Which is faster? The human brain or a CPU?

[Shrek]

Read:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question54.htm (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question54.htm)
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/brain.htm (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/brain.htm)
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/microprocessor.htm (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/microprocessor5.htm)

So which is truly faster? The human brain or a CPU?

Hmmm... :rolleyes:

[scem0]

Ive always thought brains were faster, and that somehow,
someday, we will have human brains in our computers. Like,
computer manufacturers would grow human brains and use
them as CPU's in their computers. :rolleyes: ;)

[King Cobra]

That's easy. The brain.

Because man invented the CPU, no CPU is faster than the brain the man used.

At least until superintelligent cyborgs are available as a consumer product... :cool:

[Shrek]

Food for thought:

Q: Can the human brain come up with a list of all the fast food restaurants in the United States in just a few seconds?

A: No.

Q: Can a CPU?

A: Yes.

Q: Is a CPU creative?

A: No

Q: Is the human brain creative?

A: Yes



Hmmm... :rolleyes:

[King Cobra]

Originally posted by Shrek
Q: Can the human brain come up with a list of all the fast food restaurants in the United States in just a few seconds?

A: No.

Q: Can a CPU?

A: Yes.
...

Hmmm... :rolleyes:

Exactly. I see where you're coming from. Man put up the locations of all the restaurants so the CPU could look them up for you as a "slave" brain.

[zimv20]

as a mac user, i'll probably have to admit that the brains of PC users are faster. but my brain's more interesting. and stable.

[Shrek]

Q: Can a CPU take dictation?

A: Yes, but not very accurately.

Q: Can the human brain take dictation? Yes, and is extremely accurate (depending).

Q: Can a CPU understand (get meaning from) human speech?

A: No

Q: Can the human brain understand (get meaning from) human speech?

A: Absolutely!



On the flip side. . .



Q: Can the human brain store sound information?

A: No, but it can remember what kind of sound was made.

Q: Can a CPU store sound information?

A: Yes (onto a hard disk drive), very accurately.



So which is truly faster? The human brain or a CPU?

P.S. Am I messing with your brain or what? LoL. :D

[rainman::|:|]

Originally posted by King Cobra
That's easy. The brain.

Because man invented the CPU, no CPU is faster than the brain the man used.

At least until superintelligent cyborgs are available as a consumer product... :cool:

that's very unsound logic. it would be entirely possible for mans brain to create a faster processor-- it's not like the brain needs to match the speed to see what's going on. the brain is creative enough to refine the processor until it's very fast--

that said, i don't think a CPU is faster than the human brain. yet. it'll be a long time before one comes close, and by that time we'll be using organic products anyway-- i've been predicting an OCPU- organic processor that has cells instead of transistors. might even be self-healing...

that's a ways off, too...

pnw

[job]

does the brain have a Mhz/Ghz limit?

do my eyes have a maximum resolution?

no.

in terms of raw speed for calculations, a computer will (obviously) always top a human. however, the computer still has a long way to go to rival the limitless capacity of the human brain.

[mymemory]

Try to talk about politics with a computer!

Cars are fast too, but they do not represent all ways of transportation.

Computers are good to help us out with things, they are an extension of us in one specific labor.

They are fast doing one thing, only one, but just see a robot walking, they are slow compared with any mamo. And they can just walk and do things realted to that.

If we are not behind the computer, the computer is nothing.

[MacFan25]

At some things the human brain is faster, and at some things, a CPU is faster.

[wdlove]

The human brain is by far superior. The understanding of the human brain is still in its infancy. The average human only uses a small percentage of their brain. Imagine what we could accomplish if we could just use 50%.

[Chaszmyr]

According to Stephen Hawking (one of the most brilliant people alive today)'s book The Universe in a Nutshell, the brain of an earthworm outshines the processors at the time the book was written (which were Pentium 4s).

[Vlade]

You guys are discussing the "software" more then speed.

If a computer was programmed with perfect AI (like our brain), then It would be thousands of times faster, BUT computers aren't programmed with that type of AI yet, so you cant compare the brain to a CPU.

I don't know that much about neuroscience, but does our brain have a MHZ or megaflops number?

[topicolo]

The strength of biological brains (including human brains) is in their ability to process things in parallel. Our brains don't process things as fast as a computer, but it's our ability to process billions of these threads at the same time that differentiates us from computers.

Brains vs. cpus isn't a fair comparison. It's like comparing a chair with a bus.

[brogers]

I guess speed is relative. My financial calculator can figure the future value of land based on a percentage and can give me a payment schedule faster than I could sit and calculate it. However, the brain programed the calculator to be able to spit that stuff out based on the buttons you press.

The CPU gives me all those restaurants I ask for because it pulls them from some central data base set up by the brain. If I had a reference manual in my home library of the same information, I could grab that and do pretty good myself.

Bottom line, the CPU regurgitates information it has been programed for far faster than our brains can spew it out, but it is limited to just that.

