What 'Architecture' is the brain?
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As processor data and addressing widths have increased overtime from Intel's 4004 4bit processor to the now very common 64bit AMDs and Intels and then on to multicore, this got me on to thinking as to what 'architecture' the human brain might be; if it is at all comparable to a slice of silicon. My own thoughts on the matter are it must be at least a 16 bit/16+ core processor backed up with several 100 GBytes of memory, but with a poor memory management system! My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system? The 16+ cores; well when you think what the brain does consciously and unconsciously and all the parallel processing that takes place, one or two cores just wouldn't be enough.
Tapsnapper wrote:
Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you
Party trick of mine in high school after using an associative memory recall technique. Haven't tried it in years and don't actively use the memory recall techniques any more. Close friends reckon I have "the memory of an elephant", I reckon I'm just genetically predisposed. Or something.
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine Allen -
As processor data and addressing widths have increased overtime from Intel's 4004 4bit processor to the now very common 64bit AMDs and Intels and then on to multicore, this got me on to thinking as to what 'architecture' the human brain might be; if it is at all comparable to a slice of silicon. My own thoughts on the matter are it must be at least a 16 bit/16+ core processor backed up with several 100 GBytes of memory, but with a poor memory management system! My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system? The 16+ cores; well when you think what the brain does consciously and unconsciously and all the parallel processing that takes place, one or two cores just wouldn't be enough.
Mine is Doric, with a little Gothic Perpendicular.
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
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I would say it's more along the lines of an analogue neural network.
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Mine is Doric, with a little Gothic Perpendicular.
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
It's just baroque'n'roll but I like it.
I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine
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A neural network you say. Hmmmm, could this be likened to distributed computing such as BOINC then?
No.
I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine
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It's just baroque'n'roll but I like it.
I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine
You are just saying that to Tudor fat!
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
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As processor data and addressing widths have increased overtime from Intel's 4004 4bit processor to the now very common 64bit AMDs and Intels and then on to multicore, this got me on to thinking as to what 'architecture' the human brain might be; if it is at all comparable to a slice of silicon. My own thoughts on the matter are it must be at least a 16 bit/16+ core processor backed up with several 100 GBytes of memory, but with a poor memory management system! My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system? The 16+ cores; well when you think what the brain does consciously and unconsciously and all the parallel processing that takes place, one or two cores just wouldn't be enough.
Tapsnapper wrote:
My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system?
Yes, but I bet you can catch a ball. That's far more complex mental arithmetic than dividing big numbers. http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56348.html[^]
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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You are just saying that to Tudor fat!
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
Life's like a Deco cards..
I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine
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Mine is Doric, with a little Gothic Perpendicular.
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
Not a romantic ruin? :-D
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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Life's like a Deco cards..
I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine
Ionic alled your attention to it becasue you are noveau rich!
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
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Tapsnapper wrote:
My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system?
Yes, but I bet you can catch a ball. That's far more complex mental arithmetic than dividing big numbers. http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56348.html[^]
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
I would have to disagree. I understand where you're coming from though, however, my two year old can catch a ball thrown to her, and I would say that she certainly doesn't have any comprehension of metal arithmatic. Maybe this is a case for sub-conscious mental arithmatic coming into play. Like any form of learning, it becomes easier over time, yet the maths would remain the same in the case of catching a ball. Is this a case of the brain refining its calculations?
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As processor data and addressing widths have increased overtime from Intel's 4004 4bit processor to the now very common 64bit AMDs and Intels and then on to multicore, this got me on to thinking as to what 'architecture' the human brain might be; if it is at all comparable to a slice of silicon. My own thoughts on the matter are it must be at least a 16 bit/16+ core processor backed up with several 100 GBytes of memory, but with a poor memory management system! My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system? The 16+ cores; well when you think what the brain does consciously and unconsciously and all the parallel processing that takes place, one or two cores just wouldn't be enough.
