Computer vs. The Human Brain

[Stop Fundies]

Many of us think that computers are many, many times faster, more powerful and more capable when compared to our brains simply because they can perform calculations thousands of time faster, workout logical computations without error and store memory at incredible speeds with flawless accuracy.
But is the the computer really superior to the human brain in terms of ability , processing power and adaptability? So far, here is the comparison:

Processing Power and Speed
The human brain - We can only estimate the processing power of the average human brain as there is no way to measure it quantitatively as of yet. If the theory of taking nerve volume to be proportional to processing power is true we then, may have a correct estimate of the human brain's processing power.

It is fortunate that we understand the neural assemblies is the retina of the vertebrate eye quite well (structurally and functionally) because it helps to give us a idea of the human brain's capability.

The retina is a nerve tissue in the back of the eyeball which detects lights and sends images to the brain. A human retina has a size of about a centimeter square is half a millimeter thick and is made up of 100 million neurons. Scientists say that the retina sends to the brain, particular patches of images indicating light intensity differences which are transported via the optic nerve, a million-fiber cable which reaches deep into the brain.

Overall, the retina seems to process about ten one-million-point images per second.

Because the 1,500 cubic centimeter human brain is about 100,000 times as large as the retina, by simple calculation, we can estimate the processing power of a average brain to be about 100 million MIPS (Million computer Instructions Per Second ). In case you're wondering how much speed that is, let me give you an idea.

1999's fastest PC processor chip on the market was a 700 MHz pentium that did 4200 MIPS. By simple calculation, we can see that we would need at least 24,000 of these processors in a system to match up to the total speed of the brain !! (Which means the brain is like a 16,800,000 MHz or 16,800 GHz Pentium processor). But even so, other factors like memory and the complexity of the system needed to handle so many processors will not be a simple task. Because of these factors, the figures that are so childishly calculated will most probably be a very serious underestimate.

For the first time, researchers have calculated that the power of a single brain in terms of memory capacity and discovered that it is greater than all the computers ever made. While even the biggest computer has a capacity of around 10,000,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the power of 12), the human brain has a colossal 10 followed by 8,432 noughts, say the scientists who made the calculations in the journal Brain and Mind.

So, even though we have proved it to you that the brain is far more superior to today's best computers, many of us out there wouldn't believe it. Why ? Because of the differences in performance. We can obviously see that any low-end computer can beat the fastest human at calculation as well as storing and processing of any information. Here's what we have to say.

Although the brain has got more ability, it has got more tasks to perform than that expected of a computer. Did you realize that the brain is has to constantly take charge of maintaining the human body functions for the entire lifetime its host ? Actions like breathing, blinking, coordination of all the body parts are controlled subconsciously by the brain all the time.

At the same time, the brain is constantly bombarded by all your senses all at once. In one mere second, the retina sends ten one-million-point images to the brain. At the same time, your ear drums pass sound information real-time at higher-than-CD-quality. And don't forget the information send to the brain by your sense of touch and smell. If a normal higher-end computer was fed with the information from a human's senses constantly and asked to process and react to them, the computer would overload from too much information because it can't react as fast as the brain could.

There are many reason why the brain loses out to computers in simple and straightforward jobs (esp. computational and recording jobs). The brain is made for general purposes, not specifically just for computational jobs. In theory, the brain could be as quick as a computer in computational and recording jobs but in real life, it will never be possible because the average human is constantly distracted by his overwhelming senses, his emotions and his own thoughts. There are exceptional people who could read through a 500 page book in less than an hour and remember all the contents as well as people who could perform mathematical calculations at a snap of their fingers but they are only rare examples that prove the hidden potential of the human brain.

Adaptability and Learning

The brain - Because the human brain receives so much information from all the senses at a constant rate, it is only natural that it would tend to learn and adapt very quickly about its environment and surroundings. In fact, a glance of any of the senses at the surroundings would already provide the brain with enough information about the environment to allow the brain to react immediately with a response.

