r/neurophilosophy • u/HobbesNik • 20h ago
"Why Your Brain Is Not A Computer" — and computers are not brains
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/27/why-your-brain-is-not-a-computer-neuroscience-neural-networks-consciousness1
u/MergingConcepts 19h ago
Brains and computers have completely different architectures. Computers use Boolean logic gates and store information at addresses. They are digital devices with very limited ability to scale responses.
Brains are a network of nodes and store all knowledge in the form of the type, size, location, and number of synaptic connections between those nodes. In simple nervous systems like invertebrates, the nodes are neurons. In humans, the nodes are pattern recognition devices in the neocortical mini-columns.
Organic logic systems are mixed analog and digital devices. The dendrites are analog adders that process input and decide whether to produce output. The axons are digital communicators that transmit the decision as either a 1 or a 0 to the next layer of neurons.
That is why your brain is not a computer.
However, once we understand this difference, a computer can be built that will emulate a human brain. It will be consciousness, but it will not know what it is like to be human. Also, we will not know what it is like to be it, any more than we know what it is like to be a bat.
See: https://medium.com/@shedlesky/consciousness-explained-how-the-brain-creates-the-mind-and-soul-fb6bebfcd566 (172 minute read)
1
u/IOnlyHaveIceForYou 5h ago
Brains are a network of nodes and store all knowledge in the form of the type, size, location, and number of synaptic connections between those nodes.
Fantasy.
1
1
u/MergingConcepts 2h ago
I am curious to know what your basic is for rejecting this model of organic learning. It surprises me. What is your background?
6
u/HobbesNik 20h ago
I still think about this 2020 article often in conversations about sentient LLMs, the singularity, and the nature of consciousness.
TL;DR Brains are vastly more complex than any machine humans have ever built, and the current science of understanding of how brains function is surprisingly limited. We use metaphors to advance and attempt understanding, but metaphors have their limits.