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A transistor is not doing computation. It is flipping a bit. Those bits are flipped in binary patterns with logic gates to do the computation. And a transistor

A transistor is not doing computation. It is flipping a bit. Those bits are flipped in binary patterns with logic gates to do the computation. And a transistor is not a neural network node.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
That just answered why I think that human brains are doing computation. The neurons fill the same role as transistors, and the patterns of neural connections fill the same role as how the transistors are wired together. I'm not saying that these are simple computations, or ones that are easy to understand, or ones that can be done in reasonable timeframes on silicon. For more useful discussion, I'd like to hear what you think the definition of "computation" is - I suspect we're using slightly different meanings for the word.
- pokkanome 11y ago
  I am using computation in the strictly mathematical sense. As in dealing with numbers. I do not think that our minds operate through a constant stream of numbers that become thoughts. In that way, a computer and a human are fundamentally different. You cannot stimulate human thoughts as pure numbers. I think we need some extra layer of yet-to-be-invented abstraction to achieve that goal. Of course, we could go the route of trying to create a new model of thought based around numbers, but that is proving to be difficult to understand. It would not be a good idea to try to build an intelligent system that we cannot completely understand because then all we could do is hope it works as we intended.
  - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
    The map is not the territory. "Computation" is fundamentally an abstraction for talking about that which various algorithms have in common. Algorithms themselves are a high-level description of a series of well-defined tasks. Computers aren't literally doing computation in the sense you are describing. What they're doing is simple physics with lots of voltage levels. The "computation" is a useful high-level description of what the computer is doing. I agree that there's a missing abstraction for talking about human thought - it's a terribly complicated subject that isn't well understood. That doesn't mean that the human brain is doing anything that's different on a fundamental level than what computers can do. We don't have a high-level description of how human though works like we do with a computer, but it doesn't mean that human though has some kind of magic.

A transistor is not doing computation. It is flipping a bit. Those bits are flipped in binary patterns with logic gates to do the computation. And a transistor is not a neural network node.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago

That just answered why I think that human brains are doing computation. The neurons fill the same role as transistors, and the patterns of neural connections fill the same role as how the transistors are wired together. I'm not saying that these are simple computations, or ones that are easy to understand, or ones that can be done in reasonable timeframes on silicon. For more useful discussion, I'd like to hear what you think the definition of "computation" is - I suspect we're using slightly different meanings for the word.

pokkanome 11y ago
I am using computation in the strictly mathematical sense. As in dealing with numbers. I do not think that our minds operate through a constant stream of numbers that become thoughts. In that way, a computer and a human are fundamentally different. You cannot stimulate human thoughts as pure numbers. I think we need some extra layer of yet-to-be-invented abstraction to achieve that goal. Of course, we could go the route of trying to create a new model of thought based around numbers, but that is proving to be difficult to understand. It would not be a good idea to try to build an intelligent system that we cannot completely understand because then all we could do is hope it works as we intended.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  The map is not the territory. "Computation" is fundamentally an abstraction for talking about that which various algorithms have in common. Algorithms themselves are a high-level description of a series of well-defined tasks. Computers aren't literally doing computation in the sense you are describing. What they're doing is simple physics with lots of voltage levels. The "computation" is a useful high-level description of what the computer is doing. I agree that there's a missing abstraction for talking about human thought - it's a terribly complicated subject that isn't well understood. That doesn't mean that the human brain is doing anything that's different on a fundamental level than what computers can do. We don't have a high-level description of how human though works like we do with a computer, but it doesn't mean that human though has some kind of magic.