Researchers calculate power of a single brain in terms of memory capacity.....

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by certified psycho, Sep 14, 2003.

  1. certified psycho Beware of the Shockie Monkey Registered Senior Member

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    1,943
    ....Greater than all the computers ever made.
    True.
    For the first time, researchers have calculated that the power of a single brain in terms of memory capacity and discovered that it is greater than all the computers ever made.

    While even the biggest computer has a capacity of around 10,000,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the power of 12), the human brain has a colossal 10 followed by 8,432 noughts, say the scientists who made the calculations in the journal Brain and Mind.

    The researchers, who point out that memory is the foundation of natural intelligence, say that the size of the memory capacity of human brains has been a mystery until now because no one has developed the right mathematical models for working it out.

    The number of neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain is known - around 100 billion - and many analysts have used this for the basis of claims that computers will soon be superior to the brain.

    But the researchers looked beyond that and used a series of algorithms to work out the total capacity, including the huge number of different neural connections.

    Ironically, the discovery could be used to change the way that computers are designed. Instead of adding more bytes, they could mimic the human brain, with more emphasis on connections.
     
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  3. eburacum45 Valued Senior Member

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    What no link?
     
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  5. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    The human brain doesn't use the same sort of binary storage system that computers use. I don't see how you can really compare the two. In a lot of important ways computers already have far, far more storage space than the human brain. Any standard CD can store a string of 700 million letters or numbers, and a generic 10x CD-ROM drive can access them in blocks of 1.5 million per second. No human brain could come close to that.
     
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  7. sargentlard Save the whales motherfucker Valued Senior Member

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    Hard to comapre analog VS Linear...i wonder how they went about this. I would consider human brain to have considerly more processing power than a computer or even a super computer (coordinating muscles, thoughts and making decisions would be a drain on a PC)...but not memory.
     
  8. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    Were I to store all the memories I have in full color video and sound, and include all the momory of balance, taste, touch, etc, it would certainly take up more HD space than would be availabel on most computers. 4k video takes up a few hundred Megabyte s of HD space per second; add in more than just video and sound, and you're talking about alot of memory!

    However, I can't multiply two fractals together in nanoseconds.

    The word "power" is a bit ambiguous.
     

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