"Stairway to the mind" By Alwyn Scott; 1995 Copernicus
in which he discusses the non-linear emergance of the mind from brain function.
paraphrasing...
.......How is the observed activity of the brain related to the activity of its consitituent neurons? The neo cortex is composed of ~ 10 billion neurons, each of which has 10,000 input connections which equates to an immense number (10exp110) raised to the10exp16 th power or the immense number (10exp110) multiplied by itself ten thousand trillion times! This is a combinatorial barrier that is much larger than those between physics & chenistry or between chemistry & biochemistry........
--On Tuesday, May 17, 2005 9:55 AM -0400 Jed Rothwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The article I referred to yesterday is K. Boahen, "Neuromorphic Microchips," Scientific American, May 2005, p. 56. The relevant quote is on the first page:
"The brain does not execute coded instruction; instead it activates links, or synapses, between neurons. Each such activation is equivalent to executing a digital instruction, so one can compare how many connections a brain activates every second with the number of instructions a computer executes during the same time. Synaptic activity is staggering: 10 quadrillion (10^16) neural connections a second. It would take a million Intel Pentium powered computers to match that rate -- plus a few hundred megawatts to juice them up."
So computers are already within a factor of 1 million. Perhaps they will have to come within a 3 to 5 orders of magnitude before they begin to look intelligent to us. I think they will also need radically new software. My sense is that programs like Cyc will not cut the mustard. I have no idea how long it will take. Anywhere from 50 to 500 years, I suppose. Fortunately, the interim devices will be profitable, so progress toward intelligent machines seems inevitable.
- Jed
