3 ms·

I wonder whether a human calculating a math problems is not unlike a computer simulating another computer. Observing the hand-eye coordination of top athletes,

I wonder whether a human calculating a math problems is not unlike a computer simulating another computer. Observing the hand-eye coordination of top athletes, it's pretty clear that our brains do some amazing computations, and fast. In fractions of a second, we can turn a pattern of photons into concepts, discover relationships between those concepts, track changes over time, and project all of that out some distance into the future. In other words, aren't most of our computational capabilities buried in the unconscious mind?

otabdeveloper1 7y ago
You're making a category error. Human brains aren't computers. They do not "compute" at all.
a1369209993 7y ago
> not unlike a computer simulating another computer It's more like this: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/User:BaronW#The_Almighty_Dwarven_Calculator http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/User:BaronW#The_Almig... . Not just horrendously inefficient, but also highly at odds with what the brain is designed to do.
ben_w 7y ago
That might be a better way of making my own point than what I actually wrote. You’re right, explicit conscious maths isn’t what our brain architecture evolved for. Of course, in terms of raw speed, my laptop can learn to read handwritten digits from only the examples in the SciKit-learn python module in 0.225 seconds [1], a bit less than the time it takes a human visual system to go from “some photons have hit the retina” to “there is a thought now, and that thought is ‘three’.” — the architecture of the AI is nowhere near as example-efficient as the architecture of a human brain, and it is only winning by the absurd performance difference of the hardware [2]. [1] https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/speed-of-machine-intelligence/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/speed-of-ma... [2] https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/you-wont-believe-how-fast-transistors-are/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/you-wont-be...

otabdeveloper1 7y ago

You're making a category error. Human brains aren't computers. They do not "compute" at all.

a1369209993 7y ago

> not unlike a computer simulating another computer It's more like this: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/User:BaronW#The_Almighty_Dwarven_Calculator http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/User:BaronW#The_Almig... . Not just horrendously inefficient, but also highly at odds with what the brain is designed to do.

ben_w 7y ago

That might be a better way of making my own point than what I actually wrote. You’re right, explicit conscious maths isn’t what our brain architecture evolved for. Of course, in terms of raw speed, my laptop can learn to read handwritten digits from only the examples in the SciKit-learn python module in 0.225 seconds [1], a bit less than the time it takes a human visual system to go from “some photons have hit the retina” to “there is a thought now, and that thought is ‘three’.” — the architecture of the AI is nowhere near as example-efficient as the architecture of a human brain, and it is only winning by the absurd performance difference of the hardware [2]. [1] https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/speed-of-machine-intelligence/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/speed-of-ma... [2] https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/you-wont-believe-how-fast-transistors-are/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/you-wont-be...