The brain isn't literally a computer. Sometimes it can be helpful to think of it that way, but it can cause misunderstandings too.This is kind of annoying. You're taking one type of computer -- ordinary desktop computers -- with software stacks and the like and saying that anything that isn't like those things isn't a computer. But that's not right at all. There are lots of computers that aren't anything like modern desktop computers. Old analogue computers had no real separation between hardware and software, for example.
Computers have a hierarchy of abstractions that the brain lacks. You have the hardware, then the OS sitting on it, with programs running managed by the OS. The same basic CPU can be a desktop, can run an embedded system like an ATM, or the controller for some subsystem on an airplane or car. You can run web browsers, whatever. It can be reprogrammed.
Computers have a clear-cut unit of information (the bit) which is respected at all times. Information is stored as bits, manipulated as bits, transmitted as bits. In computers, information storage and processing are conceptually and physically separated. The brain has no known unit of information.Again, you're just misusing terms here. Information is a mathematical quantity that can be measured. You can absolutely have non-integer amounts of information. A number like 1.5 bits is totally plausible. And you can figure out how much information is a neuron spike if you want too.
Computers are fundamentally organized around a CPU which performs sequential instructions. It's certainly possible to parallelize CPUs and have many work together. To do this, you need a problem which is parallelizable. Then the problem is divided upAgain, you're only talking about one type of computer. Not all theoretical types of computers. No one is saying that the brain is a PC that you can run windows on, only that it's mathematically equivalent to a computer Turing machine type computer, one that could be emulated on a device mathematically equivalent to a universal Turing machine.
Indeed, the first computer, Babbage's Difference Engine, was analog, as were the cryptanalysis bombes or calculators used during World War II.I don't think Babbage's difference engine was analog. It was mechanical, but it was still using integers (i.e. digits). Analog computers actually computed analog values using electronic circuit components to compute differential equations to simulate things like gravity for doing bomb drop computations.
Bug #59345 Atman points to multiple locations, remains inconsistent Indian Merchant < mark@india.biz > 800 BCE Comment 1 Following the Eternalists' instructions I have begun a period of deep yoga searching for my true self, or Atman. However, after meditation today I realized that the Atman I'm feeling right now is different from the one I got a few weeks ago. Also, my Eternalist guru keeps changing his mind about how much he charges for consulting. What's up with this whole atman thing? Nihilist < trash@dev.null > 800 BCE Comment 2 Atman is deprecated garbage. If your guru knew what he was doing he'd be pointing you toward self-annihilation right now. I recommend starving and torturing yourself until your feeling of self is extinguished entirely. Indian Merchant < mark@aol.com > 700 BCE Comment 3 I died during my ascetic practice and was reincarnated as an AOL user!!!! Someone besides Nihilist please help me !!!!!! Nihilist < trash@dev.null > 700 BCE Comment 4 You obviously weren't trying hard enough. Requesting admin so I can mark this INVALID. You're the idiot for looking for atman in the first place. [...] Gautama < gautama@kapilvastu.in > 500 BCE Comment 1435 Status changed to WONTFIX Gautama < gautama@kapilvastu.in > 500 BCE Comment 1436 This isn't a bug, it's a feature. "Atman" cannot be assigned to any individual part of a human being, but is the combination of all parts. It's an important part of the nature of reality that atman remains inconsistent and the product of multiple skandhas. Maya < maya@samsara.int > 480 BCE Comment 1437 Reopen this bug IMMEDIATELY. People all over the world are trying to find their true selves or learn who created them. How are we supposed to do that if we don't even know who we are? Vajira < vajira@sangha.in > 480 BCE Comment 1438 This bug is already resolved. Think of the word "atman" as something like the word "car". A car isn't any of its individual parts, and even all the parts together do not magically form a car. Only the relationships and changes between the parts create something we can call a car. Maya < maya@samsara.int > 480 BCE Comment 1439 Ugh, why is it so hard to troll this bugzilla ever since Gautama got admin? Bug #438801 Where does e-mail go if there is no self???? Milinda < majordomo@sakala.in > 100 BCE Comment 1 Hey Nagasena, you said there is no self, so where does your e-mail go to? Will you even read this bug?? HMMM???!? Nagasena < nagasena@sanga.in > 100 BCE Comment 2 Status changed to DUPLICATE Nagasena < nagasena@sanga.in > 100 BCE Comment 3 This is a duplicate ofbug #59345. Please stop opening new bugs...
Yes, we presented evidence that the brain, when tricked by optical and sensory illusions, can quickly adopt another human form as its own, no matter how different it is. We designed two experiments. In the first one, the researchers fitted the head of a mannequin with two cameras connected to two small screens placed in front of the volunteer’s eyes, so that the volunteer could see what the mannequin ‘saw’.posted by euphorb at 11:44 PM on August 28, 2010 [1 favorite]
When the mannequin’s camera eyes and the volunteer’s head, complete with the camera goggles, were directed downwards, the volunteer saw the dummy’s body where he or she would normally have seen his or her own body. By simultaneously touching the stomachs of both the volunteer and the mannequin, we could create the illusion of body swapping.
The volunteer could then see that the mannequin’s stomach was being touched while feeling (but not seeing) a similar sensation on his or her own stomach. Thus, the volunteer developed a powerful sensation that the mannequin’s body was his or her own.
In the second experiment, we mounted the camera onto another person’s head. When this person and the volunteer turned towards each other to shake hands, the volunteer perceived the camera-wearer’s body as his or her own. The volunteers saw themselves shaking hands, experiencing it as though they were another person. The sensory impression from the handshake was perceived as though coming from the new body, rather than the volunteer’s own.
The strength of the illusion was proved when the volunteers exhibited stress reactions after a knife was held to the camera-wearer’s arm but not when it was held to their own. However, the volunteers could not fool themselves into identifying with a non-humanoid object, such as a chair or a large block.
The idea of viewing both electronic computers and brains as complex a clump of matter arranged in a particular way, makes them both into generalized objects that cannot be distinguished from any other object.Is both false on the face of it -- we can distinguish those two devices based on their chemical compositoin, as you yourself pointed out -- and is missing the point entirely, so I'll make the point explicitly.
« Older The early days of british comics fanzines, by Dez ... | Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Gator at 10:50 AM on August 26, 2010 [4 favorites]