Just a Thought
Consider the lowly Caenorhabditis elegans. Yup, the roundworm. Each and every one of the 959 cells in it's body contains exactly the same DNA. Yet not all cells are the same. Some are muscle cells, others are ovary cells, and so on. And, exactly 302 of the cells in its body are what are called neurons, the cells of its nervous system. Yup, brain cells.
And, amazingly,those 302 neurons are sufficient to sense the animal's surrounding, make decisions and issue commands to the body of which it is an integral part.
Now consider the human body. It is constructed of somewhere between 10 and 50 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) cells. About 100 billion (10,000,000,000) of them are part of our nervous system, including out brain! And that is what (supposedly) makes us smarter than your average roundworm.
We are uncertain exactly how brains of man and worms work. How they remember. How they think. How they reason. We know they are connected to sensors that give us the senses of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. And, we know they are connected to the muscles (including the vocal cords) that enable us to do what the brain commands. Between these, the input and output of they brain, we are in the very early stages of sorting things out.
And, we know the cells in our nervous system are connected to one another. To be more exact, our brain cells have something like 100 trillion (100,000,000,000,000) connections between one another, all "talking" to one another 24/7.
How big a number is 100 trillion? Well, a modern laptop computer can perform something in the neighborhood of, say, 10 billion digital computational operations per second. The brain, on the other hand has those 100 trillion connections that can do 100 trillion analog "brain operations" instantaneous and continuously until it dies. In other words, it would take that laptop roughly 10000 seconds (166 minutes or 2.8 hours) to do what the brain is capable of doing instantly!
Analog computing is a beautiful thing.
It boggles the mind...
And, amazingly,those 302 neurons are sufficient to sense the animal's surrounding, make decisions and issue commands to the body of which it is an integral part.
Now consider the human body. It is constructed of somewhere between 10 and 50 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) cells. About 100 billion (10,000,000,000) of them are part of our nervous system, including out brain! And that is what (supposedly) makes us smarter than your average roundworm.
We are uncertain exactly how brains of man and worms work. How they remember. How they think. How they reason. We know they are connected to sensors that give us the senses of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. And, we know they are connected to the muscles (including the vocal cords) that enable us to do what the brain commands. Between these, the input and output of they brain, we are in the very early stages of sorting things out.
And, we know the cells in our nervous system are connected to one another. To be more exact, our brain cells have something like 100 trillion (100,000,000,000,000) connections between one another, all "talking" to one another 24/7.
How big a number is 100 trillion? Well, a modern laptop computer can perform something in the neighborhood of, say, 10 billion digital computational operations per second. The brain, on the other hand has those 100 trillion connections that can do 100 trillion analog "brain operations" instantaneous and continuously until it dies. In other words, it would take that laptop roughly 10000 seconds (166 minutes or 2.8 hours) to do what the brain is capable of doing instantly!
Analog computing is a beautiful thing.
It boggles the mind...
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