About supercomputers already exceeding the power of the human brain -- I call bullshit and do the math to back it up.

10^11 neurons * 10^4 connections per neuron (average) * 1 floating point operation per switching event per connection * 1000 switching events per second = 10^18 flops. The most powerful supercomputer in the world does 10^15 flops, and is probably too large to have millisecond message passing from point to point.

http://www.top500.org/system/performance/9707

Processor core frequencies have been nearly stagnant for 3 years. They're building more and more parallelism instead. The capacity to directly simulate a human brain is still far beyond the most powerful supercomputer. Storing only an abstract representation of all of the connections between neurons in a human brain would require 5 petabytes (10^11 neurons * 10^4 connections per neuron * 5 bytes per connection)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I had a whole lot I wanted to say about this, but I haven't had my coffee yet so the neurons aren't firing. I'm sure there will be some spirited discussion, so let that begin.

aha yes the *brains channel - well jonny - is it kind of you to offer, I think there are a few more out there to try, and I think you should stick with the channel - I know alot of stuff must be long in there - however you should redefine it

From the molecular biology of neurons to theories of consciousness, the Mind and Brain channel is devoted to workings of the brain and its emergent mind. All videos in this channel offer some insight into the workings of brains (organic or synthetic). Videos of trippy optical illusions and Derren Brown mind tricks are generally not acceptable - unless, of course, they contain some explanation of how the brain is being manipulated to produce the demonstrated results.

to include any hypnosis or other trick, optical illusion - that while no prehaps expalaining the effect, requires the brain for the trickery to work.

This should be a fantastic channel! Take out the bit that requires some explaining, and you can have a channel choc full of brainteasers, opticals, manipulation, experiments, hypnosis, and medical related stuff - it'll be great

In the meantime...just as a side note - no to *zombie channel, fun, but dark and horrowshow cover that nicely

Memristors /memˈrɪstɚ/ ("memory resistors") are a class of passive two-terminal circuit elements that maintain a functional relationship between the time integrals of current and voltage. This results in resistance varying according to the device's memristance function. Specifically engineered memristors provide controllable resistance useful for switching current. The memristor is a special case in so-called "memristive systems", a class of mathematical models useful for certain empirically observed phenomena, such as the firing of neurons.[3] The definition of the memristor is based solely on fundamental circuit variables, similar to the resistor, capacitor, and inductor. Unlike those more familiar elements, the necessarily nonlinear memristors may be described by any of a variety of time-varying functions. As a result, memristors do not belong to linear time-invariant (LTI) circuit models. A linear time-invariant memristor is simply a conventional resistor.[4]

Memristor theory was formulated and named by Leon Chua in a 1971 paper. Chua strongly believed that a fourth device existed to provide conceptual symmetry with the resistor, inductor, and capacitor. This symmetry follows from the description of basic passive circuit elements as defined by a relation between two of the four fundamental circuit variables, namely voltage, current, charge and flux.[5] A device linking charge and flux (themselves defined as time integrals of current and voltage), which would be the memristor, was still hypothetical at the time. He did acknowledge that other scientists had already used fixed nonlinear flux-charge relationships.[6] However, it would not be until thirty-seven years later, on April 30, 2008, that a team at HP Labs led by the scientist R. Stanley Williams would announce the discovery of a switching memristor. Based on a thin film of titanium dioxide, it has been presented as an approximately ideal device.[7][8][9] Being much simpler than currently popular MOSFET switches and also able to implement one bit of non-volatile memory in a single device, memristors integrated with transistors may enable nanoscale computer technology. Chua also speculates that they may be useful in the construction of artificial neural networks.[10]

>> ^thepinky:
^You just as good as said that I'll stop being a troll as soon as I "come around" and share your opinions. You think that I need to start seeing things from other points of view, and then I will no longer be a troll?

Seeing an issue from someone else's point of view does not imply adopting their conclusions and opinions as your own. It only implies "walking a mile in a another man's shoes" -- stepping outside of one's own perspective to adopt another's, however briefly and imperfectly. Obviously, this is always incomplete and filtered through one's own experience. But the ability to empathize with others, in the most general sense, is arguably the most important of all social skills. It's what allows (semi-)coherent social interactions in the first place.
(Shameless brain channel plug - search for mirror neurons to learn about the cellular basis for this ability.)

Being religious and conservative does not automatically make me less open-minded than you, and it doesn't make me a troll.

