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Similarly, the brain surely has limits to parallelism, for the same sorts of reasons a computer does. You only have one mouth, so if two parts of the brain tried to speak, fully parallelized, you'd get nonsense at best. They have to agree on what to say, which is effectively serialization.
I recently realized the (obvious in hindsight) fact that general intelligence better that brute force doesn't exist, as intelligence is equivalent to compression. Given the recent discoveries about neurons using mRNA capsids to communicate [0] it's not that farfetched to posit that we are really dna computers [1]. The processing time (for new problems) seems human-like: "The slow processing speed of a DNA-computer (t…
In this case "communicate" is in a narrow sense - this communication is very slow and Arc has more to do with plasticity rather than the electrical response of neurons.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a meaningless distinction when talking about the brain. The brain is very much doing calculations that we are not aware of, but they still occur.
Maybe I misread it, but I think the poster was talking about conscious vs. subconscious processes, not brain vs. non-brain processes.
Computationally, predicting the location is actually worse as it involves tracking the ball's location and then adds on it's likely location. It's basically stuck going ok my lagg is ~1/20th of a second so I see X, it's actually at Y, but my reaction is going to be anther ~1/20 of a second so I need to try and hit it at Z. And then continuously updating both Y and Z based on new information. Then on top of that you have multiple Z's for different things etc etc.
Consciously you don't really perceive that lag because your stuck with it.
PS: And of course each part of the nervous system has different amounts of lag. To the point where many decisions are made outside of the brain.
The article seems to be about how it is that the brain can process so much information at so slow a cycle speed, but it doesn't really address power efficiency at all. Even assuming 100% parallel operation, our current chip designs use something like a factor of a million more energy to do the same amount of computation. I wish I knew why- it's not like we're ignoring power efficiency. Depolarization of an axon must…
I recently realized the (obvious in hindsight) fact that general intelligence better that brute force doesn't exist, as intelligence is equivalent to compression. Given the recent discoveries about neurons using mRNA capsids to communicate [0] it's not that farfetched to posit that we are really dna computers [1]. The processing time (for new problems) seems human-like: "The slow processing speed of a DNA-computer (t…
What do you mean by this?
It sounds like you are assuming nature requires exactness and are really making a philosophical argument about the nature of computation, namely an np solution in p 'doesnt exist'
> Memory as dna would explain high-level memory quirks
If we are conjecturing than so too could approximate results 'explain high-level memory quirks'
we already have many approximate algorithms that are significantly better than brute force, and I would argue that any read procedure would necessarily be algorithmic, which then would require an explanation as to why this natural process failed to evolve over time
If such an explanation is simply, though arguably counterfactual, 'nature requires exactness' and so is unable to utilize the incremental improvement of evolving algorithms for approximate results, I would argue this implies p!=np because otherwise I think, if it were able, nature would tend toward improving on exactness over the 13B+ years it's been expressing mathematical truths
Being as my intended inference in regard this specific unsolved problem is to develop an algorithm to show p=np, I wonder if the process we refer to as conciousness may be such an algorithm
> neurons using mRNA capsids to communicate
I wonder if the rna is raw memory data or architectural plans for nuerons which, when constructed, express memory
The side-to-side comparison is not very accurate. The brain consists of many structures, many of them involved in non-cognitive tasks.
The "speed of basic operation" column is given as "10 GHz" for a computer and 1 kHz for a human brain, but later is clarified that the 1 kHz refers to the maximum observed frequency of a neuron's output. Arguably these are unrelated metrics. I don't think a thing like "speed of basic operation" can even be defined for a human brain, because fundamentally it's a programmable computer metric that simply doesn't transfe…
Imagine running a program on a computer where everything is somehow memoized, on a system that is always powered on.
I feel like there must be some way to 'clean' our brains. As we get older it must accumulate 'gunk' that slow it down or weaken connections. I guess sleep is the closest thing we have but to me that's like saying drink water to fix tooth decay.
I recently realized the (obvious in hindsight) fact that general intelligence better that brute force doesn't exist, as intelligence is equivalent to compression. Given the recent discoveries about neurons using mRNA capsids to communicate [0] it's not that farfetched to posit that we are really dna computers [1]. The processing time (for new problems) seems human-like: "The slow processing speed of a DNA-computer (t…
Why wouldn't AIXI count under your definition? (I recognize that AIXI can't be truly implemented, but I don't see where your explanation fits in a "unless you have a halting oracle")
"a professional tennis player can follow the trajectory of a tennis ball after it is served at a speed as high as 160 miles per hour" This is false or at least highly misleading. A reader might imagine that the player's eyes track the ball in flight. This is not what happens. A pro player reads the position of the serve and begins moving before the ball is hit. The predictive power of the brain is much more important…
The way other articles describe it, a pro player is not really aware of the incoming ball, lower level non-conscious (reflex) systems track the environment and react before you are aware of it, just like when a regular person dodges a sudden obstacle coming at them and only a bit later they realize what's going on.
The conscious mind processing these things can often get in the way but, in the case of sports, alter the instinctive behaviour into something advantageous. An augmentation of the conscious and subconscious into better performance.
A converse example, being conflict between conscious and sub-conscious, is if you drop a mug of boiling water, the instinctive reaction is to try and catch 'thing you dropped', but the conscious reaction is 'don't burn yourself' so don't catch it and jump backwards to not get splashed.
Very interesting stuff.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)#Consc...
Beware (or since it's the HN crowd, Recommended!): hard sci-fi.
I feel like there must be some way to 'clean' our brains. As we get older it must accumulate 'gunk' that slow it down or weaken connections. I guess sleep is the closest thing we have but to me that's like saying drink water to fix tooth decay.
Your memories and experiences (potentially one and the same) colour your experience of the world and make you react in different ways, not always beneficial - but the phenomenon wouldn't exist if it wasn't historically, evolutionarily beneficial.