Many of us think that it may seem natural that the human brain is better at non assisted learning and acquiring of new skills when compared to a computer.The human brain is able to learn by trail and error, induce conclusions from past experience and create new methods to deal with the situations it has come across.

However, when learning a new skill or quitting a old habit, the human brain requires time to adapt to the behaviours required. When a person does a particular task repeatedly for a number of times, he would realize that the more times he does it, the easier it is for him to do the same task. When continued over longer periods of time, it becomes so easy for the person that he does it sub-consiously, hence, it becomes a habit. Even quitting of habits need adapting to, because the habits are now part of the brain's sub consiousness and the brain performs it even without instruction from the consiousness.

Remember when I said that the memory of the brain seems unabsolute? That could also be a reason behind the need for adaption during learning. To be given a permanent place in the sub-consious mind, knowledge of the skills are to be translated into relevant instructions for the various parts of the mind so as to perfect the various requirements of the new skill. The hand-eye coordination, finger control or the sense of timing required for the new skill are aquired mostly through trial and error, hence explaining the need for adaption.

[slick]

People and computers have different users. For a computer, the user is the person at the keyboard. The computer does nothing until the user turns it on and inputs a command via the keyboard or mouse. It then executes a programmed response.

For a human, the user is the outside world. Programmed responses are genetic until the outside world, via the sense organs, starts to input commands. From that point on, everything we know and everything we do is (with some continuing genetic influence) a consequence of those inputs.

[Symptom777]

No way. 10^8,432 bits per brain? There ain't that many (fermions) particles in the known universe. And although you could maybe get a single particle to encode several bits..

There are about 10^80 particles of normal matter in the known universe, could be that only 5% is seen (the rest being "dark"), so say 10^82 in all.

There is no way that anything can have more memory bits than this, is there? Let alone 10^^8,350 times as many.

[ClericPreston]

Originally Posted by Stop Fundies

Many of us think that computers are many, many times faster, more powerful and more capable when compared to our brains simply because they can perform calculations thousands of time faster, workout logical computations without error and store memory at incredible speeds with flawless accuracy.
But is the the computer really superior to the human brain in terms of ability , processing power and adaptability? So far, here is the comparison:
....

I dont' even have to read on...I had a computer programming professor once tell me on the first day of class:

Computers are stupid. Why? Because you still have to tell them what to do.

Nuff said

[sisyphus]

doesnt help my ego much that a computer is faster at math though. goddamn it all.i want all or nothing. there is no in between.

[Stop Fundies]

No way. 10^8,432 bits per brain? There ain't that many (fermions) particles in the known universe. And although you could maybe get a single particle to encode several bits..

There are about 10^80 particles of normal matter in the known universe, could be that only 5% is seen (the rest being "dark"), so say 10^82 in all.

There is no way that anything can have more memory bits than this, is there? Let alone 10^^8,350 times as many.

I thought it was quite an erroneous and far-fetched number, too. I'll look for more sources >_>

Landauer reviewed and quantitatively analyzed experiments by himself and others in which people were asked to read text; look at pictures; hear words, short passages of music, sentences and nonsense syllables. After delays ranging from minutes to days the subjects were then tested to determine how much they had retained. The tests were quite sensitive (they did not merely ask 'What do you remember?') often using true/false or multiple choice questions, in which even a vague memory of the material would allow selection of the correct choice. Often, the differential abilities of a group that had been exposed to the material and another group that had not been exposed to the material were used. The difference in the scores between the two groups was used to estimate the amount actually remembered (to control for the number of correct answers an intelligent human could guess without ever having seen the material). Because experiments by many different experimenters were summarized and analyzed, the results of the analysis are fairly robust; they are insensitive to fine details or specific conditions of one or another experiment. Finally, the amount remembered was divided by the time alloted to memorization to determine the number of bits remembered per second.

The remarkable result of this work was that human beings remembered very nearly two bits per second under ALL the experimental conditions. Visual, verbal, musical, or whatever -- two bits per second. Continued over a lifetime, this rate of memorization would produce somewhat over 10**9 bits.

