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Soon we will accept that a neuron is a processor with memory, not a switch and that synapses aren't a simple connection, but a bus. Also, that we have barely s
by dade_ 7y ago
Soon we will accept that a neuron is a processor with memory, not a switch and that synapses aren't a simple connection, but a bus. Also, that we have barely scratched the surface on how brains and every individual cell process & store data.
- jcims 7y agoI can’t find a good authoritative source so I’ll revert to casually regurgitated fact(oid?)s. Each neuron contains on the order of 10^^13 atoms. There’s a lot of potential for complexity in each of them. The other comes from the mind-boggling (heh) connectivity between them. If you’re a podcast listener, pick an episode you’ve heard in the last week, scrub to a spot halfway through and start listening. Do you start getting little flashbacks of what you were doing when you heard it the first time? All that’s in there.
- bookofjoe 7y agoAll that — and a lot more — is in "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell," Neal Stephenson's fantastic new novel https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/books/review/fall-or-dodge-in-hell-neal-stephenson.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/books/review/fall-or-dodg...
- mattkrause 7y agoMost neuroscientists would certainly agree with you already: hype notwithstanding, we’re nowhere near figuring the brain. Hell, we can’t even figure out the nervous system of a worm (~300 neurons, vs. 86B in humans). It is absurdly, fractally complicated, from the level individual ion channels (which have properties akin to cells), individual neurons and much larger neural circuits.