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From: cjs@icbl.hw.ac.uk (Chris J Schnurr)
Subject: Re: critical brain mass for intelligence?
Message-ID: <D6B3us.D9G@cee.hw.ac.uk>
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Organization: ICBL, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
References: <D5y8Ln.IKK@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> <796308708.16@cs.york.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 13:23:16 GMT
Lines: 46
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.cognitive:7117 comp.ai:28672

In article <796308708.16@cs.york.ac.uk> richard@manor (Richard Clegg) writes:
>Ilana Jayne Rosenshein (smiles@speedy.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:
>: Could someone suggest a book that talks about brains/neural nets
>: achieving intelligence after they reach a certain size (x neurons, or
>: x computers)?  I seem to recall reading a short bit about this somewhere,
>: but I can't recall where.  Opinions on the subject are welcome as well
>: (not like I could stop them, in any case *grin*).
>
>  I've been thinking about this a lot myself recently.  Does anyone
>have a decent comparison of complexity/no. of switches/no. of neurons
>between a single human brain and all the computers connected to the
>internet?
>
That's easy.

There is no comparison.

Each human brain cell can have upwards of 10000 independant connections, and
theres a billion or so cells.

Now, Show me a computer with 10000 independant connections, or an internet
consisting of 1000000000 computers, and we'll start talking comparisons.

Also :

Where is the comparison between Internet and psychoactive drugs?

Is there an analogy which could be said to heighten the bandwidth between a
large number of computers?

(As LSD or L-Dopa does to connections in the cerebral cortex?)

And what about the way you tend to get areas of specialisation in the brain?

And anyway, If the internet was "alive" would we, who operate the individual
"cells" know about it ???

Later !

Chris

        The farmer sold the cow because she == needed money.  
        The farmer sold the cow because she == gave no milk.
        Stick that in your semantic net and parse it !
        ============== cjs@icbl.hw.ac.uk =================
        The bane of HCI is the Human...
