Your brain is not a computer

lots of algorithms "learn" - genetic algorithms for instance

neural networks actually model neurons and the connections between them

But neurons aren't the only thing involved so it's not really similar to the brain at all.

...

of course not
that would be messy
they're models of neurons

and simulated neurons pretty much -are- the only component of an ANN, any preprocessing that happens before data reaches them then could be analogized to the pre-processing of light that happens in the retina - spatial encoding for instance

i don't see what your philosophical need for a Special And Unique place for animal brains is, convergence is only natural when it comes to solving problems, it makes sense that evolution and rational thought would develop overlapping methods

Good read. Thanks OP.

why u mad tho

did you even read the article lol

hey there reddit, TIL that the brain isn't a computer because as a whole it's too complex for us to understand right now

even though it's obviously a machine that uses switching components to solve problems and encodes information in the same ways engineers designing electronic devices do

god isn't hiding in the gaps user, there's just a great deal more to learn

Read the fucking article. Outside of these passing mechanical similarities, they're nothing alike.

It's like claiming that the brain is a hydraulic pump because it has fluids swishing around in it.

but the brain -is- a hydraulic pump, as far as that's needed to perform its function

what do you think a brain is, user, if it's not a computer. a soul containment device? a blood-cooling organ?

This is embarrassing.

Did you read the article?

i did, i disagree with it

oops

The point of the article is that the function of the brain is completely different from that of computers.

I thought they'd figured out, very basically, how brains work with the whole "neural network" revolution that ended the AI winter.

...

deadass user
not understanding how information is encoded doesn't mean that it's not present

to claim that the brain doesn't store information wouldn't just violate common sense, but the laws of physics

Is the author trying to claim there isn't such a thing a short-term and long-term memory storage? How does that explain people with certain brain afflictions not being able to access new information, but who are still able to recall older memories?

His point is that organic memories are more a series of impressions rather than stored data as is the case with computer memory.

What's the difference between series of impressions and stored data?

Jesus christ, the reading comprehension of some of the people here…

there is no difference
information is always ultimately an abstract concept, the charge of a semiconductor capacitor and the patterns of connections between neurons aren't fundamentally different

our memory of a dollar bill may be missing a lot of detail, but so does a JPEG

How are they even similar?

Face it, you're never going to upload your brain onto a computer. They're apples and oranges.

i said transhumanism is dumb

i just object to the idea that a brain somehow doesn't count as a computer, just because it's (much) more complex than anything we've ever built

explain to me what a "series of impressions" even means, because right now it just sounds like a wishy-washy way of saying "encoded information"

The dollar example could be a simply issue that the brain does not store raw data from the eye and what it stored is whatever pattern the brain recognized from the image (we do know our brain are powerful pattern recognizing machines thus it makes sense it stores patterns not full images).

When a computer recalls the data of an image, it reads a string of code that allows it to replicate the image exactly. It literally has instructions that tell it where every single pixel goes (which is also demonstrated in the way that a computer renders an image, going from one end to another)
A human meanwhile, recalls the image as a series of impressions, that are themselves only rendered meaningful by the person's experiences. As the picture shows, it's recalled as a series of shapes, phrases, and other images: The bill is rectangular, it has a number on every corner (it's a one dollar bill so the number is one), it has a picture of George Washington in the middle (he has a wig - the picture is framed in a circle). There are words on both sides of the picture. The bill says "one dollar". There's probably a "In god we trust" somewhere (because that's what dollar bills say)
Those two ways of recalling an image are drastically different and completely incompatible with each other. A computer would be unable to recognise what a circle was, let alone that it should be in the middle. It only reads instructions and writes them out.

Honestly, did you read the fucking article?

For one, it's distributed across the brain rather than encoded in any one place, and it's more of a conceptual understanding of something that we've experienced before rather than any kind of hard data. The difference between and a low resolution copy of an image you'd share on a computer is that what the computer would save would be a clump of pixels based on how it's algorithm has it compress images, whereas we have a conceptual impression of something we once saw, recalling it by the important bits that make up our conception of what that thing is.

So a dollar has its value on it and a portrait of a guy from the 18th century in the middle.

There are computers that recognizes shapes, it is how facial recognition software works, where what is stored are patterns and the software is going through the image trying to find a match of the patterns in its memory. In short facial recognition software are pattern finding machines like our brains evolved to be.

Except they don't shape new patters or conceive of original ones.

They simply reference back to patterns they have stored and run what they see through their algorithms.

They can store key shapes from a raw image which is what gives the software data to compare with. Yet if you look at their memory of a person it would just be abstract geometry since it has to find patterns without knowing how far the person is from the camera or their angle.

But the machine doesn't actually recognise these patterns, it simply repeats instructions in the same way as when it executes any other program. Those instructions are written by its programmers in order to match what they recognise as shapes, which to the computer are just code. A computer is ultimately dumb. It can process things really quickly, but only if those things are written in the most simple instructions (on/off). It can replicate human behaviour with precise enough instructions, but it doesn't actually understand any of it.

a man is a sperms way of making more sperm

Neither did we before we evolved to be self-aware. Our brains were hardware to be blindly recognize patterns as it was a useful mutation. This is why our brains even today recognizes patterns that aren't there since this function of our brain came before our self-awareness.

Citation needed

See evolution and node A.I. evolution simulations, where self learning A.I. imitating simple brains don't create brain functions except through mutation.

You tell a A.I. bot it has to eat and reproduce and through reproduction random mutations to the logic will be injected.

Fam, that's exactly my point. Just because a computer can replicate the function of a brain doesn't mean the brain functions as a computer.
The point of the article is that we ultimately don't know how the brain works, and working off the assumption that it must function like a computer is just limiting ourselves, since history shows that we've been wrong about this shit before and likely will be again.

Not really.

It's basic function is still just reading lines of data.

And the "random" mutations in those experiments would still have to be defined by programmers. It's just another algorithm the AI processes.

Yes, now human jobs involving thinking can’t be automated and replaced with machines. I won’t be miserable and unemployed.

You are missing the point, all intelligence we know of (both natural and artificial) requires pattern recognition before they can learn. So how would we be self-aware before we had the means to learn?

So much for the materialist left.

Sasuga illiterate right.

They are very shitty models of neurons.

Wouldn’t transhumanists just move on to talk about genetic modification and the ability to place your mind in a different body. (One which has been genetically altered)

/end thread

What a totally absolute shit article. TFW this guy is a senior researcher and has 15 fucking books…

The nervous system pretty much works as a computer does. Specialized sensing cells send chemical signals that are transformed into electric action potentials (aka electric binary digital signals) that travel down elaborate circuits of logical gates comprising embodied algorithms (aka the network of neurons in your thick skull). This is not really disputed in science. Our understanding issue is that the network is so massive we don't really know how it operates *in detail*; how specific neural circuits perform their tasks and how they change over time.

