Supercomputer Models Human Brain Activity--AKA How Amazing Are You?

How amazing is the human brain? How amazing are you?

Quite.

Researchers in Japan just used the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world to run a simulation of the human brain. To give an idea of the kind of equipment we're talking about, the machine has 705,024 processor cores and 1.4 million GB of RAM. And the results?

After FORTY MINUTES of processing, the computer managed to replicate the brain activity that occurs in ONE SECOND in just ONE PERCENT of the brain.

Every single second, if used at maximal capacity your brain would be performing the same volume of work that this supercomputer can process in almost 67 HOURS.

That's how amazing the human brain really is. That's how much potential each one of you have.

You are each incredible human beings, staggering embodiments of energy made form. And you each have the potential to manifest unfathomable levels of creativity and brilliance.

Always remember that. Then decide how best you can focus that potential to help others.

Putting our collective minds together, there's no doubt we can quite literally build a better world.

(Full story here)

reply to post by therealguyfawkes


Amazing story S+F!

It makes you wonder how people mistake the accelerator for the brake pedal.

reply to post by therealguyfawkes


Thanks for the compliment. And it's all packed into three pounds of sloshing liquid, goo, and assorted electrical connections. Now if the human race would only use the things to save the forests and oceans, we'd be at least one-up on that slow computer.

Cool story bro, now back to my Candy Crush & my Gossips Magazine RSS's

(Sarcasm)


Awesome mate Do you have any links for me to share other than this one?

Thanks

reply to post by therealguyfawkes

Quite thought provoking topic.
To me, this only shows that something is preventing us to use our brains in more effective manner, because I doubt, that in essence, there are evil people.
In other words, our brain has a huge processing potential but it's done poorly.
Something's fishy here... (mind control)

What capabilities would a computer accomplish if it could utilize a human brain for processing power? Not unlike matrix, but instead of using humans as batteries, used as processing banks?

reply to post by zilebeliveunknown


I don't think the superior computing power of the human brain compared to machines that would seem vastly more powerful than our own minds necessarily proves that we are being sabotaged. Granted we idle our brains a lot and use our computers non stop, which allows the computers to close the gap a bit, but besides that a lot of our processing power goes into things that don't impress us, like walking.

Suppose you wanted a computer to walk exactly like a human, using all the same senses and mechanics.

Well just to see where it's going and act accordingly It's got to correlate two separate video images, calculate distances, recognize objects, analyze data with respect to any relevant information in the database as it relates to the operation in progress.
It hasn't even actually got into the motions of falling forward, measuring inertial guidance, and acceleration, correlating that to the video as well, and precisely timing actuation of not just one drive mechanism, but many muscle fibers which all must be moved in sync, so that a series of near falls become a smooth forward motion.

The brains limits are a matter of architecture- we can't repurpose resources to any task necessarily, but when people do hack their brains to distribute work across other areas, such as using mnemonic tricks to encode long numbers as visual memories, you end up with people who can rattle off the bar code of everything in their grocery basket faster than the clerk can ring them up with a scanner- so the evidence of our true power is there.

We ought to start putting brains in office instead of politicians. :p

If a more personal design where to develop in the future - I can only imagine the possibility's.

Im thinking more of the extreme something like that "surrogates" film where we will be too interact with senses but much much more...

Recording a whole view of a world from that persons perspective, but not only.. imagine creating your own world, or imagining that "omega" imagination and it all be sensible, almost life like, in a virtual world.

reply to post by therealguyfawkes


I'm waiting for the day when they figure out how to measure how much content is in your head. Now that would be cool...

S&F

Yes, "thought provocative" topic but fact is also that we'll look back at this computer in 50 years and laugh about it how primitive it was.

I myself am still undecided whether it would ever be possible to "create" a human brain with a computer or software...I'd say probably not since the core concepts are fundamentally different.

Example:

I can right now, without a problem, "imagine" a tree, an entire landscape in my mind. A computer would need to re-create the landscape using pixels, 3D co-ordinates etc....the data for the tree would probably be GB of data alone.

In contrast, when we imagine "a tree" (or rain), or a mountain, or whatever....we do not require to have all the real data/coordinates to create a mental image...there is a fundamental difference in the way we think as compared to a computer.

reply to post by therealguyfawkes


Awesome thread !!

While I find it super interesting that our brain is so complex that it is hard to replicate, this research also raises a red flag (for me) as it feels like these are the first baby steps to real Artificial Intelligence.

Especially this segment in the article:

their achievement offers neuroscientists a glimpse of what can be achieved by using the next generation of computers - so-called exascale computing.

