An interesting opposing view http://www.technologyreview.com/view/511421/the-brain-is-not...
Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
41–50 of 62 posts
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#42I 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, determinist…
> 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 But neurons totally do work by encoding information with discrete signals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential#Process_in_a_... Action po…
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#43This is entirely backwards.
Computers are designed to emulate brains. More specifically, to perform a certain category of brain activity (calculation).
To date, a brain is still needed to make a computer do anything. No brain, no software; no software, all we have is an inert lump of metals and plastics.
We should be quite wary of reversing metaphors in this fashion. 19th century psychology contained a number of metaphors derived ultimately from the steam engine, for human consciousness, and for reality. All we've done is update the machine; the comparison is still backwards.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Do you know what philosophy is? Do you know what science is?
The GP was not a high-quality comment, but please don't make things personal.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know what philosophy is? Do you know what science is?
The GP was not a high-quality comment, but please don't make things personal.
You only think that I'm making things personal because you think those questions, "what is philosophy?", "what is science?" are basic questions that it would be an embarrassment not to know the answers to.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#46I 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, determinist…
> 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 But neurons totally do work by encoding information with discrete signals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential#Process_in_a_... Action po…
Though, not all neuroscientists are on the same page nor agree with the claims some people want to make…
"The frequency of action potentials (APs) generated by neurons is correlated with different events; however, it does not mean that such events are ‘encoded’ in the brain using the firing rate or any other ‘temporal code ’ (e.g. interspike interval)…
…Simultaneous firing of action potentials (synchrony) in a neuronal ensemble increases the interaction of many- body systems and implicitly boosts the computational power [7]. The well accepted model of ‘activation function’ that describes artificial neurons simulated on Turing Machines does not approximate the process of ‘solving equations’. Therefore, the popular claim that current artificial neurons and neural networks are ‘realistic’ models of their biological counterparts is misconstrued and untrue."[0]
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#47(1) A computer is anything that does computations, and a computation is just a set of states that are partially ordered with respect to a “next” state relation.
(2) A universal computer is a computer that can simulate any other computer with some bounded slowdown in performance (the actual important thing about such computers is that they can simulate better computers).
So, while the brain seems to have a universal computer (since it can design and run universal computers), it’s not obvious that a universal computer can simulate a brain without infinite slowdown. Some evidence against brains being equivalent to Universal Turing Machines is that some brains can perceive real numbers. Thus, it’s conceivable that even if the mind (the thing that is realized by a brain) is a partially ordered set of states, it’s possible that the states themselves are not computable.
Now, I am not claiming that we cannot eventually build a brain, just suggesting that maybe the only thing that can simulate a brain is another brain.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To claim that the brain has a fundamental advantage over a Turing machine is to claim that there's some magical quantum (or otherwise) advantage in the brain's physical system that is un-simulate-able by a Turing machine. Again, please point to any research you know of indicating that the universe itself is fully Turing-computable.
Universe doesn't have to be, just neurons and other brain hardware. Of course you can always see quantum phenomena affecting outcome, you just have to rule those out as neligible / much lower than noize threshold.
There are many functions which cannot be computed on a Turing Machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computable_function#Uncomputab...
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GP was not a high-quality comment, but please don't make things personal.
You only think that I'm making things personal because you think those questions, "what is philosophy?", "what is science?" are basic questions that it would be an embarrassment not to know the answers to.
That's sort of true, but misses my point. I'll try to be clearer. Such questions are commonly used as rhetorical weapons, so if you don't mean them that way, it's incumbent on you to make the distinction.
In this case that might mean (a) providing enough information to explain why escalating the question is necessary to the discussion, as opposed to a closet insult, and (b) using impersonal language. For example, you already changed your wording from "do you know what science is" to "what is science". That's a big difference.
Re: Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You only think that I'm making things personal because you think those questions, "what is philosophy?", "what is science?" are basic questions that it would be an embarrassment not to know the answers to.
That's sort of true, but misses my point. I'll try to be clearer. Such questions are commonly used as rhetorical weapons, so if you don't mean them that way, it's incumbent on you to make the distinction. In this case that might mean (a) providing enough information to explain why escalating the question is necessary to the discussion, as opposed to a closet insult, and (b) using impersonal language. For example, you…
OK, I appreciate your feedback.