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Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#21

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

netsharc wrote: post #19
POiNTx wrote: post #16

I know these don't map 1-to-1 on real natural synapses, but let's say you can magically replace all your natural synapses in a brain with this. What would be the experienced effect? Would you be able to think faster, or would perceived time slow down? Or something else?

I wonder if a human's "refresh rate" has been evolutionary optimized for its environment. Maybe there's no need to evaluate things 30000x faster if our bodies can't react that fast. I guess it would make for faster reaction times, e.g. when driving: driver in front of you hits the brakes, the vision signal enters your brain with the same delay (are optic nerves synapses too?), but I guess the difference is your brain…

Interestingly our bodies can increase the refresh rate and processing of smaller slices of time when needed. I remember an experiment scientists did dropping people from a bungee with an led display that had a display rate too high or fast for normal humans to see it. During the drop they could see the number it was displaying. :)

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#22

Post by insanitybit »

netsharc wrote: post #19
POiNTx wrote: post #16

I know these don't map 1-to-1 on real natural synapses, but let's say you can magically replace all your natural synapses in a brain with this. What would be the experienced effect? Would you be able to think faster, or would perceived time slow down? Or something else?

I wonder if a human's "refresh rate" has been evolutionary optimized for its environment. Maybe there's no need to evaluate things 30000x faster if our bodies can't react that fast. I guess it would make for faster reaction times, e.g. when driving: driver in front of you hits the brakes, the vision signal enters your brain with the same delay (are optic nerves synapses too?), but I guess the difference is your brain…

If I thought 30,000x faster I would kill myself. It's sort of like that "Flash nightmare" where he goes so fast he's waiting an eternity for someone just to breath a syllable. Imagine being able to process information 30kx faster but still be limited to communication methods through senses that are radically more limited? That is hell, that is "The Jaunt".

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#23

Post by mjhay »

a-dub wrote: post #9
orbifold wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer is no. The field is full with tenuous analogies. Then again „Neural Networks“ are also at best metaphorically related. More accurate existing Neuron models are actually also plagued by lots of limitations among them that they are typically implemented in 3 ancient domain specific languages with lots and lots of hardcoded constants copied from research papers.

spiking neural networks are interesting though, and new computational substrates that allow for experiments at larger scales could produce some interesting results. today's sum n' squash (sometimes not even squash) graph networks were just kind of a curiosity before gpus turned them into a new very successful computational paradigm. maybe we'll see something similar with these high element count optical spiking graph…

I'm excited to see where spiking NNs go. Something like that is needed to progress now that conventional NNs on GPUs are pretty much tapped out (in terms of non-incremental advances) from their power consumption and the end of Moore's law. Things really do need to be more hardware-efficient.

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#24

Post by Blammar »

insanitybit wrote: post #22
netsharc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a human's "refresh rate" has been evolutionary optimized for its environment. Maybe there's no need to evaluate things 30000x faster if our bodies can't react that fast. I guess it would make for faster reaction times, e.g. when driving: driver in front of you hits the brakes, the vision signal enters your brain with the same delay (are optic nerves synapses too?), but I guess the difference is your brain…

If I thought 30,000x faster I would kill myself. It's sort of like that "Flash nightmare" where he goes so fast he's waiting an eternity for someone just to breath a syllable. Imagine being able to process information 30kx faster but still be limited to communication methods through senses that are radically more limited? That is hell, that is "The Jaunt".

You mean, you'd kill yourself 30,000x faster 8-).

If it matters to communicate outside, sure. But if you're inside a synthworld with everyone at the same timebase, it's not a problem. Essentially, you're evolving 30,000x faster, so with enough minds in the synthworld, interesting things will happen...

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#26

Post by kjeetgill »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #21
netsharc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a human's "refresh rate" has been evolutionary optimized for its environment. Maybe there's no need to evaluate things 30000x faster if our bodies can't react that fast. I guess it would make for faster reaction times, e.g. when driving: driver in front of you hits the brakes, the vision signal enters your brain with the same delay (are optic nerves synapses too?), but I guess the difference is your brain…

Interestingly our bodies can increase the refresh rate and processing of smaller slices of time when needed. I remember an experiment scientists did dropping people from a bungee with an led display that had a display rate too high or fast for normal humans to see it. During the drop they could see the number it was displaying. :)

Huh, I've heard about this study but recall them having the opposite conclusion.

Edit: I think this is the study we're thinking of. http://psychologyrich.blogspot.com/2011/04/does-bungee-jump-...

They couldn't see the flickering screen any better even though their subjective experience of the duration was longer.

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#27

Post by esrh »

insanitybit wrote: post #22
netsharc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a human's "refresh rate" has been evolutionary optimized for its environment. Maybe there's no need to evaluate things 30000x faster if our bodies can't react that fast. I guess it would make for faster reaction times, e.g. when driving: driver in front of you hits the brakes, the vision signal enters your brain with the same delay (are optic nerves synapses too?), but I guess the difference is your brain…

If I thought 30,000x faster I would kill myself. It's sort of like that "Flash nightmare" where he goes so fast he's waiting an eternity for someone just to breath a syllable. Imagine being able to process information 30kx faster but still be limited to communication methods through senses that are radically more limited? That is hell, that is "The Jaunt".

30000x is bigger than you think!

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#28

Post by thrown_22 »

visarga wrote: post #25
thrown_22 wrote: post #14

Bullets also fly 30,000 times faster than bumble bees. We're not about to use them for pollination though.

Computers calculate billions of times faster than the brain, what's your point?

That computers aren't brains.

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#29

Post by manholio »

miovoid wrote: post #17
POiNTx wrote: post #16

I know these don't map 1-to-1 on real natural synapses, but let's say you can magically replace all your natural synapses in a brain with this. What would be the experienced effect? Would you be able to think faster, or would perceived time slow down? Or something else?

Imagine a game world, where all your opponents 30000 times slower, 30000 times less energy efficient. Time and energy central resources in this game, which cannot be faked anyhow. Even if nuclear fusion or antimatter energy sources are everywhere.

Sounds like a very boring game. The two races are basically distinct, just like the human race is distinct from geology. For all we know, Earth's geology might be sentient already.

Re: Nanowire synapses 30,000x faster than nature’s

#30

Post by ehvatum »

visarga wrote: post #25
thrown_22 wrote: post #14

Bullets also fly 30,000 times faster than bumble bees. We're not about to use them for pollination though.

Computers calculate billions of times faster than the brain, what's your point?

Obviously, that a nanowire-based bumblebee could be fired from a gun and rapidly pollinate.
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