Emphasis is mine...Exascale Computing... ...does sound cool...

Exascale computers are those which can carry out a quintillion floating point operations per second, which is an important milestone in computing as it is thought to be the same power as a human brain and therefore opens the door to potential real-time simulation of the organ’s activity.

The article then mentions that no such computer exist yet but Intel may have one by 2018...

Must be the conpiracy theorist errr...I mean the ATSer in me...

Cool find !!! S&F !

Simulating a complete human brain in a super computer is the mission of The Human Brain Project.

And The Singularity recedes even farther into wish-fulfilling dreamland.

The processing capability of the brain is likely greater than currently thought.

Look here:
www.spacedaily.com - UNC neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain...

Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information, multiplying the brain's computing power.

"Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than we had originally thought," said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine.
............

That being said, AI and supercomputing aren't going to stop advancing. If the human brain doesn't change in size or total function, it'll be like a sitting duck. Still, I don't think we'll be able to produce anything as versatile as a human being for a while. The brain consumes something like hte energy in a 60w light bulb and it's all packed neatly into 3 pounds in the space of our skull.

reply to post by SonoftheSun


Exascale computing has a downside or two. From the Wikipedia article "FLOPS"

en.wikipedia.org...

In 2008, James Bamford's book "The Shadow Factory" reported that NSA told the Pentagon it would need an exaflop computer by 2018.

"Can't have enough room for all our stuff" would be a good motto.

On the one hand this story shows us how primitive our computers actually are. It's a hard reality check.

On the other hand, we have to remember that the human brain is filled constantly by all kinds of noise and stuff going on that have virtually nothing to do with any given task at hand. Much of it just getting in the way.

So I think they're kind of wasting their time and money trying to come up with a computer that mimics the functioning of a human brain. Of what good is a muddle-headed computer? Especially when you could work towards building one with laser-precise "on task" intelligence of a sort unlike the human model.

reply to post by Saucerking


Interesting point.

Yes, the average human mind is filled with tons of clutter that can potential distract it from applying 100% towards any specific task.

Thankfully, we also have the enlightenment teachings of qigong, meditation, yoga, etc, which aim specifically to quiet the mind to improve efficacy of our own built-in superSUPERcomputers.

These practices are crucial towards optimizing brain function, improving intelligence, heightening mood, and removing that background noise that all too often keeps us distracted from what really matters.

reply to post by therealguyfawkes


Interesting read and fits in with some things I've run across lately. There is research suggesting that DNA plays a role in biocomputing as well as the brain:

Conservative estimates suggest approximately 10^14 operations per second in the human brain performed on 10^21 molecules (Pauling, 1961). Thus, biologic form is prefigured in a quantum biohologram (Marcer and Schempp, 1998). Understanding the biocommunication and the quantum biocomputation at the heart of this process shows the living cell to be a biocomputer based on DNA. In this manner, DNA exhibits quasiconsciousness (Gariaev et al., 2000) in the context of the living cell where it is the script for what could be called the human biocomputer based on DNA (Gariaev, 1994) and where its possibility as a wave genome expands the principle of computer construction and satisfies the conditions specified by J von Neumann (von Neumann, 1966).

Consciousness and Quantum Information Processing: Uncovering the Foundation for a Medicine of Light

Looking further, one finds that the chromosomes within the DNA strands act as holo-projectors for the energy fields of the body and by their oscillations, generate the necessary structures of the cells that make up our biological forms. They are all networked together, this is why each copy of DNA within the body contains the information for all other cells of the body regardless of which type of cell the DNA strand is in.

Experimental work carried out in Moscow at the Institute of Control Sciences, Wave Genetics Inc., Quantum Genetics Institute and theoretical work from several sources are described in this work. It is suggested that: (1) The evolution of biosystems has created genetic "texts", similar to natural context dependent texts in human languages, shaping the text of these speech-like patterns; (2) The chromosome apparatus acts simultaneously both as a source and receiver of these genetic texts, respectively decoding and encoding them, and (3) The chromosome continuum of multicellular organisms is analogous to a staticdynamical multiplex time-space holographic grating, which comprises the space-time of an organism in a convoluted form.

DNA as Basis for Quantum Biocomputer

Peter P. Gariaev*, Peter J. Marcer2, Katherine A. Leonova-Gariaeva1, Uwe Kaempf 3, Valeriy D. Artjukh1.

The idea the a human being is a quantum biocomputer has staggering implications.

reply to post by therealguyfawkes


Interesting.

But, I first read the title and got "Supermodel Computes Human Brain".

I guess mine is broken.

And not so amazing...

Oh well.