Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
nytimes.com
Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
1–10 of 62 posts
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#2The only way I can explain the (almost entirely american) backlash at the idea of the human brain being a computer that we can emulate is that a lot of them are religious. That is sad.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#3The only way I can explain the (almost entirely american) backlash at the idea of the human brain being a computer that we can emulate is that a lot of them are religious. That is sad.
In academic circles most of it comes from philosophers of mind, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#4Hmmm, They don't cover an important fact: Our intestinal microbiome of bugs that live inside our stomach, affecting our moods and behaviour [1].
[1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141114-autis...
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#5It's totally a computer! Not like how 99% of the world uses the word "computer" but it computes things and is vaguely like a FPGA so it's a computer! Not serial but parallel! Like computers!@ But not parallel like the computer you have. Like a computer that doesn't actually exist. But it's a computer!
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#6Hmmm, They don't cover an important fact: Our intestinal microbiome of bugs that live inside our stomach, affecting our moods and behaviour [1]. [1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141114-autis...
I could think of another 10 things that affect humans moods and behavior that is not mentioned in this article. Your point being?
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#7As long as science keeps thinking this, we won't have to worry about the singularity any time soon.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#8The only serious counter-argument I've heard against the hypothesis that the brain goes further than a Turing machine is that the brain does not implement an algorithm, with one input, some processing steps, and one output.
Instead, it processes information as it comes, this information comes during the processing of previous information and the output partly loops back to the input. Short-circuits everywhere, no clock, etc. I'm unconvinced but I could not refute the argument formally.
Note that this does not contradict the Church-Turing Hypothesis : if you restrict the brain to one input, some processing steps with a pen and paper without arrival of new information, and an output, then it is very possible that the brain can only work out Turing-computable problems.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#9I think the key fail is hidden beneath this statement, 'many “digital” computer switches are built out of analog components and processes'. In fact obviously, all computers are built out of analog components, in the sense that the entire universe is analog.
However, this is the problem. Computers are designed to interpret or translate the messy analog world where nothing is exactly 1 or 0, into a precise, deterministic digital world where everything is either 1 or 0. And I think it's highly likely that the brain does not work in this manner whatsoever, and that in fact, in the translation of reality into 1s and 0s, you've lost far too much to properly "compute consciousness"
Would it be possible to build a synthetic brain out of some form of "analog computer", capable of consciousness? Almost certainly. But since we have no idea what sort of architecture or paradigm that would use, or how we would program it or whether it would even "execute instructions" in a way remotely similar to digital computer software, such a declaration becomes meaningless.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#10The only way I can explain the (almost entirely american) backlash at the idea of the human brain being a computer that we can emulate is that a lot of them are religious. That is sad.
In academic circles most of it comes from philosophers of mind, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Who in their right mind would go to philosophers to get an understanding on how the human brain works at a physical level? Why not go to your priest instead? Same level of understanding.