Deep learning (modern neural networks) has made huge advances in the AI field lately precisely because the neural-net model is pretty much how a brain works, and their complexity is such that just like a meatbrain you can't "open" it up and understand how all the network does its thing, it just does it, it's a black box much to the chagrin of older AI researchers…

The author just engages in massive strawmen and red herrings like faulty representations, the complexity of getting a full snapshot of a human connectome, BTFO naive metaphors nobody but popscience seriously does, etc… but never does fully address HOW the brain or computers actually work and why modern scientists continue to make that comparison, he just masturbates about his "meat brains are special mkay" stupidity.

t. not a neurofag or compfag, just not a retard

I suggest those that agree with this steaming pile of shit article lay off the socialism circlejerk for a second and read Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence.

doubt.jpg

REEEEEEEEEEEE KILL YOURSELF YOU POP SCIENTISTS

i was honestly shocked to read the author's credentials, how does a PhD psychologist not know what a neuron is

I don't understand, he keeps asserting that the brain doesn't store data but he doesn't seem to demonstrate this at all, he just keeps asserting that brains aren't computers without any real argument as to why this is the case. The fact that humans have compared our brains to different technologies in the past does not mean that the comparison to computers is innacurate, and the fact that we don't store exact memories like a computer doesn't mean we don't function in a similar way. It could be that our method of storage is simply less effective, I mean our entire bodies are just jerry rigged random alignments of chemicals, it's pretty amazing we can remember anything at all. How does he suggest that the brain doesn't physically store information? If this is the case then how does memory work? Is he suggesting that the brain just conjures up memories out of thin air? Even if thoughts are not stored in a way we currently understand they have to be stored somewhere, even if our brains don't function exactly like our current computers that doesn't mean they aren't computers in some sense of the term.

There have been other discoveries that have suggested nature behaves in ways similar to computers, look at CRISPR for instance.

The author of this article doesn't seem to know what a metaphor is. Of course the human brain "stores" data in some sense.

WOW, TECHNOCRACY BTFO

You are a retard. They are nothing alike. Just because the computer is Turing-complete and can simulate a brain (or something that models our current understanding of how a brain works), and the brain can simulate a computer, does not mean that they work the same way. They work very differently, as anyone who saw a CPU from close will be able to tell you.

Deep learning is making huge advances because they suit GPUs nicely and GPUs have a ton more computing power now than CPUs. They are not magical or some accurate model of the brain, you can just put a fuckton of raw parallel computing power under them.

Please read this:
spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence/machinelearning-maestro-michael-jordan-on-the-delusions-of-big-data-and-other-huge-engineering-efforts

This entire article relies on a misunderstanding of what a computer is, and uses that misunderstanding to then imply that because it doesn't fit the exact definition of computer that he's using then therefore it cannot be replicated by a computer. I seriously doubt that there were many people that previously thought that our brains where using perfect storage in formats that store things like readable text files or the actual data we interpret.

This doesn't BTFO trans-humanists at all. You've proven nothing to negate their goal of using technology to enhance the human condition. The author has not proven that a computer can't be used to emulate/enhance human consciousness. He has most definitely not proven that the brain is somehow not reliant on physical processes. Come back when you have something interesting to say and not this pointless semantic based drivel.

when you say "computer" you're talking about intel or nvidia branded digital ICs from the last 30 years or so, rather than the incredibly broad class of physical systems that the term "computer" actually describes

This.

No, I'm talking about all computational models known to mankind.

Uh-huh.

I maybe retarded but I still don't understand why the author rejects the metaphor of a brain as a processor, if we consider it as a stimuli processing organ.
Of course, the brain is not a digital computer with a Von Neumann architecture. But we can roughly envision our bodies minus the brain and especially our nerves transmitting visible electromagnetic fluctuations, acoustic waves, pressure on the skin, impulses to move our muscles, and so on, as an I/O system, and the brain as an processor receiving its inputs and acting on its outputs.

The fact that the most plausible (for the time being) theories of human memory doesn't conceiving it as a hard-drive, but a system involving traces (a set of neural activations) formed and consolidated by the hippocampus and reactivated as memory recall occurs, doesn't give a significant blow to the "processor interacting with I/O" model of the brain.
Disclamer : this is an extremely simplified and probably inaccurate summary of these memory models. For more information, see "Mechanisms of Memory Consolidation and Transformation" (Sekeres, Moscovitch and Winocur, 2017)
Stating (quite rightly) that we will probably never be able to discretize our brain/consciousness and upload it onto cyberspace doesn't disprove the "proc I/O" model either.

As I've typed this, though, I came across the abstract of a paper proposing a new model replacing the I/O one (journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1059712312465330), and I'm pretty their model is a step in the right direction toward a better understanding of the human brain, but the article OP posted (taken in isolation) didn't really convinced me to not see the brain as a processor.

Define computer, because I'm pretty sure this whole argument between you folks is based on using two different definitions of the word.

You might as well define what a computer is as well.

If you are so fucking clever which model of computation describes accurately how the brain works?

...

this guys says no to a lot of things we don't know but offers nothing in return.

Smells very Christian to me…
Oh what a surprise it looks like he is.

So he's trying to say the brain does not process, store and retrieve information which is absurd since it demonstrably does.

His argument is this: THE HUMAN BRAIN ISN'T A BINARY COMPUTER NYAR NYAR NYAR

No shit sherlock, doesn't mean its not a different kind of computational device.

I dont know you fucking tard, if we knew we wouldnt have fucking neuroscience. And thats not the fucking argument. You claim to be talking about "all possible models of computation" yet you only mention Turing machines, which is a very specific form of computer.

The brain consists of neurons which communicate with each other, the emergent property of which is a brain, which take in input from nerves, does shit and sends out signals. That is a computer. Info in -> do stuff -> info out.
I dont know how those neurons come together to form the human brain, just like you wouldn't know how exactly skyrim or whatever comes about from circuitry.
Describing the brains emerging structure or modeling the brain, an organ that is constantly changing its very structure to change its behaviour, rather than using a very simple von neumann architecture, is an impossible task to ask of people right now, its an entire scientific field.

if you don't know how the brain works then how can you compare it to computers lmao

because it stores information, stores programs, performs logical and arithmetic operations
it takes input from sensors and outputs to actuators

because the alternative to the brain being a computer is "muh soul"

How hard is it to get it through your thick skull that the shitty piece of junk you are abusing right now is not the only type of computer that exists? You dont even know how the computer you have in front of you works.