While neither of those qualities makes you a troll, I think it is fair to say that religious people are generally less open minded than non-believers. (Perhaps that should be restricted to agnostics - I suppose many strong atheists are just as close minded as those on the opposite side of the spectrum.) Absolute belief (or disbelief) in the existence of God entails certain cognitive consequences. For instance, religious people often have a hard time comprehending how an atheist could be a moral being, because for a believer, all morality stems from God. So, without Him, how can morality exist? Thus, anyone that rejects His existence also rejects morality. Every atheist and agnostic reading this will instantly recognize the absurdity of such a proposition, but for nearly every religious person I've every known, it's an accepted matter of fact. Essentially, absolute belief in anything causes the believer to be cognitively incapable of adopting certain points of view, because the original belief makes some points of view incomprehensible.

I have no doubt that you are a good and well-intentioned person, pinky. You are at that age of possibly greatest optimism and idealism. It's a wonderful place. Enjoy it. But don't allow it's comfort to prevent you from growing. It's kind of like the apple in the garden - knowledge is a double-edged sword. You'll lose some of that optimism, but you gain an understanding of your fellow humans. Unlike the original sin, though, it is generally worth it to go ahead and take a bite.

Sorry for the wall of text, but it's split up - just three individual rebuttals(mostly). Three posts in one maybe? 1 is about potential life, 2 is our screwed up scale and the attacks made utilising the opponent's uncertainty and 3 is the broken terminology being used to implicitly argue.

If just one person is better off for reading just one of these points I'll be happy

Ok, some argument flaws to point out which I see have seen largely unaddressed so far:

1. Argument for potential life (I think thepinky used this one, as well as others). Left alone in its unique environment x will become y; z will not. This is pure inaction bias. The absence of taking action is an action itself. When making a choice, either doing something or not bestows the exact same responsibility given a neutral context. In real social situations, there are other actors which may have brought about a situation, etc, so it's a bit more complex there.

Basically, leaving a fertilised egg in place and removing it are both positive actions. You cannot say that there is potential life because of "what would have happened". This is also countered by pretty much any cell in the body being able to become an individual human being. From skin cells you scratch off to millions of sperm to eggs, they are all potential human beings. This is usually "countered" by saying it is innate potential, not just potential. That is the no true scottsman fallacy. It also stems from inaction bias.

What are the consequences? Whatever scale you use to rate or determine if something counts as a person you must apply it objectively to both the fertilised egg and everything else. Just prepare for cognitive dissonance, however, since when rating a fertilised egg's level of consciousness or personhood generally a sperm of unfertilised egg is pretty much rates exactly the same.

2. Which leads us to point two. The scale we try to make to classify varying levels of devlopment is completely messed up. This would be a scientific problem if only science were actually in the position to answer our questions to a degree of confidence. Nobody knows what constitutes consciousness or the nature of it. At the moment our most informed observations say that brains are conscious. We don't know how, why, if consciousness is anything but an illusion, if it is specific to brains (or things like brains), if it is physical, the nature of existence and so on!

The passive argument "Look at all these unasnwered questions in your reasoning! If you're more wrong, we're more right." is silly. It just makes that argument more "wrong"; your own retains however much wrongness it had!

Also, the absence of unanswered questions does not make a good argument. Wanna see me answer all questions in existence? God did it. There! No, you build a model and apply it to reality. The better it fits, the better the model. I heard things brought up like why do dogs and pigs not have more rights than human fetuses then? Good question. Our scale is messed up, but we at a species are trying. We can hope to eventually have these things sorted, if at all physically possible for us.

3. Being hung up on the term "human life" or similar. Arguing in a biological sense about whether a fertilised egg (or sperm, or egg) is "human" or not, is classed as part of the human species or other definition.

The problem is people stop at that definition. For example, "From a fertilised egg to birth to death it is always a human being, for such and such sound reasoning, therefor they have the interests of a person." In the case of being a human as in part of this species, you have to remember species is a distinction for purely usefulness purposes in biology. It is arbitrary and meant as a tool - it has no bearing to the actual debate at hand.

My point being, many of the terms used around here have no basis in the context of the argument. One person is talking about a human life in the strict biological sense as basis for personhood and the other is using a description more along the lines of sentient, conscious, able to feel, etc. Be careful around the terms human, life, etc.

