It’s pretty apparent that I am generally a huge fan of computers. They essentially define my life - working at night AND in the lab I am always on a PC. They have created solutions to situations beyond my comprehension - without them my life would be on a totally different path.

Dave and I were discussing yesterday about a poker playing program. If you defined thousands of rulesets you’d all of a sudden have a perfect poker playing machine.. Or would you? I mean can you ‘emulate the brain with static unbreakable rules?

It really got me thinking…

It’s easy to blindly accept that computers have evolved far and beyond our brain’s capabilities for almost anything. They are clearly superior at almost any task - drag and fill on Excel instantly presents you with trends. Statistics? Without compare. A rocket flies to the moon only because the computers adjust every parameter to the twelth decimal each millionth of a second. A digital camera stores an image at a single point in history based on ones and zeros.. Fantastic…

But then we start to consider ‘abstract thought’ - how can you define it? How can you write a series of rule based steps to define something abstract? I propose it is absolutely impossible. It is essentially analagous to presenting a logical dispute of religious beliefs to someone who has beliefs that are only faith based - How can you use ‘proof’ to debunk something that requires none to exist? [RH]. One simply has to accept that abstract thought and logic can never approach being synonymous.

But - back on track… -> I was reading a response to an opinion piece written from Rutgers and came across this gem. Very enlightening and really worth reading through.

The human eye transmits information to the thalamus at approximately 1 KHz but over 1 million parallel lines (bits). That works out to one billion bits per second. There are a total of 10 million parallel sensory lines into the cns, so in theory the maximum would be 10 billion bits per second. The maximum is never obtained because peripheral and central filters prioritize information at multiple levels… Thus the human nervous system can collect and analyze huge amounts of information.

[CHOP]

A 300 MHz computer typically sends information in 32 bit packets or 0.9 billion bits per second. Newer computers can easily outperform one component of the system. However, the human brain is NOT one computer, it is many, many computers linked serially and in parallel.

[CHOP]

{As well, } A computer program tends to freeze when inappropriate information or missing information bolexes operations. The human brain can fill in the gaps and keep right on calculating using on average only 600 Kcal/day, rain or shine. Trivial problems like getting out of bed, feeding oneself, finding social companionship are computational nightmares for mere computers.

More:
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/fb36

Certainly food for thought.