So which type of computer is like the brain?

brains are

none that we've built

though electronic analogue computers behave a lot like neurons when you convert the rate coding in to an analogue signal, neurons do comparison and switching, like op amps and transistors

Nor does stuff like an artificial neural network. The randomly configured ones (which use evolution to train) change their structure, connections and strength to change their calculation. Nowhere does it have a CPU, nowhere does it have memory. Nor do static neural nets like deep learning networks. Yet you can ask googles new toy what a cat looks like and it will produce something that looks something like a cat.

A brain-like computer.
Yes you can. A brain is a computer. Brains are thus a type of computers.
Just because we haven't made one doesnt mean it isnt a computer.

you guys totally convinced me

...

You see, a brain computes so it's a computer, duh.

this but unironically

Look, I've found a picture of a processor acting on its inputs!

You forgot to take out your flag.

something like this:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.12012/abstract

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH

what if i'm (literally) anfem

again this but unironically, a mixer tap can be used as an analogue adder

thats essentially an OR gate

Sure smells plagiary in here

forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/04/why-your-brain-isnt-a-computer/#38431ae413e1

lol another Christian

Wut? No

Top logic. Maybe you should start by defining a computer.

You can be smug cunts all you like but a brain computes, so its a fucking computer.

Yes, and? It produces a stream of water that is the volume of the sum of the volumes of the input streams times the rate of openness, and the avarage of the tempratures of the inputstreams times the openness.
It is capable of infinitely more computations than what the base components of a computer can.
Its can handle two types of information at once and perform within the entire range of the information, rather than just on or off.

ITS LITTERALLY A FUCKING COMPUTER
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_integrator

nice false dichotomy you fuckwad

We have defined computer like 10 times already, maybe you should start by reading the comments.

Given the Author's Christian background, I would say it was a fair comparison.

...

an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program.

but the article itself says those were silly deprecated ideas? did you even read the fucking article lol

The closest thing to a definition I've seen in this thread is that a computer is a thing that computes stuff, and another definiton that is so wide literally everything could be defined as a computer.

no
computers don't have to be electronic and they don't have to work with binary data

This is a computation. THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A COMPUTATION. A COMPUTER IS ANYTHING THAT COMPUTES.

a device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program.

Thats the whole
fucking
point

No.

so you're arguing over nitpicks and semantics for the sake of it? got it

Alright great. Everything is a computer. Now what?

lol never seen apologetics at work lol they happily will throw old Bible ideas out the window as long as they have their safe God space lol

yes if you think abotu it cells, DNS, chemical process are computational in nature.

Lets make it simple and computer will
< process information (create new, alter previously stored)

there you go.

"A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically."
to go full wiki-warrior

...

What about the mechanical aiming computers used to target ship's guns?

Look, can you perform basic math? Can you add shit together? 2 + 2 = 4. There, I performed computation. What the article was attempting to say was that our brains do not rely on computation to function. Not that they aren't computers. The title is misleading.

Also, I'd be wary of saying that our brains don't use any form of computation because that seems unlikely. I don't know enough personally to say but computation is a pretty broad term.

me the jucheist arguing that "dprk isn't communist" is just arguing semantics

The fuck does this sentence even mean. The article doesn't talk about religion

Anyway keep on arguing that things that fit the definition of a computer isnt a computer, im off to buy groceries.

the author is a committed christfag who's only arguing his insane point because his precious religion is threatened by materialism

So we shouldn't listen to someone because they believe in a religion? Nevermind the fact that they never bring up religion even once, nor make the argument that we have a soul?

please point out where in the article this happens, because all i see the author shitting on those old conceptions of the brain instead of your schizoid delusions

That's not what the author implied though. I have a limited understanding of AI and machine learning but ML can be a very powerful tool to generate digital data.
Computer programs are data just like images and sound files are : a C source file or a Python script are just strings of characters, a binary program is a sequence of machine code instructions.
Therefore, as artificial neural networks are able to generate music (see hexahedria.com/2015/08/03/composing-music-with-recurrent-neural-networks/), they can be able to generate programs too.
It probably won't be practical until a very long time though.

Shit I didn't mean to post this image. It's the action of amphetamines on neurons possessing dopamine receptors. It can gives you all food for thought.

who needs food for thought though when you have meth for thought

AI will be a mistake, mark my words.
All other technology is perfectly fine, though.

underrated post

According to technologists a computer is a thing that computes, thus even alien computers that we can't even comprehend are computers as far as technologists are concerned.

Alright, went ahead and googled this guy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein
He does sound like a conservative asshole. Also found this article by him.

You see this is the worst shit STEMnigeers fap to, the pseudo philosophical bullshit about le ebin computers that will save mankind but they don't realize they are at the mercy of big corporations and they are preparing to cut out the undesirables. I can alredy hear porky calling "What fag? You didn't work hard enough for that good job! You spent your days fantasizing about technological brain singularietes while watching some cheap netflix flick! You will have to work a shit job for the rest of your life. It's tough if you are lazy, try tu pull yourself up by the bootstraps ;^)".
But seriusly when I hear those STEMlords talkinga about learning machines or singularities or even about black mirror technology integrated into reality it makes me cringe that they actually like helping the cuckung of the proles

If everything is a computer, nothing is a computer.

It becomes a meaningless metaphor.

those crazy Soviets

Everything that calculates is a computer.

Not litterally everything
When people say litterally they often mean "not litterally but very strong" and in this case it means "lots of things"
Because english is a retarded language native to retarded people

It doesn't matter though. Georges Lemaître was a physicist who was instrumental in the development of the theories of the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe, and yet he was also a Catholic priest.
What matters are the arguments by themselves, and outside of the one stating that seeing the brain as a computer will probably become an outdated metaphor in the future, they weren't very convincing IMHO (>>1812152)

Why should I believe anyone who thinks there's 64 bits in a byte?

Of course the brain processes information. Information goes in, gets changed and comes out. The word for that is 'process'.

This twat is wildly exaggerating his point to make it controversial

No.

Technocrats are the new useful idiots of capitalism.

What the fuck does the definition of a fucking computer have to do with capitalism?

balanced ternary is pretty nice

What is a computer if it is not something that computes?

Look I think you need to calm down man.

I don't know why he started the post with that, but he's completely right besides that line.

A machine that executes programs.

Then you need to define what machine and program mean. Are directions programs? Can people fulfill the role of machine? You're just further occluding the point by redefining words. It's pointless.

Let me put it this way. In the past there were literally people with the job title 'computer'. They mostly worked in the aerospace industry. They would perform computational tasks by hand. You're literally redefining words to fit your needs. The worst part is that you don't have to. You could make very good arguments without doing so.

I do not understand you.

In the past "gay" meant happy but now it's used to describe retarded faggots like you.

And you being autistic over semantics when you know what the other guy meant isn't pointless?

Haha top quality post thanks.