I bet if I turned on my computer and sat in front of it for three hours I could come up with an idea for a novel or movie complete with characters and plot far faster than the CPU. :D

[Den-Chan]

Yes the Human Brain is alot more powerful then a CPU. Check out this article

http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm

[scem0]

Originally posted by Den-Chan
Yes the Human Brain is alot more powerful then a CPU. Check out this article

http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm

to me, that article said 'no CPU's arent as fast as the human
brain, but they will be eventually'.

[King Cobra]

>(hitman) does the brain have a Mhz/Ghz limit?

>do my eyes have a maximum resolution?

>(Vlade) I don't know that much about neuroscience, but does our brain have a MHZ or megaflops number?

There are two different "systems", if you wish to refer to them as, which I think you guys are confusing. The "quantum" system involves exact numbers and count (700nm, 1.25GHz, 3x10^8 m/s, etc.). Everything can be calculated through numbers, unless it cannot be calculated or estimated, period.

The system you guys are confusing with the quantum system is the same system VCRs and CTRs use: the "analog" system. No numbers can be used for anything involving the analog system, except to establish a comparison or relationship visually.

[crackpip]

Originally posted by hitman


do my eyes have a maximum resolution?



Your eyes do have a maximum resolution. You can prove this to yourself, by covering a light-bulb with something that you've poked two holes in. The holes should be pretty small and close together. Turn off the lights in the room so that you can see two dots where the holes are. Now back away until you can't distinguish the two dots anymore. You've reached the maximum resolving power of your eye, i.e. there aren't enough rods (or cones) receiving light from one hole without receiving light from the other.

You could do a similar thing with tones and your ear.

crackpip

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by Shrek
Q: Can a CPU take dictation?

A: Yes, but not very accurately.

Q: Can the human brain take dictation? Yes, and is extremely accurate (depending).

Q: Can a CPU understand (get meaning from) human speech?

A: No

Q: Can the human brain understand (get meaning from) human speech?

A: Absolutely!



On the flip side. . .



Q: Can the human brain store sound information?

A: No, but it can remember what kind of sound was made.

Q: Can a CPU store sound information?

A: Yes (onto a hard disk drive), very accurately.



So which is truly faster? The human brain or a CPU?

P.S. Am I messing with your brain or what? LoL. :D

Actually the human brain can store sound and video, the average human can store upto 30secs of images and 30secs of sound (although this is just in the short term memory). The human brain actually stores all information it encounters, although we can not always access it. I can store sound and video information and I am not very clever or anything.

The human brain is meant to be a quantum computer, which is actually about 1,000,000,000x10 to the power of 1,000,000,000 faster than the fastest super computer. So we may not be able to recall the where all the cafes are in New York, but thats just because we only use 10% of our brains (some people less).

[markjones05]

See Searle's Chinese Room philosophies. http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0103.html?printable=1

[hvfsl]

Also dyslexic people actually have brains that are around 1000 times faster than normal people, that is part of the reason why they make lots of spelling mistakes, but are very good at other things.

[Shrek]

Originally posted by hvfsl
So we may not be able to recall the where all the cafes are in New York, but thats just because we only use 10% of our brains (some people less).

Now I know where people are coming from when they say, "Use the brains God gave you!" LoL. :D

[mymemory]

Can a computer emulate women?:D

I mean in their way of thinking.

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by mymemory
Can a computer emulate women?:D

I mean in their way of thinking.

Can a computer emulate a man? Same answer to both. LOL

[bbarnhart]

Which is faster? The human brain or the computer. Hmmm. I think it depends a lot on the problem trying to be solved.

Problem #1

Add a list of 400 billion random numbers.

Winner - Computer

Problem #2

Drive an automobile with varying weather conditions and pavement on a highway and in town with traffic making many stops for several hours.

Winner - human brain

[DarkNovaMatter]

Well first you would have to get the computer up to specs with the human brain you would have to have an AI that is able to write its own code (evolve itself). then you would have to add parallel processing, a few more things and then your done. The only problem is that an AI that can write its own code is like naites that can self reproduce (the grey goo situation). A doomsday situation can happen but will not always happen, but then if this wasn't likely to happen then why is the nanotech community not embracing self replicating nanites? Simply no one wants to take the chance of a "grey goo" situation happening, so thus computers will always have something more to need to meet or beat humans, oh and creativity :-) .......

[topicolo]

Originally posted by mymemory
Can a computer emulate women?:D

I mean in their way of thinking.

Is that a good thing to have no idea what your computer's processing? :D

[Shrek]

Originally posted by topicolo
Is that a good thing to have no idea what your computer's processing? :D

LoL. :D Oh yeah, that one got me laughing real hard. Hehehe. :D

[topicolo]

Just telling it as it is. :D

Wouldn't it be wierd if your computer would randomly ask you what you were thinking, or if it suddenly annouced that it was leaving you for another user?

[Shrek]

Originally posted by topicolo
...or if it suddenly annouced that it was leaving you for another user?

Sounds like something a man computer would do. Dump her. Make her feel used. Then turn to the next victim. :D