by prof. throwers of other sports.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#146

Post by robotresearcher »

canjobear wrote: post #81
kristopolous wrote: post #69

They aren't the same thing. They are different classes of objects, different tasks. This comparison is kind of silly. I'd hate my computer to have the memory accuracy or the computational accuracy of my brain. I'd hate to have the creativity and inspiration of a computer. Delete being such a nontrivial operation is probably a good thing for humans. Copy being imperfect probably has something to do with the phenomenon…

When we say the brain has poor computational accuracy, we’re usually talking about the conscious brain we’re aware of. But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. These low-level brain computations are the thing to compare to AI, not our conscious thinking. Our conscious mind is more like low-precision software running on top of an enormously powerf…

> But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation.

Such as?

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#147

Post by GeneralMayhem »

robotresearcher wrote: post #146
canjobear wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we say the brain has poor computational accuracy, we’re usually talking about the conscious brain we’re aware of. But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. These low-level brain computations are the thing to compare to AI, not our conscious thinking. Our conscious mind is more like low-precision software running on top of an enormously powerf…

> But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. Such as?

Identify a ball in a box of items, toss it up in the air, and then catch it. Congratulations, you've just exhibited more computational power than most computers are capable of, including some very precise physics simulation and inverse kinematics.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#148

Post by ramblenode »

maskboy wrote: post #130
joesb wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But our low-level motor actions and perceptions, coordinated by the brain, require a lot of precise computation. But we don't actually do that precise computation though. try repeating any action exactly and you will see some inaccuracy.

no, you will see some variability

Accuracy is a function of variability and bias.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#149

Post by sooheon »

dependenttypes wrote: post #139
sooheon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biology is the ultimate legacy software running on one of the oldest platforms ever developed, the organic compounds. It is literally a giant genetic algorithm to write instructions (DNA) for manufacturing molecular machines (proteins) that interact with each other in an extremely complex graph of relations (protein pathways, i.e. control flow).

I am sure that I saw this exact message on HN before. Did you copy it from someone else or did you repost your own post?

I wrote it out ad hoc, I don’t doubt that something similar has been written before though.

Re: Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient? (2018)

#150

Post by sooheon »

criddell wrote: post #65
sooheon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biology is the ultimate legacy software running on one of the oldest platforms ever developed, the organic compounds. It is literally a giant genetic algorithm to write instructions (DNA) for manufacturing molecular machines (proteins) that interact with each other in an extremely complex graph of relations (protein pathways, i.e. control flow).

That feels more to me like hardware and software in the sense of a Jacquard loom. I suppose it fits though. I was thinking more about what's going on in the brain. We have all the regions mapped to specific functions with higher and lower level parts. The low level parts seem to be like hard-wired stimulus-response mechanisms. Are the higher level systems the same at a meta level or is there a type of program running…

The stimulus response mechanisms are far from hard wired. The brain is plastic at all levels.
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