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Just wondering... How complicated does a brain have to become in order to understand itself? Could a brain exist that is so complicated that it could not unde
by booleandilemma 9y ago
Just wondering...
How complicated does a brain have to become in order to understand itself?
Could a brain exist that is so complicated that it could not understand itself, or does a brain's understanding always scale up with its complexity?
- livingparadox 9y agoThat very much depends on whether the complexity increases intelligence/comprehension or whether it is merely increased complexity.
- eanzenberg 9y agoRight.. There are brains larger than ours with less intelligence.
- 24gttghh 9y agoSuch as? We humans do colossally stupid things on a daily basis with our so-called intelligence.
- booleandilemma 9y agoJust in terms of size, elephants have larger brains than humans, and we are arguably more intelligent.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Razengan 9y agoTechnically, considering a long enough timescale, a brain is the Universe trying to understand itself.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoDoesn't "try" imply intending? But the universe isn't a someone who can intend to do something. Your statement sounds like mysticism, trying to soften the emotional coldness of the materialist view of the universe.
- Razengan 9y agoThe space dust that coalesced into our solar system and planet eventually (picture it in fast-forward) became us and we "try" to understand stuff, no?
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoYes. But the space dust didn't intend to become us. It's something, not someone.
- Razengan 9y agoAre the neurons and chemicals and electrical impulses in our brains someone?
- xj9 9y agocollectively, yes. so the question is, where does the line between animate and inanimate lie?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Razengan 9y agoWhat about the brains of other animals or the nervous systems of insects, or the neurons in an octopus tentacle? Are they someone? It’s an interesting line of questioning. What makes “someone?” Is a living but braindead/comatose human body someone? Many may be inclined to say yes, yet a statue or other inanimate likeness of a human wouldn’t be considered someone.. How about a thing that doesn’t resemble a human at all but gives the exact same responses to inputs that a human brain would? Say, on a computer screen? If you were told that a real person is sitting somewhere and sending these responses, you’d say it was someone, but probably not if you were told that it’s an AI... It’s mostly all subjective and we just pick the definition that’s convenient for us to work with and comprehend.
- s-macke 9y agoYou should first define what actually means "understanding the brain" before you try to answer this question. Does "understanding of the brain" mean, that we can construct or simulate a brain? An artificial brain, which reproduce our intelligence and consciousness? There is no reason to believe, that we can't do this. A brain is part of our world, governed by physics. However, we will never be able to understand the thought process down to each individual activation of the neuron. That's like trying to "understand" and follow the movement of each atom in my coffee next to me.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- criddell 9y ago> However, we will never be able to understand the thought process down to each individual activation of the neuron. Is that true in general, or are you specifically talking about human brains?
- s-macke 9y agoI mean a complex thought process. Like how to come from an activated retina cell to a movement to a part of a body. At time index 586578382342us the cell no 15547349 got activated which led to a slightly improved electric charge around the axon of neuron no 68342. The connection strength, as you remember, from time index 3870127106 is now 1% higher ..... one billion pages later ..... but the atom here is slightly misaligned to its counterpart, ...... one billion pages later .... noise coming from dentride no 496839 .... one billion pages later .... let to a decreased potential at muscle cell no 9678402 and hence a millimeter shift of the finger tip no 3. ...... Do you want to here the exciting story about my semimenbranous muscle at time index 4386702121us :) Do we understand the brain when we have this information? What I want to say is, that our brain cannot store so much information and handle it. Hence, we cannot "understand" the brain on this level. ("The person did this, because .... ")
- giblaz 9y ago
- monster_group 9y agoQuestions such as these are tackled in the excellent book Infinity and the Mind [0]. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Mind-Philosophy-Infinite-Princeton/dp/0691121273/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1499286076&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Mind-Philosophy-Infinite-Pri...
- wakkaflokka 9y agoI love these types of books. I'm about to buy this. Is there any reason to get the most recent version (says "with a new preface by the author") over the $2 paperback?
- triplesec 9y agoYes. If the author is alive and you wish to reward their huge efforts and encourage them to write more of such books, buy them new.
- laythea 9y agoPut it this way. Our brains can't even answer that question.
- vinchuco 9y agoI remember hearing someone answer "if the brain was simple enough that we could understand it, it would be so simple that we wouldn't" to that question. Can a computer compute itself?
- booleandilemma 9y agoSo we can only understand the brain because it is complex. The brain may be the only object with this property.
- dredmorbius 9y agoIC design is largely a process of simulating and specifying the next generation of integrated circuits. So in the strict sense, not only can a computer compute itself, but it can compute its (more capable) successor generation. Practically, this now occurs in large server farms, so it takes a large number of computers to compute themselves and/or progeny. But this is very much what happens.
- alanbernstein 9y agoIt's fun to think that this is a sufficient definition of consciousness.