That's it for what I can remember for now

So, despite everything we don't know, the best we can go on at the moment says a fertilised egg is nothing special, that a fly's brain is over 100,000 neurons, so what of that 50-cell blostocyst mentioned so much? The best we can determine is it's a gradual scale from no consciousness to more. Drawing lines is horribly messy but observation of reality at least says if it has no neurons it is no more different than any other clump of matter or cells or anything. So far. What happens if we try to draw the line closer, when we try and determine at which point it becomes "conscious enough"? Fierce debate. That is good, but right now debating whether a fertilised egg is anything special is drawing attention away from the important area.

>> ^T-man:
>> ^imstellar28:
>> ^T-man:
I don't think people are buying guns because they are afraid of what Obama might do, they are afraid of possible unrest if something were to happen to Obama.

They are buying guns in case Obama makes purchasing new firearms illegal.

You have no reason to believe Obama would—or even could—make purchasing new firearms illegal. You need to get out of the bunker more often.


I defend basic human rights (the right to pursue the means with which to defend your life, and the lives of those you care about) , and you assume I am living in a bunker? What connects the neurons in your brain, silly putty?

See, when I assumed that thinker247 doesn't have a gun, it was a very good assumption because I know that the majority of those with a gun are not going to favor gun confiscation, nor will they make jokes (which aren't funny) about it. That is a valid application of induction...you assuming I live in a bunker is not: case in point, I don't live in a bunker. Your other conclusions are a failure to understand the world as it exists.

1. There is already legislation in the works which makes it illegal to purchase new assault rifles. If they can do it for assault rifles, what is stopping them from doing it with handguns? Nothing.
2. It is illegal to conceal and carry firearms in Chicago. Explain how that works with the 2nd amendment. It doesn't, its unconstitutional and nobody cares. Obama is a Chicago senator who has openly supported gun control. His policies are already law, and have already resulted in the deaths and rape of thousands of people.

First time I had read the Bible
It had stroke me as unwitty
I think it may started rumor
That the Lord ain't got no humor

Put me inside SSC
Let's test superstring theory
Oh yoi yoi accelerate the protons
stir it twice and then just add me, 'cause

I don't read the Bible
I don't trust disciple
Even if they're made of marble
Or Canal Street bling

From the maelstrom of the knowledge
Into the labyrinth of doubt
Frozed underground ocean
melting - nuking on my mind

Yes give me Everything Theory
Without Nazi uniformity
My brothers are protons
My sisters are neurons
Stir it twice, it's instant family!

I don't read the Bible
I don't trust disciple
Even if they're made of marble
Or Canal Street bling

My brothers are protons
My sisters are neurons
Stir it twice dlja prekrastnih dam...

Do you have sex maniacs
Or schizophrenics
Or astrophysicists in your family
Was my grandma anti anti
Was my grandpa bounty bounty
Hek-o-hek-o-hej-o
They ask me in embassy!

'Cause I don't read the Bible
I don't trust disciple
Even if they're made of marble
Or Canal Street bling

And my grandma she was anti!
And my grandpa he was bounty!
And stir it twice
And then just add me!
Partypartypartypartypartyparty
now afterparty...

It's possible this is like the physical diffrences in brains that stop people beng able to perceive faces, or objects, or movement.. all different parts of the brain process these and are separate constructs.

could it be a problem of pitch recognition i wonder? as tiny hairs in our ears pick up the frequencies, but then the transmission of those through neurons could be disorganized somehow.
though perhaps there are a range of different problems that can cause amusia with different effects on the perception of sound...

imagine having this in conjunction with synaesthesia..!

its avant-garde, man. Get with it!

I thought it was cool that his electromyography recordings are not just triggering samples, the population of muscle contraction motor activity seems to be modulating the population size of sounds triggered... as in X number of motor neurons gives Y number of 'strings plucked' or 'drums hit' in close succession.

Pretty cool MIDI controller! Throw away your keyboards, everybody!

>> ^burdturgler:
@^imstellar28:

No, I admit I'm fucking stupid for even talking to you. And after this I'm correcting that. The math isn't the point. I still think 50 negative comments is enough. Hell you're 30% of the way there right now. If 50 doesn't work then what? 100? The troll that was the impetus behind this post is over 90% on their way to that.
It's not really the point though, to be honest. It's about the troll taking a look at their own behavior and the community reactions to it. Like I said, if you find yourself with that many down voted comments (as you and the other troll do) then maybe this isn't the right site for you.
Here's some math for ya, in the last four days, seven out of the nine comments you've made have been on this post. Is this what's fun for you?