Not when he's attempting to redefine a word to win an argument. I understand what he means. He's using the wrong words and trying to use this mis-definition to imply a conclusion that isn't true.

Why is this a bad definition. If aliens have a device that calculates is it not a computer even if we don't know how the device works?

Because that's not how people use the word? A calculator is not a fucking computer.

Ok I'm what i meant is that the fact that the definition of computer boils down to "juss semayntiks" is actually a signal of the very dangerous thought that dominates the scientific and economical representation of "computers" as man built machines that will in the future will be some cornucopia of goods (or of bad) but none of this actually matters because the myth of endless research and technological progressive growth has been shown to not be always true in the hystory of mankind. This comes down to the hard fact that corporations have a tight grip on all the "computer" stuff of life and try to expand it as much as they can. This creates problems in other brain related sciences because people actually try to study the brain (a "computer" in the broader sense of the word) based on the man built machine "computer" models, thats my problem.
And STEMlords are the major propagators of bullshit like this

That how we used the word for centuries, in 1917 computer was a synonym for calculator. What cased the meanings to differ was calculators now means machines that can do math while computers are machines that through calculations can do all sort of logical functions. So yes a calculator is a type of computer.

See

Did transhumanists really not know this already? Lol, they're just science fiction dorks. Don't know why you'd want to upload your brain anyway. I'd rather have a little life extension with my own fucking brain.

Then lets use your new definition. A machine that executes programs. Once again I ask why a person cannot execute these programs and act as the 'machine'. At any rate you've still not disproven the transhumanist position and frankly I find the mental gymnastics you have to go through to justify your point hilarious.

I'm going to leave this thread. Good luck being actually mentally challenged.

Transhumanists have a different definition of computer, as for decades they envisioned quantum computers hosting human consciousness not antiquated digital computers.

brain = """computer""" out of chemistry n shiet

Also why are people here attacking thhe author for being Christian? He didn't include it in the article in any way.

They can act as a machine, but does not mean that it is. The computer could act as a brain, but that does not mean it is a brain.

BRB, executing a program

Dude stop taking whatever you are taking. Litterally noone is studying brains using a fucking von neumann computer as a model, you retard. Stop blaming "the evil stem technocrats" for everything.

That is literally you every time you have to fill out a form tho. Hell, bureaucracies are basically human computers. Hence the stereotype of the government employee as a faceless automaton that has no ability to think creatively.

In my country a friend of mine literally has a university course where they study how to "create human like intelligence" where they try to do this shit

Keyword here is "human-like". They study brains to make software that acts similar to humans.

Nobody is studying brains by looking at assembly code and graphics cards.

Ah k

Yeah, except my brain can't actually run an executable. We can calculate stuff, and we can follow instructions the same way a computer can, but we can't run a program through our brains, and calculation doesn't really come naturally to most people. We invented computers specifically in order to automate the process.

neural networks are functionally nothing like actual organic neural networks

Neither could the Apollo navigation computer, all its functions were hardwired in, so was the Apollo navigation computer not a computer?

Just because it's in firmware doesn't mean it's not a program

So how is your brain any different?
Your brain is a computer that changes its firmware to train itself.

it was nothing like a human brain, computers are closed systems made of modular components and they require a programmer to function, they need a programming language inserted into their memory to work. Humans can derive their own languages AND they do not need programmers. Humans can develop independent of direct programming and plenty of people seem to pick up most basic skills by osmosis. Humans are not programmable, you can condition them to a degree, but they are not programmable. You cannot command a human to do a specific thing over and over without fail. There is no off switch, there is no reboot switch either. Its not a machine, no matter how autistic you want to be about it. The electro-magnetics and electro-chemistry aside it is a living, open system that is interacting with its environment and its own genes

The brain does not run programs though

as far as we know, ofc

This thread has been non-stop petty autism from everyone, mein gott.

that's not a computer and humans don't have firmware they have generalized nervous activity. Stop a priori asserting that euphamisms invented for machines are what is happening in a human. Mitosis is not a machine process, no machine in existence can reproduce itself.

Fam, you were literally asking why a brain couldn't run a program. I answered. You can make a human go through a list of instructions (a program), but you can't run the instructions directly through their brain like a computer

shut the fuck up idiot

The Apollo navigation computer didn't have firmware as we know it, all its logic was hardwired transistor transistor logic, making it closer to the computers in Minecraft then a traditional computer.

Our brain is actually more dynamic then the Apollo navigation computer, our brain is closer to theoretical quantum computers.

our "brain" isn't a computer its a biological organ you fucking anti-life sperg. Stop calling it a computer, a computer is a dead piece of hardware. Can a computer restructure itself? no. Can a computer contemplate? no. can a computer be creative? no. It has to be commanded to do these things. Stop being a faggot

Sounds like you are wrong.

No I cant litterally cram ones and zeros into your mesh, although you make me want to try. Good job einstein, humans arent von neumans computers, which has been said time and time again in this thread.

Litterally not even relevant.

Gee did you figure this out all by yourself?

Except that was literally what this user was arguing

If we knew exactly how the brain worked, and had a computer powerful enough to emulate it, would that turn the computer into a brain? Don't be retarded, faggot.

How hard is it for you people to realise that the piece of shit computer in front of you is litterally just one of infinite kinds of computer architectures?

Just because our brains arent a turing machine on steroids, doesnt mean it isnt a computer. It computes, it takes input and according to its state, returns output. Thats all a computer is. Computer is a very broad term, and anyone who claims "oh no brains arent computers, they are magic" can fuck off.

Thats what everyone who isnt retarded has been saying.

The core rope memory couldn't change the TTL logic, you assume it was a general purpose computer when it couldn't do any function that it didn't have a set of logic gates to perform.

In a way yes, you would call the computer that hosts a robot consciousness its brain.

Are you playing retarded you piece of shit?

Yes, it litterally would. There would be no difference between the emulated brain and a real brain. The medium doesnt matter, the thinking of a brain is an emergent property.

Are you? Would you say a robotic alien life form has no brain simply because its brain functions are done by a quantum computer?

We do realise it, fam. Also, most people don't have their computers in front of them so checkmate.

FUCKING KILL YOURSELF YOU ILLITERATE WEASEL. JUST BECAUSE WE DONT HAVE GREY GOO DOESNT MEAN THAT BRAINS, BY THE DEFINITION OF WHAT A COMPUTER IS, IS A COMPUTER.
ALL LIFE IS MECHANIC. ITS LITTERALLY ALL JUST THE RESULT OF PHYSICS IN ACTIONS.

All I got to say is; imagine being so bourgeois that you cannot remember what a 1 dollar bill looks like.

What are you posting this on a bar of soap?
If you are going to say that your smartphone isnt a computer I seriously need you to drink bleach.

