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To be fair, the simplest model of a complete modern automobile is already too complex for a human to understand. (Except for the 10 geniuses perhaps.) Not a mod

To be fair, the simplest model of a complete modern automobile is already too complex for a human to understand. (Except for the 10 geniuses perhaps.) Not a model of just the engine, or just the chemistry processes in the exhaust system, or just the electrical wiring, or how the painting jobs work - but the whole model of every subsystem existent in this car. Notably, this does not stop us from making new cars. There would need to be some substantial basis for a claim that a human brain will not soon be a similar deal: no one will undertand the whole system completely, but we will have experts on different areas and aspects of consciousness which will be more than enough for progress and specifically, strong AI.

Engineering-MD 8y ago
I would suggest that the difference is modularity. Designed devices often are made modular to aid understanding and ease modification/repair. The opposite is true with evolved systems. The brain is ultimately produced and controlled by genetics, which allows genes to overlap, and have multiple functions. This makes understanding it difficult. Furthermore, the highly interconnected nature of the brain will make this even less modular. While I think we will gain further understanding of some sub systems such as the cerebellum or visual cortex, I think the unmodular nature will limit this to imperfect models.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  One of the most profound understandings I had about nature and humans - is that it is also modular! Surely, it is likely evolved and not directly designed, but if you look at it more closely - it is modular in almost every important area! Organisms oragnize into distinct non-mixable speices/genotypes, we have organs in our body that have specific functions, we have sub-organs, we have specialized distinct types of cells, distinct sub-cellular structures inside the cell, distinct proteins with different functionalities (with some groupings of course), even higher level functionality is modular, like for example sleeping: all processes that need to be done offline are refactored away into a "sleep" phase which is enforced in many ways, even though this enforcement turned out to have so many parts and being so complicated that newborns need to learn to to start sleeping. The sleep itself it split into distinct phases, different processes happening in the them; humans auto-organize their societies into specific roles, etc. And, my personal favorite - the bulk of the information about a human is in a genome: a specified code utilizing 3-letter, 4-character words and sentences to describe almost everything needed to make a human. How did it evolve into a "code", a language??? Modern designed x86 architecture is more complex and has more ugly legacy crap than the evolved genetic code which has the perfect number of letters, perfect control structures, perfect number of aminoacids that is enough to build everything! (Ok, yes I know it is not "perfect" but it is very very sophisticated and, apparently, well-thought-through.) So I think this modularity, which exists both in evolved and designed systems tells about the nature of the universe, and/or complexity, information and knowledge: the information and its physical representation conspires to become modular and produce more complex designs and entities that way, through abstraction, through logical levels and modular architecture. Not only through sheer number of interconnections (surely, there is enough of that too, but is it really that much different to a number of transistors in a recent x86 chip?), but through modularity. It is easy to miss this because nature is arguably "less" modular than a man-made car. But when looking at some design choices under the hood or talking to mechanics, or looking at leaked software code for big projects - there is just enough spaghetti code there to prove that such designed entities have a lot of ugly poorly understood interconnectivity that is just made to "work good enough". I guess it is when this horizontal complexity becomes unsustainable - the designer, be it a human or a natural process of evolution - has to come up a new abstraction level, an organ, a genetic language - to allow for further progress.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
gerbilly 8y ago
> Notably, this does not stop us from making new cars. We don't understand brains either but it doesn't stop us from making new brains. The best way to make a brain is still the old way.

Engineering-MD 8y ago

I would suggest that the difference is modularity. Designed devices often are made modular to aid understanding and ease modification/repair. The opposite is true with evolved systems. The brain is ultimately produced and controlled by genetics, which allows genes to overlap, and have multiple functions. This makes understanding it difficult. Furthermore, the highly interconnected nature of the brain will make this even less modular. While I think we will gain further understanding of some sub systems such as the cerebellum or visual cortex, I think the unmodular nature will limit this to imperfect models.

Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
One of the most profound understandings I had about nature and humans - is that it is also modular! Surely, it is likely evolved and not directly designed, but if you look at it more closely - it is modular in almost every important area! Organisms oragnize into distinct non-mixable speices/genotypes, we have organs in our body that have specific functions, we have sub-organs, we have specialized distinct types of cells, distinct sub-cellular structures inside the cell, distinct proteins with different functionalities (with some groupings of course), even higher level functionality is modular, like for example sleeping: all processes that need to be done offline are refactored away into a "sleep" phase which is enforced in many ways, even though this enforcement turned out to have so many parts and being so complicated that newborns need to learn to to start sleeping. The sleep itself it split into distinct phases, different processes happening in the them; humans auto-organize their societies into specific roles, etc. And, my personal favorite - the bulk of the information about a human is in a genome: a specified code utilizing 3-letter, 4-character words and sentences to describe almost everything needed to make a human. How did it evolve into a "code", a language??? Modern designed x86 architecture is more complex and has more ugly legacy crap than the evolved genetic code which has the perfect number of letters, perfect control structures, perfect number of aminoacids that is enough to build everything! (Ok, yes I know it is not "perfect" but it is very very sophisticated and, apparently, well-thought-through.) So I think this modularity, which exists both in evolved and designed systems tells about the nature of the universe, and/or complexity, information and knowledge: the information and its physical representation conspires to become modular and produce more complex designs and entities that way, through abstraction, through logical levels and modular architecture. Not only through sheer number of interconnections (surely, there is enough of that too, but is it really that much different to a number of transistors in a recent x86 chip?), but through modularity. It is easy to miss this because nature is arguably "less" modular than a man-made car. But when looking at some design choices under the hood or talking to mechanics, or looking at leaked software code for big projects - there is just enough spaghetti code there to prove that such designed entities have a lot of ugly poorly understood interconnectivity that is just made to "work good enough". I guess it is when this horizontal complexity becomes unsustainable - the designer, be it a human or a natural process of evolution - has to come up a new abstraction level, an organ, a genetic language - to allow for further progress.
- deleted 8y ago
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gerbilly 8y ago

> Notably, this does not stop us from making new cars. We don't understand brains either but it doesn't stop us from making new brains. The best way to make a brain is still the old way.