HumanBrain - computer comparison

[Benjamin C. Munk]

According to "Introduction to Neural Networks" by Jeanette Lawrence, it
says on page 137, that:
"Somehow, the human brain organises billions of neurones in such a way that
it can perform computations many times faster than the fastest digital
computer. This is no small feat when you consider that individual neurones
act nearly a million times slower than silicon logic gates do."

According to "Scientific World – Intelligence and Information" page 28, it
says that:
"If you would express this in computer language, this would be equal to
receive a maximum of 10 million bits pr. second (10MB/s). Through a
lifetime of one billion seconds, you would receive 10 billion billion bits
(10Tb). The brain is estimated to have a capacity of 100 billion bits –
100.000 times more than the total amount of information that you receive.

I hope this is some kind of help to you.

Benjamin C. Munk
Remove xy in the e-mail address for personal reply.

Dave Yaylali <magi...@sprynet.com> skrev i artiklen
<6ff35n$hv4$1...@juliana.sprynet.com>...
> Does anyone know how fast our brains is, in comparison to computers. Can
> this be measured in megahertz? Also, does anyone know how many bytes
there
> are in the human brain?
> Thanks
> Dave Yaylali
>
> (email me the answer) Magi...@sprynet.com
>
>
>

[Jim G.]

On Fri, 27 Mar 1998 02:34:05, "Dave Yaylali" <magi...@sprynet.com>
wrote:

> Does anyone know how fast our brains is, in comparison to computers. Can
> this be measured in megahertz? Also, does anyone know how many bytes there
> are in the human brain?
> Thanks

1) Brains are fairly slow compared to compuers. The propagation
velocity of an impulse down a neuron is in the range of 1-100
meters/sec.
2) No, it cannot be measured in megahertz, since the brain is not
oscilator driven.
3) No. No one knows how many "bytes" there are in a human brain.
"Bytes" are a unit appropriate to computers. Since fundamentally we
hardly have a clue how the brain stores info, the concept of "bytes"
can't be mapped to brain capacity. Also we have no way to quantify
either current, or maximum capacity. For example, do you think it
would have been possible to quantify *everything* Einstein knew? And
if you could, how would you know that he couldn't have learned 10
times that much if he lived to the year 2100?

And if the relatively slow progation speed of neurons causes you to
think that the brain is not a very sophisticated tool, consider that
we know *exactly* how a CPU works and how it is wired (since humans
build them), but we know, relatively speaking, **very** little about
how the brain works and how it is wired.

Jim G. Ph.D (Neuroscience)

[Malcolm McMahon]

On 1 Apr 1998 00:21:29 GMT, gi...@nlci.com (Jim G.) wrote:

>
>And if the relatively slow progation speed of neurons causes you to
>think that the brain is not a very sophisticated tool, consider that
>we know *exactly* how a CPU works and how it is wired (since humans
>build them), but we know, relatively speaking, **very** little about
>how the brain works and how it is wired.
>

For that matter the enourmous parallelism of the brain more than makes
up for the speed disadvantage of individual operations. In fact, if
Roger Penrose is anything like right in his speculations, the brain may
be capable of a kind of infinite parallism.