No, I'm saying that most people have their monitors in front of them, not their computers. I'm being pedantic to annoy you. Now chill.

People in this thread say that brains aren't computers, but then how do you explain human nature? Humans are programmed to behave a certain way, and that is how it has always been.

...

Mathematics is literally an abstract concept invented by humans in order to describe nature. It's not a force of nature in itself. To think otherwise is idealism

But math exists even without humans. Aliens on the other side of the galaxy probably has comparable math to ours.

And a prison is just an abstract concept invented by humans in order to describe being locked up in a room, it isnt actually real.

No, fuck you.

This world is materialist and you have no soul.

Stop being anthropocentric.

Their math would be similar because it would be based on the same universe. The only differences would be the number system and symbols used.

Lets not get into this whole
debate

so anything that computes is a computer

almost anything is thus a computer, also the brain, even though the brain doesn't function anything like the thing we call "a computer"

I agree that the brain is far from a computer but I highly doubt you couldn't simulate or create something the same as or similar to the brain in a computer. I mean you might not be able to plug a brain directly into a computer, but you could certainly simulate something like that in a computer via a program if we understood it enough. Sure this is no feat right down the road but I'd imagine that as we advance computers and our understanding of the brain we could create artifical intelligence similar to a person at some point in the future. Unfortunate that we cannot upload ourselves to a computer it seems though, that was the one thing that kept existential dread away for me is that there was a small possibility I could freeze myself or brain till we could upload our minds to computers.

So a quantum computer is not a computer? Because quantum computers don't function like any other computer as it relies on the superstate of quantum particles that are entangled.

This is why people view the brain as a computer, just a different kind of computer.

...

...

what is a quantum computer and who built it?

How can physics not be materialist?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#Timeline

...

welp, that was my last rational hope that theres something else after this life

only good post in this thread

a loose description of what makes up some of our brain's physical phenomena, but is by no means a complete description of it nor does it deal with the brain in its entirety in regards to biochemistry as if it did we would be able to synthesize a brain and perfectly predict brain activity, but we can't so biochemistry is a work in progress description of some of the processes that can be ascribed to the physical system known as the human brain. Biochemistry by the way has nothing to do with the idea of a system being made of modular components and brain activity is not modular its network based. You're a fucking retard, using science terms to mask a low Autism Level
its a protein based system that helps drive cellular activity but it itself has a symbiotic feed-back loop with cell membranes, light communictation, the environment and the brain activity itself which overtime modulates the DNA. The programmer and his programming are not physically altered from the computer's running and the computer will not pick up commands from its environment without being programmed to do so. A macbook will not change its memory retrieval mechanism because a person near it just started using mnemonic devices to remember grocery lists, but a human might overhear that method and use it themselves. Again you're a fucking retard
machines that organisms use to kill each other permanently. again a retard
no the brain does not do computations its a channel for stimuli and it orchestrates dynamic consciousness. Its not a computer. It doesn't compute results and there is no machine code, or information matrix where decisions are made. Its all physical and its all organic, it has no prime directives and it can restructure itself at will. Its not a machine, you are a priori assuming that it is like a machine, then restating that it is a machine. An organic neural network uses backpropagation in a way that artificial networks do not. Organic neural networks are self-aware, they are also capable of reflecting on past behaviors and synthesizing other systems behaviors with their own. The term "training" does not apply to artificial neural networks, nothing is being trained. A series of outputs are overpowering a series of inputs and the system is inevitably "learning" a new behavior, because the signals associated with the desired output overpower the one's assoicated with the desired input. Humans don't learn like that at all. We're not input-output mechanisms. We create new information through feedback loops in our nervous system and cellular activity. We have a constant reflecting dynamic of nervous activity in our microbiomes, in our cell membranes, in our cell nuclei, in our brains, in our electro-magnetic fields and in our genetic environments. We cannot be machines, as machines only deal with input-ouput patterns from a programmer, that programmer can either be a human or the environment or the machine itself, but it isn't an open system. Its learning is locked by its programming and by its hardware. There are no super mega ultra, dynamic thinking machines which learn farsi from a signle word and then transform into spaceships and can calculate the density of every star in the universe and can simulate all the human brains in the world. Absolutely nothing like the systems hypothesized in this thread exists anywhere on Earth. You're all abusing basic fallacies and logical errors to continously assume and assert systems that do not exist and using defnitions that do not apply and then appealing to authority when you're called on it. Computers don't "think", DNA isn't "software" these are euphemisms, explanatory terms. They aren't literal descriptors of what is happening mechanically at all. You people are being tricked by the tech industry and by politicized science. There is no "translation" information terms do not belong in biology and mechanical terms do not either. Biology is all about self-organizing systems. Information technology is about programmable closed-systems.

/thread

Yes we do and yes they do. Have you ever programmed? There programming languages in which you can generate and change the code of your program dynamically during the running of the program. You can even do it in languages that dont support it, its called code injection.
Nice btw, confusing brains for DNA.

(you)

It is more like the other way around. No one said the using the computer analogy for brains is a bad one, but it is completely reductionist to do so.

No

Its reductionist to say that brains arent computers.

That doesn't even make sense

You are saying that computers are only only van neuman turing machines even though thats false. You are redefining what a computer is to a smaller subset because it hurts your feels.

you're reducing computers to just the silicon digital-electronic machines in front of you

That's pretty naive. Considering all the different possible mathematical systems their mathematics probably would be very alien to ours.

All possible mathematical systems? There is only one math system we know of, the only difference is number systems, symbols and names for functions. That math system has been consistent as long as humans had math, we just discovered more of it.

But the article said that the computer analogy is a bad one.

Gee, I wonder why

It was semi-materialist in the 19th century

They might use the aether as their model for physics or they may use just string theory or they may have something beyond quantum field theory. Or they may have a totally integrated model of physics where quantum and cosmological phenomena are treated the same. They may have brains capable of dealing with huge data sets and they may also be extremely autistic and only care about quanta and microcosmic phenomena. They may have a system that relies on millions of years of empirical observations. They could be highly philosophical and have a largely rationalist system of physics like Aristotle, or they could be extremely technical and their physics might be more utilitarian than world-view descriptive. We don't know how, for what purpose or in what sense their physics will be framed. The language and philosophy of that species as well as their environment and natural history would effect how and what their physics manifested as. Having contact with other species, or having extremely advanced tech for a long time might allow their physics to have descriptors that would seem anti-materialist to us. For instance they might understand dark matter or wormholes or dimensions or string theory to a degree that they can manipulate space-time or some other sci-fi nonsense. The point is you can't know what their physics is like and using other species as an argument for whether math is real is so retarded i had to use this counterargument. I hate these fucking threads, its always the dumbest stem nerds

Then pray tell, what is a computer. And so help me god if your definitions can be applied almost everything then it is fucking shit

Even so again brains can be considered computers, but it is reductionist to claim that they are JUST computers

What the fuck are you talking about we know several different systems just for geometry.