I have one problem with this study though. Yes, the estimate is more moderate (a loooooooooot more), but something in the study bothers me.

Often, the differential abilities of a group that had been exposed to the material and another group that had not been exposed to the material were used.

I don't like this. If you play the violin and you're learning an advanced technique, you will learn it, but it would be impossible for someone who has never played at all to learn. Anyone can be trained in anything (Dr. Suzuki's belief - famous for first time-to-advanced string and piano books).

So, if the brain has the ability to retain things more easily and in larger quantities once it is trained in the specific field, this should be accounted for in estimating memory capacity. Like say there is a major astrophysics convention where a revolutionizing theory is being proposed. Stephen Hawking is going to remember more of the theory than a highschool drop out that works at McDonald's (no offense to anyone who works there). I think the brain's ability to do things like this needs to be included in any memory estimates.

Oh and also another thing. If you play through a movement of a violin concerto for one day (6 hours, let's say), you will not memorize it. However, if you practice this movement for weeks and months, you will memorize it even if it is 15 minutes long. Yes, you are learning the concerto at a constant rate, but you end up learning the whole thing. This guy's study was assessing how fast new concepts are learned, not how much can be learned.

I continue my hunt for better estimates on storage capacity >_>

[Stop Fundies]

Actually, I just found a site that supports the claim of 10^8432, but this time explains the idea behind it:

"But the researchers looked beyond that and used a series of algorithms to work out the total capacity, including the huge number of different neural connections. Ironically, the discovery could be used to change the way that computers are designed. Instead of adding more bytes, they could mimic the human brain, with more emphasis on connections."

Now that I understand what they did differently, it makes some sense. In all past estimates they used this method:
Number of neurons in brain = 10^11
Number of bytes in brain = 10^11
However, these were all based on the assumption that one neuron = one byte. But this is faulty thinking.

One neuron has 10,000 connections to it. In a computer one byte = a single unit of information with 0 connections. One neuron can interact with two neurons, or three neurons, or four neurons,...or 9,998 neurons, or 9,999 neurons, or 10,000 neurons. And then each one of those, the same. Each and every neuron is responsible for way more than one byte. This way, every neuron has many information units of many memories on it, and this vastly increases the amount of storage.

The theory of varying-size neuron groups' abilities to hold a memory explains deja vu. Deja vu would then be when the information from a part of the group can be recalled, but not the entire group. Thus, you "sort of" remember encounter something before.

The exact math for the result of 10^8432, I do not know. I think the number is still too high...continues search >_>

[Stop Fundies]

Well, I can't find much other than there are 10^11 neurons and 10^13-15 connections. I think the answer is unknown yet but the best at coming close is 10^15 bytes. Now comparing other things humans can do that involves the brain to computers:

-A test was done by the USAF where pictures of an aircraft were flashed in a darkroom for 1/220th of a second. Not only did pilots notice the planes, but were able to retain the image and correctly identify the types of aircraft that were flashed in front of them. This means we are able to notice well over 220 FPS. We could possibly even see in a perfect stream. http://amo.net/NT/05-24-01FPS.html

-The trichromatic theory of color vision are the three types of color receptors in the human eye. The actual existence of such receptor cells, known as cones, have maximum sensitivities in the red, green, and blue regions of the spectrum, with absorption peaks near 565 nm for red, 535 nm for green and 445 nm for blue. The eye-brain mechanism of the human is incredibly sensitive. The human eye can differentiate about 10 million colors, but only by making a side-by-side comparison. The human eye can only identify about 300 different colors from memory.
-Now, the fastest computer in the world is NEC's Earth Simulator, which operates at a top-end of 40 teraflops (see the NEC press release to learn more). Forty trillion operations per second is pretty fast...but it's still not as fast as your brain. Your brain opperates at about 10 quadrillion floating points per second. (this estimate is much more recent than the estimate in my first post)

So far, this is the best digital comparison of our brains to computers:

