The human brain

There was a recent thread about computers reaching human brain processing power...well, guess what? that ain't gonna happen any time soon!

The human brain is the most powerful CPU ever conceived:

www.newscientist.com...

It is the most powerful distributed network in nature, capable of parallel processing of billions of instructions...

I think that when people say computers will "soon" become as powerful as the human brain, they are referring to the relatively fast-paced (as compared to biological processes) advancement of technology referred to by Moore's Law.

Moore's Law is the empirical observation that the complexity of integrated circuits, with respect to minimum component cost, doubles every 24 months. It is attributed to Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel.

Certain scientists estimate that in just decades, we'll have computer intelligence which is virtually indistinguishable from human intelligence. We'll have to wait to see if a drastic improvement on computing *power* equals a drastic improvement upon *intelligence*.

I always though it wasn't the technology that was the issue, rather the software when it comes to AI. Even with a computer with the processing power comparable to a human brain, without a conscience its still basically a giant calculator. How do you program a sentient being? What give humans a conscience that drives them to learn? People often say that the human brain is just a giant processing machine and nothing more. I don't believe that, there must be something more. First comes self awareness, then comes the need to understand, followed by emotion.

If a computer comes as fast as a human brain dosn't mean it's as good. a computer bulky, inefficiant, and basically a giant calculator, it can't learn without programming something software. That software would be extremly hard to develeop.

Once running the software that makes it learn, there comes the issue of weather or not it can be classified as a living thing. Does it think like we do? Is it alive? I seriously doubt it

[edit on 15-9-2006 by PisTonZOR]

Ah yes, Biochauvinism(the belief that only an organic lifeform can think and feel), it will be the cause of a great many misdeeds and hardships in the centuries to come.

AI has always pusseld me, i wonder does something need to be biological to be alive?

the brain is a mass of attoms
computers are masses of atoms

sure they are aranged in differentways ,but is there an underlyin blueprint for for
thought.

could the internet one day come alive? eg t3 rise of the machines.
will they be as humal like as us? eg blade runner

arrr too many questions

There's always some kind of logical process or explanation for everything that is supposedly natural. What I just read about atoms in the previous post is of something in the direction I'd like to aim.

Humans are much like computers or the other way around if you want. The functions an organic being possesses are basically the same of a developed artificial machine - the only difference is the fact that one is "organic"/"natural"/"biological", and the other is "machine-like" and "made by man".

The brain: a piece of biological MEAT which happens to be complex and has developed, with many functions, and finding itself in a complex organic being we call human which has many connections here and there - connections that FUNCTION somehow and can be logically translated to something "machine-like".
Basically, what it comes down to is the fact that when you look at it humans are very much like computers or robots, with their respected "parts" or (organic) "hardware" FUNCTIONING in some way, as the system is located in the brain with other software.


Sounds pretty to the point and logical to me.

Originally posted by Toasty
I always though it wasn't the technology that was the issue, rather the software when it comes to AI. Even with a computer with the processing power comparable to a human brain, without a conscience its still basically a giant calculator. How do you program a sentient being? What give humans a conscience that drives them to learn? People often say that the human brain is just a giant processing machine and nothing more. I don't believe that, there must be something more. First comes self awareness, then comes the need to understand, followed by emotion.

Ah, that's easy. My theory is that the brain has exactly one function as 'built-in' with 4 stages:

1) input: sensors send their signals to the brain.
2) pattern matching: the brain recalls the experience that matches the current situation.
3) output: the recalled experience contains a number of responses sent to the neural system.
4) storage: the whole experience described above is stored in the brain as another experience.

Consiousness arises due to step #4 described above: as the experiences become more and more complex, at some point thinking arises.

Of course the above is my theory, but I am 100% that such is the case. I have been observing my sister's kids for 4 years now, and it is quite obvious how the whole system works.

The real debate, as has been stated, is whether or not computing power has anything to do with conscious thought. Another idea I've contemplated, which may come before artificial intelligence, is artificial life. A tree, or a bacterium even, is very much alive... but isn't, as far as we know, capable of conscious thought. An artificial cell, which is capable of mitosis would be a great leap in that direction. Create that cell, and put at its basest command adapt self, grow.

Supposing, however, that in 30 years, we've managed to build a purely mechanical component, which equals or surpasses the human brain in raw processing power, it wouldn't suddenly be alive and intelligent. Even with such a device, it would take a pretty complicated programming language to be encompassing and adaptable enough to support an artificial intelligence, capable of independant thought.

Life, all life on earth anyway, is scripted, built, and programmed by an incredible source code: DNA, and we as a race are still trying to understand consciousness.

[edit on 18-9-2006 by BlaznRob]

Originally posted by masterp
There was a recent thread about computers reaching human brain processing power...well, guess what? that ain't gonna happen any time soon!

The human brain is the most powerful CPU ever conceived:

www.newscientist.com...

It is the most powerful distributed network in nature, capable of parallel processing of billions of instructions...

wouldn't it be correct to say that, the brain doesn't do much without the nervous system that feeds it?...

Just like a computer, the processor just sits there doing nothing unless some external connection is made to the processors internal components,

another way of looking at it is... the brain just sorts information it recieves, it processes it... Like a processor collects the data from the keyboard, mouse, hard-drive, monitor, etc, etc... and the processor directs it in an understandable way, using some of the external devices its connected to, sort of a two way system, like it can recieve data from the eyes and it can also project data to the eyes...

What I'm proposing is that our brain absorbs the information and is slowly sorting it so it can project all of it... this is hard to explain..

Our brains absorbed the constant ALL from Birth, but couldn't process it in a coherent manner, so its waiting until you can understand parts of it, and than it projects it into your reality...


[edit on 9/18/2006 by PuRe EnErGy]

I think conciousness is just a ghost in the machine so to speak. I think that neuralogically we evolve simple neurons which over time self regulated themself and the organ directly linked to it and once the process snowballs and many neuron bundles become in competion with each other for resources a form of commity takes place manifesting it's self as awareness. if it gets even more complicated then they become intelligent. But intelligence and awareness could just be the net effect of all these neurons doing specific task related functions. It could be a simple phenomina that happens once all the prerequitset factors are in place. So why can computers be capable of slowly evolving into the same concious eschelon we have? I think it's totally possible to create intelligent self replicating entities, which we would lable as artificial life or intelligence until we finally conceed that they are alive and intelligent also and not artificial but just different. One day the computers will be just as fast as us, and maybe even smarter and more capable than us old mod 1 humans. After all they didn't arise by evolutionary chance but by out guidance and engieneering. They could end up being the worthy sucessors and modle for life in the universe. Maybe we'll even join them, since the difference in conciousness will be just a preferance of construction material, and the silicon/quantum mind might give us advantages when synergistically combined with our old fashioned but elegantly efficient carbon based neurons.

Pure energy,

I agree with you. I remember in collage a professor saying that you'll learn and be exposed to so much that you won't understand or get it, let alone make use of the info effectivly for at least 2 years after graduating, because the brain would be too busy subconciously sorting and organizing the raw data. Durring the time you sorta just memorize everything you can but are still at a loss for the big picture. Sure enough a few years after collage everything I was being taught started to click into place and make lots of sense and now I can project it from my subconcious to my concious and unto reality.