READ THE THREAD I HAVE WRITTEN IT 10 TIMES ALREADY
No, you are fucking retarded. Just because something can rightfully be applied to a wide range of machines doesnt mean its wrong.
Then what else are they? Fucking magic?

why has no one ever discovered another math user

A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.
Pic related is a computer.

No this articles makes a point is saying the computer analogy is handicapping people's understanding and conception of the brain. He seems to think (as others has already pointed out) that computer are van Neuman machines but it doesn't undercut his point on the analogy fucking over our understanding of the brain

Euclidian and non-euclidian geometry arent different math systems for the same thing, they are for different things.

Analogies help us understand things, when they fuck us over they are bad analogies.

And this definition is shit coz

Is it wrong? I frankly don't give a fuck if it nor do I care to disagree. But if this definition of a computer can apply to so many things with a bit of mental gymnastics, that is functionally worthless

Who the fuck knows, just because things exceeded our understanding doesn't mean it is irrelevant. You can safely say that a brain is a computer, you cannot safely say that a brain is just computer

assuming that other kinds of math exist despite having no evidence they do is literally retarded religionfag logic

There is no evidence supporting that the brain is anything other than a computer.

Self-organizing organic systems, which should not be thought of in separation from the rest of their organic systems. And since we don't study organisms on an individual basis all that much anymore its more helpful to see brains as a network in a network of genomes. Ecological-Species thinking is necessary when discussing biology. Now if you're asking what is "life" what is "organism"? We don't know yet, we have a series of definitions both scientific and philosophical and people fight about it every day all over the world. Biologists, physicists, historians, philosophers all fight about what Life actually is. We're not going to decide it

But i'll tell you right now, if the Universe is a computer, if the brain is a computer, if the organisms are machines and the Earth is a computer, machine, then these words mean absolutely nothing and we've reached "everything is spirit man" levels of retardation. You're attacking the meaning of language and diluting it. People are upset because you are suggesting that they are literally hardware, not organisms and we all know we are organisms.

bullshit made up bullshit, just a making a blind assumption. Computers are nothing like Brains, Brains create computers that's why you think they're alike. Humans modeled thinking machines off of their own nervous systems, that doesn't mean they ARE our nervous systems you fucking sperg. If we are machines then everything is a machine and then the word machine means nothing.

Its a human concept that describes a certain subset of complex chemical reactions.

They are
Organisms are hardware too.

I am not saying that you fucking moron. All I am saying that you cannot assume other kinds of math don't exist when there are no evidence they do.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

And yet the computer analogy/theory is completely unable to explain and predict how the brain works. It is fucking worthless to use it to understand the brain. Only the reverse can be done (ie the brain used as a model to emulate hardware and software etc etc)

There is no evidence supporting that the brain is a computer.

If by "computer analogy" you mean "using von neumans machines as anologies for computers" then no, it doesnt work, because brains arent that kind of computer. Its not a fucking anology. Brains are computers. They compute. Their very function is to compute. Its not a fucking methaphor, they litterally are computers.
Its not my fault retards think that using your smartphone as an analogy for your brain is a good idea.

They compute. They take input in sensors, process it according to its state and output new impulses.
Thats what a computer is.

Not my fault that your definition of computers is so expansive and simplistic that it becomes meaningless and worthless towards any discussion

Also
It's not religion, fam, it's logic.

Mate. Its is, and always has been, the definition of computers. If you want to talk about how brains arent von neumans computers, ill gladly agree. They arent, in the slightest.
But you cant just redefine words because it makes you uncomfortable.

If it describes the universe then it will be just another language with the same rules. They arent going to magically think that 3 things and 4 things are 8 things.

How deep does the ideology go?

That whole article is pure shitposting. The argument basically boils down to the author refusing to believe that the brain can do anything because he himself can't understand how it does it.

Just statements like:
or
are enough to completely discount any opinions the author may have. He might as well claim that water doesn't exist while standing neck-deep in water. His claims can be totally disproved without even needing to rely on observations of the external world. I can remember things, therefore he is wrong.

Anyone taking this seriously is either a complete imbecile or a shitposter.

Are organisms anything else than matter arranged in an organised fashion to do mechanical things to ensure its multiplication?

Maybe they won't even think about the amount of things.

A superior being.

...

Does a car or a computer care whether it reproduces itself?

Then it would be hard for them to get off their planet since you need to think of amounts of things to calculate the amount of things you need to get off the planet and live for an amount of time.

And if they arent capable of thinking in amounts of things, we wouldnt consider them intelligent life, but mere animals.

I have all the time in the world.

Didn't get the tweet? Memories don't exist. Any knowledge you think you have about things outside of your immediate surroundings can't be trusted. Brains are magical fluffy fuzzy cuddly squishy things that do magic and don't do any of the weird geeky things those horrible metal compooters do.

But we don't understand how. If we can't understand how something happens, that must mean it doesn't happen.
Q
E
Dumbass

I hope the singularity is never achieved tbh

Upvote.
I miss the era when single-celled organisms were the only kind of life. All of this multicellular shit sucks.

No. Does an organism care? No it doesn't. An ant doesnt think about reproduction, algea doesnt think about reproduction. Hell, I am willing to bet humans are one of the few animals who conciously think about reproduction, as they are one of the few species able to think about that. Any organism that mutates to not persue reproduction doesn't have children and thus after a generation only those who do persue it remain. Natural selection.
Also, not all dogs are dalmatiers but all dalmatiers are dogs.
All matter organised in a manner to do mechanical things to ensure its reproduction is an organism, but not all organised matter that does mechanical things are organisms.

I'm sorry fam, but you can't read. What he's saying is that we don't have a hard-drive in our brain where all our memories are stored, but that the act of remembering involves several parts of the brain working together to "relive" the memory (so when you recall something embarrassing you feel embarrassed - this is also the mechanics behind PTSD). The act of remembering reinforces the memory, which is why we have to practice things repeatedly in order to learn them. We only have a vague memory of things we don't do or recall that often. This is a pretty mainstream view on how our memories function, as far as I know,
This is not how computers remember things, and it's not something that can be easily described using computer metaphors
The author is being an asshole about it, though, and he's far too hasty with his conclusion, but he has a point

sounds like random access memory/drive hybrid instead of regular HDD
ok then

No, we literally do store memories. We just store them in a far more complex way than anything he is capable of imagining. Storing data in a fuzzy way by encoding it into the pattern of connections between neurons is still storing data. The very fact that I can tell you a number and you can recall it a minute later proves this. He explicitly stated, multiple times, that human brains do not store memories, and that is completely wrong. Hell, he put it as the fucking subtitle to his article. You can't accuse me of taking his statements out of context when I'm quoting the fucking title.

