3 ms·

I think saying 'computation will never be __________' is usually just wrong. We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body, and there's n

by meesles 10y ago

I think saying 'computation will never be __________' is usually just wrong. We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body, and there's no technical limitation on putting a ton of supercomputers together to do what OP suggested. It's more of a matter of waiting until it's economically worth it.

duaneb 10y ago
> We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body I fundamentally disagree. We have models, sure, but they're approximative, not predictive, and I don't see any indication we'd be able to get prediction ever. It's very difficult to understand how biological approximation layered over chemical and physical approximation could give any benefit we get now from experimentation. Among other things, there is no such thing as model verification.
- truth_sentinell 10y ago
  Isn't that what we practically have from rats? a "subset" of the human brain? I cringe every time I see on some tech/science news some headline: "this is the reason you do this, or you think that", and then reading the study, you find out it was conducted on rats... If we are extrapolating results from rats to humans, why can't we just simulate a rat brain and avoid torturing more? Probably because rats are cheap, and supercomputers, well, are super expensive. I don't think it would be difficult to simulate a fully functional rat brain with state-of-the-art technology and bright people.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    Sure, we might be able to simulate a rat brain at some level. I don't think we can do it with accuracy or precision, and certainly not use it as evidence of reality. You think the replication problem is bad now? It compounds when you build on bad evidence.
  - anbende 10y ago
    At this point we're unable to simulate a rat brain. We think that we will be able to, but it's orders of magnitude beyond what we can do right now. Our biggest neural net computers have about a 1 million nodes (last time I checked). Rats have billions of neurons in a configuration we have not fully mapped. One day we may be able to do that, and when we can, I agree it would be nice to stop torturing rats.

by meesles 10y ago

duaneb 10y ago

> We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body I fundamentally disagree. We have models, sure, but they're approximative, not predictive, and I don't see any indication we'd be able to get prediction ever. It's very difficult to understand how biological approximation layered over chemical and physical approximation could give any benefit we get now from experimentation. Among other things, there is no such thing as model verification.

truth_sentinell 10y ago
Isn't that what we practically have from rats? a "subset" of the human brain? I cringe every time I see on some tech/science news some headline: "this is the reason you do this, or you think that", and then reading the study, you find out it was conducted on rats... If we are extrapolating results from rats to humans, why can't we just simulate a rat brain and avoid torturing more? Probably because rats are cheap, and supercomputers, well, are super expensive. I don't think it would be difficult to simulate a fully functional rat brain with state-of-the-art technology and bright people.
- duaneb 10y ago
  Sure, we might be able to simulate a rat brain at some level. I don't think we can do it with accuracy or precision, and certainly not use it as evidence of reality. You think the replication problem is bad now? It compounds when you build on bad evidence.
- anbende 10y ago
  At this point we're unable to simulate a rat brain. We think that we will be able to, but it's orders of magnitude beyond what we can do right now. Our biggest neural net computers have about a 1 million nodes (last time I checked). Rats have billions of neurons in a configuration we have not fully mapped. One day we may be able to do that, and when we can, I agree it would be nice to stop torturing rats.