Tapsnapper wrote:
hence the poor memory management system?
Your brain can remember thousands of shapes, figures and faces. How much memory does a computer need for that?
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Tapsnapper wrote:
hence the poor memory management system?
Your brain can remember thousands of shapes, figures and faces. How much memory does a computer need for that?
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Your brain can remember thousands of shapes, figures and faces. How much memory does a computer need for that?
Well I did say several hundred GBytes, maybe I should revise that to several hundred terabytes or even petabytes! Which also leads to another interesting question, can you exhaust the storage capacity of the brain or would it work like a FIFO system - First In, First Out?
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As processor data and addressing widths have increased overtime from Intel's 4004 4bit processor to the now very common 64bit AMDs and Intels and then on to multicore, this got me on to thinking as to what 'architecture' the human brain might be; if it is at all comparable to a slice of silicon. My own thoughts on the matter are it must be at least a 16 bit/16+ core processor backed up with several 100 GBytes of memory, but with a poor memory management system! My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system? The 16+ cores; well when you think what the brain does consciously and unconsciously and all the parallel processing that takes place, one or two cores just wouldn't be enough.
Whatever may be the architecture, but while making the design of my brain, The Almighty decided to dedicate a fairly large amount of processing power to a separate unit, that enables me to do excellent manual transmission. :)
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
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Whatever may be the architecture, but while making the design of my brain, The Almighty decided to dedicate a fairly large amount of processing power to a separate unit, that enables me to do excellent manual transmission. :)
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
It's just the hardware that has reliability problems!
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
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Whatever may be the architecture, but while making the design of my brain, The Almighty decided to dedicate a fairly large amount of processing power to a separate unit, that enables me to do excellent manual transmission. :)
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
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It's just the hardware that has reliability problems!
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
Dalek Dave wrote:
It's just the hardware that has reliability problems!
Yes, but only while kept close (1 meter or less) to specimens of opposite sex. Turns out to be unpredictable. :) But never had an issue with doing manual transmission. Even in the presence of the said specimen, which actually enhances the capabilities. ;)
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
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It's just baroque'n'roll but I like it.
I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine
hey, don't you rock me Amadeus.
This signature was proudly tested on animals.
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As processor data and addressing widths have increased overtime from Intel's 4004 4bit processor to the now very common 64bit AMDs and Intels and then on to multicore, this got me on to thinking as to what 'architecture' the human brain might be; if it is at all comparable to a slice of silicon. My own thoughts on the matter are it must be at least a 16 bit/16+ core processor backed up with several 100 GBytes of memory, but with a poor memory management system! My reason for only 16bits is have you ever tried multiplying or dividing two 4 digit numbers in your head? Or tried to remember an eleven digit phone number someone has just told you; hence the poor memory management system? The 16+ cores; well when you think what the brain does consciously and unconsciously and all the parallel processing that takes place, one or two cores just wouldn't be enough.
At least the higher level functions ("the human") are implemented in a huge, freely reprogrammable FPGA, also known as the cortex. The hardware elements are not uniform, there are special elements like spindle neurons which nontheless work more or less by the same principle. Unlike todays FPGA's, the nodes support fuzzy logic, can be reinforced / dampened on the fly / by read access. The lower level functions ("the animal") are distributed over the huge lump blow the cortex, work (in my understanding of what we know today) similar, but with different specializations and importance of initial state.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server -
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Your brain can remember thousands of shapes, figures and faces. How much memory does a computer need for that?
Well I did say several hundred GBytes, maybe I should revise that to several hundred terabytes or even petabytes! Which also leads to another interesting question, can you exhaust the storage capacity of the brain or would it work like a FIFO system - First In, First Out?
According to this[^] it is between 1 and 1000 Terabytes (nothing like hedging your bets :) ) but is probably 3. Although I disagree, I calculate it as 3.85 TB. (I have been getting my neurons to number off whilst I was typing this.)
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”