He is a moron of the highest tier, as is anyone who defends him. I could not imagine having less respect for him or you right now. I suspect there are a large number of invertebrates with greater reasoning ability than either of you.

You would be wrong, most living beings put reproduction right up there with biological maintenance. Literally any creature with higher brain function puts a great deal of time in it. Even those organisms that have very primitive brains or even lack them go to great lengths to reproduce.

Even Ants put a great deal of effort into reproduction so I'd say they care about it.

...

Another retard? Okay then, let me explain it using simple words:

There is a difference between thinking about something and doing something. The overwhelming majority of life on Earth is not intelligent enough to understand the causal link between sex and reproduction. Single celled organisms reproduce, but they do not think about reproduction.

The majority of life doesnt have higher brain function. I included creatures with higher brain function in my "one of the few species".

You are anthropomorphising animals. You can't care about things without brains. As I said, its natural selection. The insects that are coded to react to reproduction stimuli get more children. They arent conciously aware or care about it. Nor do bacteria think about it, they just reproduce.

Thanks, burgerman. Biology is part of science and is treated as such in my country.

ｗｈａｔ ｄｏｔｈ ｌｉｆｅ

Does….does that make me….a mothership?

More like a fruiting body.

Agreed.

Wew lads

When, on the other hand, we do build machines, we impose our designs upon them from without, articulating the parts together so that by means of their external relations they can perform the functions or achieve the purposes we intended for them. Those same relations give us our explanation of the machine’s physical performance.
He identifies three themes that distinguish organisms from machines. One is the relationship between the parts and the whole. In machines, the functioning of the whole is a simple sum of the action of all the parts. The organism is imposed from outside by the designer. Organisms are different.

naturalrightandbiology.blogspot.com/2013/06/organisms-are-not-machines.html?m=1
thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings

FUCK. Are we being used in a turing test with a chatbot that's acting like extremely retarded humans?

Otherwise I suggest we cleanse the genepool from these subhuman abominations. Left wing eugenics shooting squads when?

This thread is proof that people in the soft sciences shouldn't be let near anything of value. They'll just ruin it with autistic screeching and arbitrary mis-definition of words.

Let them deal with normies. It's what they're good at.

Meanwhile STEMlords are just helping porky and making a revolution more impossible by the day. :)

Outraged much? Chill, none of this shit is worth getting pissed off about
Yes, that is pretty much what I said. We do remember things, but we don't "store" memories the way that computers do, and describing our memories in computer terms is inaccurate, since the reality is far more complex than "we have an HDD in our brains". Saying that we "store" memories is inaccurate, because we aren't "storing" them anywhere. Our brains are being changed all the time based on our experiences, and the way those experiences affect us both at the time and in the way they change our brain is different depending on how the brain is configured, which again changes all the time.
The fact is that no one really knows how the brain works, and it's gonna take us a long fucking time to find out. But what the hell do I know, I'm just some random user digging up half-remembered psychology facts and relating them to a shitty article written by an asshole who writes the conclusion before he makes an argument. Finally, this thread is stupid and we should all probably stick to arguing about socialism
Also a sage isn't a downvote, fam.

That's the beauty of reality, though - it is all a cosmic machine. Ants skittering about, asteroids rotating eternally, amoebas consuming other bacteria, your alternate self from 15,863,485e+9998 parallel universes to the east of you…it is ALL a machine.

Welcome to how I have always known existence to be - an infinitely fractal machine, and all the men and women and space particles merely cogs.

Wew, lads

He didn't use it as a downvote though, you fucking newfag. Unless he had shouted "sage" in some part of his post.

It's not the fluid, it's the electricity that counts

So i tried reading this article because i wanted to find out how i can know things if my brain doesn't have information in it, but he just kept talking endlessly about scientist saying things he doesn't like.

wew

By STEMlords I'm obviously talking about people only focused on STEM and nothing else, genius.

yeah except that it is

Take the fucking nihilism pill, fam.

why not kill everyone then, it's gonna be literally the same
you can start with yourself

Why should I kill myself?
Anyway, the universe is deterministic. I don't actually have free will.

All I'm gonna say is that Transhumanism is the logical conclusion of Carl Marx's socioeconomic progression. Wanting to stay in meatspace is idealistic nonsense.

The idea of you not having free will is the consequence of determinism, so is my typing of this. So is your choice to choose not to be such a downer.

The illusion of free will is the same as free will, since free will as a concept is an impossibility to begin with, just like a free market.

...

The question of free will is largely a meaningless theological debate. You have a will, that cannot be denied. The question of free will is the where this will come from. Is it the result of some kind of metaphysical force or essence above or separate from the laws of the material world or is it simply the result of the laws of the universe and the inter-workings of material reality?

There are some consequences for both, but for our day-to-day purposes they're functionally the same. Don't act like you're a zombie because you're material.

gods, why is leftypol full of brainlets with the 19th century understaning of physics?

The many worlds interpretation is entirely deterministic, and personally I find that more philosophically satisfying than the Copenhagen interpretation.

am I really the only one on this board who have read Hoking?
hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html

Also, it doesn't matter whether the universe includes a perfect random number generator. Dice don't have free will either, although in that case it would be an abuse of terminology to call it deterministic.

Explain to me how the MW interpretation isn't deterministic.

...

which is what a computer is in the sense the article uses the word computer

So quantum computers are not computers in the sense the article is using? Even though quantum computers exist right now?

It's great being able to re-define words.
Unfortunately it wouldn't sound quite so impressive if the blog-post was titled "Your brain is not a big metal box which runs Windows".

sorry, it's not
the newest findings show us that it's even less deterministic than ever before thought

"A classical computer has a memory made up of bits, where each bit is represented by either a one or a zero. A quantum computer maintains a sequence of qubits. A single qubit can represent a one, a zero, or any quantum superposition of those two qubit states;[10]:13–16 a pair of qubits can be in any quantum superposition of 4 states,[10]:16 and three qubits in any superposition of 8 states. In general, a quantum computer with n {\displaystyle n} n qubits can be in an arbitrary superposition of up to 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} 2^{n} different states simultaneously[10]:17 (this compares to a normal computer that can only be in one of these 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} 2^{n} states at any one time). "

sounds exactly as my brain

Y-you mean in a post-robot world we can't stratify human society into a class of mentat computors?

But it is a computer that isn't captured by the sense the article is using. Because the article uses a hilariously narrow definition of the term which bears little resemblance to the use of the term when used as a metaphor for the function of the brain. It was only necessary to prove one case that the premise is wrong to disprove it.