No offense, but if you are stupid, you were that way before you started talking to me. As far as my 7 out of 9 last posts occurring in this thread--it is just evidence of how much this new vibe I'm getting here is turning me off to contributing content to this community. If the only place I am posting on this site, is in a thread critical of the site maybe that should tell you something. Clearly the neurons failed to connect A to B. I can't spell out everything for people incapable or unwilling to read between the lines or even read the lines at anything other than skin-deep. It has nothing to do with math and everything to do with philosophy.

To answer your question, no. Posting about trolls is not "fun" to me. If you look at my videos and comments, most of my time is spent arguing against oppression and human rights violations. To have to deal with the same philosophical flaws here is extremely disappointing.

I post here as an intellectual outlet, but I've debated with only handful of posters here. Unfortunate for me, but I'm not complaining. The number of people interested in the same subjects of discussion as me are few and far in between. If I can manage to enjoy myself in a population of less than 1% maybe you should grow up and learn to enjoy yourself in 99% of the population.

And so you don't get confused...1% or less of people here could be considered "trolls" while 1% or less people here take an active, non-superficial interest (from what I've seen) in fundamental human rights. Again, maybe you don't connect these things together but after pointing it out, can you not see a parallel between an oppresive governmental response and a regulatory response here? And no I am not a conspirator because I am able to draw parallels. Offline, if there is a danger/issue/problem some new law/rule/regulation is put into affect in attempt to correct it. Nobody is willing to take personal responsibility, or to try to address the root cause, they think they can force the solution by restricting personal freedom. Just because people are free to visit the site or not, does not mean this site can not be oppressive.

Yes, trolls are unwanted in a community--but that as an issue for the community (read: peers of equal power). Every new rule you create is going to be manipulated as a tool by the very people it was intended to guard against. If you ban people based on comment downvoting, trolls will just downvote everyone banning the whole site. If you put a time limit on it, they will just do it slowly. The best defense against it is a social one--through ostracization, de-motivation, and personal tolerance. Any regulatory action will be negative. If this site was meant for trolls, then so it is, that is the nature of this site and nothing is going to change it. To do so is to force a cow to lay eggs. not. gonna. happen.

LOL 36000 bits of information.

What is a "bit". Your optic system is so parallel, some parts are registering movement, some patterns, some face recognition, some looking for colors, some looking only at which "pixels" have changed.

Anyone know how many fibers are in the optic nerve bundle? Yes neurons fire slowly, but the raw data processed is staggering.

The simple example is watching TV. Or certainly anyone will agree you probably see as much as a webcam and even if you closed your eyes and only open them once a second, certainly you are far exceeding some bullshit 36000 bits. That's even treating things as "pixels" with "bits" of color.

In fact you see in analog colors mixing the receptors, so you can see an insane number of "bits" of resolution of color and that isn't even covering perception, who knows what your brain ignores or considers close enough.

>> ^spoco2:
where the hell did it get the energy to do it was my thought?

Energy is produced and stored by the individual cells of an organism, so cellular processes can continue until the individual cells expend their energy stores.

>> ^Lordoderus:
Maybe snakes just have a weird nervous system that keeps just sending signals for a minute or two.

This probably happens because the snake's nervous system is not weird, with a brain located in the skull. Again, as long as the individual cells have some remaining energy stores, they will continue to function. The rest of this is speculation on my part, but it's possible all the snake "knows" is that his whole body just went numb and he's getting increasingly groggy. Tail whipping could be a result of now-uninhibited spinal neurons firing more-or-less randomly.

Alright, I started reading his webpage, http://www.jesusofmalibu.com and I just can't tell if he's being honestly serious, or just absorbing himself into this fictitious character for a more dramatic effect. I share with you this quote from his own page:

Billy Yeager completed a complex surgery of the body, spirit and soul for the character of the film Jesus of Malibu. Yeager was not satisfied to just temporarily become his character, but by developing quantum leap multi dimensional thinking, Yeager’s studies and experiments in neuroscience have allowed him to reconfigure his brain neurons and reverse his dna patterns with sacred geometry and music vibration, Yeager has actually transformed himself into his character and he is now


Jesus of Malibu.

(Emphasis added.)