The Brain:

Processor: 10 Pflops - 10,000,000,000,000 float-point instructions/second
Hard Drive: 1 PB - 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Graphics Card: Possibly a perfect stream, definitely 220+ FPS, 100 GHz
Monitor: One-million-point images, 60 Hz, 30 degree focus range, 170 degree view, 10 million colors
Sound Card: 5 KHz (That is the absolute maximum of the threshold, the average is 2 KHz) Anything below 1 KHz can't be heard, but can be felt by the skin, oddly enough.
Total Voltage used: 70 minivolts (70/1000 of one volt)

The Best Digitally (the best in each category, not one computer):

Processor: 35.68 Tflops - 35,680,000,000 float-point instructions/second
Hard Drive: 1 TB - 1,000,000,000 bytes
Graphics Card: 157 FPS at peak performance, 900 MHz
Monitor: 1024 x 768 pixels, 80 Hz, no focus range, 160 degree view, 68.7 billion colors
Sound Card: 196 KHz
Total Voltage Used: The monitor alone uses 17,142 times the amount of voltage we use for everything =)

Don't forget the size ratio. That plasma monitor is 42" while our retina is in cubic mm. I think the power ratio is amazing too. If we ever get a processor as fast as our brains, the difference in voltage used will just be phenomenal.

As you probably noticed, there are two places where we are beaten digitally, and in these areas, we are crushed by the comps: maximum differentiation of colors and sound frequency.

[musicman30mm]

Originally Posted by Stop Fundies

Don't forget the size ratio. That plasma monitor is 42" while our retina is in cubic mm. I think the power ratio is amazing too. If we ever get a processor as fast as our brains, the difference in voltage used will just be phenomenal.

This is true, but our brains run off of chemical energy as well; computers do not. The electricity you speak of is just a signal that travels from one synaps in a neuron to another on the same neuron. This signal triggers a chemical release, which imparts all of the information to the next neuron. Clarification: Electrical energy=communication within neurons, chemical energy=communication between neurons. Perhaps you should include an estimation of calories burned into your equation.

I have read some theories on computer advancement that suggest dramatic shifts in processor design in the near future. I can't remember who said it, but surely you have heard of the, "computers double processor speed every two years," estimation. It's true, but traditional circuitry will reach an impass soon. Circuitry is limited by how many wires can be crammed into a limited space. We cannot make a wire smaller than 1 molecule wide, and therin lies the limitation. I have heard of chemical and biological computer theories that could work around the problem, but not being much of a computer enthusiast, can't tell you much about them. Just Google it.

[Symptom777]

10^17 switches is the estimate I have for the brain as a computer question.

A lifetime is about 2,200,000,000 seconds, thats 4,400,000,000 bits then (at 2 per sec), which is only 2^33 bits or 2^30 bytes, or 10^11 bytes, or 10^12 bits.

Anyway, about 4 gigs, which is nix nowadays.

So a computer with 8GB of memory and a Teras worth of switches should do. A pentium has about 125M trannies in it, so you'd only need a million PCs to equal a person, there's 5 potential simpeople here in NL already!!

[kyman]

Computers are stupid. Why? Because you still have to tell them what to do

This is true. A computer is only as smart as the person using it. This is because they become extenions of our own mind. External thinking progresses made one with us through will.

The internet is merely an extension of our own collective consciousness. Our minds have external processes linking them together.

[kyman]

progresses = processes

[kyman]

The home, a reflection of the body. Gifts, a reflection of the heart. Computers, a reflection of the mind.

[MPDC]

Why is it this thread is called, Computers VS the human brain. Are we actually in a competition? Do you think the computers see a need to surpass us in our ability?

[Symptom777]

Originally Posted by MPDC

Why is it this thread is called, Computers VS the human brain. Are we actually in a competition? Do you think the computers see a need to surpass us in our ability?

Not yet, but give them another 20 years....
I refer you again to:
http://www.aeiveos.com/%7Ebradbury/M...ins/index.html