You need Stirner, unironically.

I'm skeptical because the so-called 'narrow definition' has become so large that everything is a fucking computer.

As this poster points out a water-faucet is basically a computer going by that definition and there's no telling how many years old that tech is

Going by the expansive definitions Steam engines are computers, Roman central heating can probably be stretched to the point that it counts as a computer, the wheel can count as a computer under the right conditions etc. I'm sure if some pre-civilization-era spear was discovered by archaeologists with special markings on it to help the thrower aim it more accurately then someone would declare it to be a computer as well. Ray Kurzweil for instance has proclaimed that literally anything can be a computer lmao

The whole thing reeks of the broad trans-historical narratives pushed by vulgar capitalist economists in the 19th century declaring the man who created the first stone weapon to essentially be the first capitalist except this time expressed in a utopian techno-determinative manner.

Now ants and other fauna are little computers, plants are sun-fueled computers, viruses are small protein-based computing systems or protein-based "computer viruses" depending on your pov etc. and now we can see from there its not such a far-leap to declaring that the Universe is essentially just one big computer or one gigantic holographic computer program being run on some 12-year old alien weebs laptop etc.

It only emblemizes the p.roblematic nature of the current paradigm that now we have a much easier time defining what a computer is then defining what a computer isn't.

Go listen to more Tool, and jerk off on Reddit some more while thinking your understanding of things is "le deep".

I strongly agree with Robert Epstein that the computer metaphor is over-used and actually gets in the way of understanding. I prefer
>another way of understanding intelligent behaviour – as a direct interaction between organisms and their world.
But I also think the way he argues is very poor:
The from-memory picture looks like shit of course. Epstein then makes a very vague statement about us not having memory of that bill stored in memory. But that's not a satisfactory explanation of what it going on. The interesting thing here is that people can't recall things well enough to draw a good replica (and this even applies to professional artists), and yet at the same time are able to recognize as imitation a replica that looks much more like the original than what they can produce themselves. I think this can be explained with (forgive me, it's from computers) lossy data compression and check sums. My speculation is that we store something like a rough image plus a check sum from a more detailed impression of how a thing looks. If we do that, this explain why we can't reproduce the more detailed version and yet we can tell when something is off.

Epstein gives examples how people throughout history have (ab)used metaphors from them-hip technology – hydraulics, clocks with complex gears, now computers – to describe the human body and mind. But I think that the big problem in understanding that Epstein himself identifies is much older than computers: it is the separation of body and mind/soul. If you find a strong separation here silly, then of course you will find speculation about mind-uploading and mind storage silly. I believe that the common thinking about these two as very separate concepts is something which to a large extent comes from living in a stratified society with order-givers and order-takers, on the one side people who plan, on the other side people who do.

HAAAAA

read your own sentence and understand why it's retarded

Oh man, anyone that takes that pile of garbage seriously should abandon science and dive right into esotericism, because they don't understand either brains or computers

Oh look it's another idiot who only understands the most basic definitions of words.

Perhaps the digital computer metaphor is inelegant, but it still seems to me that the human mind is a form of information processing, only one that stores less raw information than regular computers. Sure, we don't backup and commit to memory every piece of sensory information we get, that'd be an awful waste of time and energy. Instead, much of our sensory info is temporarily stored, some of it in the brain, some of it in the body and the organs that detected the info to begin with, where it is quickly converted into simple patterns, emotions, and meaningful chunks of information that we hold on to. To use the author's example, when we see a dollar bill, we don't care much for its intricate details, we care about the meaningful information, the gorge Washington, the color, the in god we trust, the fact it represents one dollar of american currency.

Also, I think the author's implication that we NEED to know every single detail of a brain down to the individual proteins to simulate it is absurd. You don't need to model individual atoms in a 3d video game. Much like the brain not making every single calculation to hit a ball with a baseball bat, you can make simplifications to run a simulation.

...

You missed the point entirely, which is any simulation of the human brain would need to simulate the entire universe which the mind processes as lived experience.

Stop being retarded. Many things can be made into computers, but not everything is one.

As long as a medium can differentiate between two states or state gradients between two polarities it can be used to compute given that it can be reliably controlled. That does not mean that any arbitrary arrangement of that medium is a computer. This does include all fluids, fluid-like particles, light, electromagnetic waves, subatomic particles and biochemical molecules. So that in a sense loads of shit can theoretically be used to make a computer, however elaborate, slow and inefficient…

Yes, it effectively is. A rather useless one though. Not seeing how the age of the tech has any relevance to it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics

Yes, you can make computers with steam engines.

Yes, hot air is not that different from steam.

Obviously romans and other ancient civilizations had not enough understanding of logic, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics or a bunch of stuff to make anything able to perform advanced computations with these things, nor saw the need for a general purpose computer.

Although they did have elaborate gear-based mechanisms to compute planetary motions…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_computer

Fucking learn some fundamental physics and then kill yourself. Naysayers reek of religious metaphysical stupidity. Intelligent people have understood for centuries that the human body is naught but an elaborate machine, even if they could barely fathom the complexity of it, and have been trying to build automatons since before year zero of our current calendar…

But I don't see why the most euphoric and extreme versions of this metaphor can't be true. If everything in the universe can be counted as data its not unreasonable that everything moving in are basically data flows, just the mechanisms at work of a giant computer or computer program we don't understand yet. I mean digital physics is a thing though I'm not sure how accepted it is; the idea that the universe is a big computer or a big simulation is a thesis that has been taken seriously by scientists for sometime: nature.com/news/2002/020603/full/news020527-16.html

I mean I personally don't see how its very different from the clockwork universe set in motion by the big spook in the sky but it does have certain things going for it.

The overarching point I was making wasn't that steam engines, hot air, or water-faucets, couldn't be made into computers but that there is a technological reading of scientific history where they effectively are computers. Kurzweil for instance is a technological historical determinist but he goes way further then most in seeing all technology (including fishing hooks and boats) as being the evolutionary antecedents of the computer revolution of the 20th century. It's important to stress that in his reading of technological history that these things aren't just the evolutionary ancestors of modern computers but really effectively technological history is really broken into the progression from simple computers and more complex ones. Technological history is thus broken down simply into the software, the IT, the computing-power, etc. required to create it, the hardware side of things almost doesn't even matter.

I think its an extremely simple and one-sided reading of technological and scientific history but I can't say that Kurzweil's views doesn't have merits to recommend itself, especially according to current paradigms in IT.

And you missed my point entirely. You wouldn't even have to simulate the entire universe, only create a system which changes itself in a similar manner and according to the same rules as the brain, and then simulate stimuli. People aren't born with an entire universe of experience, and neither would a simulation of the brain. If would have to experience things in real time in order to develop.