In case you were wondering...

[disappoint]

Your brain is capable of understanding everything in the entire universe. Every single thing down to the minutiae of details. If you're willing to go through what it takes to get there. It won't be easy. Not by a long shot. I'm not saying you can do it now, or anytime in the near future. I'm saying it's possible.

True or false? Agree or disagree?

 

[spaceman]

i cant beat my 8 yr old cousin at jenga
so no
i dont agree

 

[disappoint]

i cant beat my 8 yr old cousin at jenga
so no
i dont agree

Are you saying because you can't do something now you can never do it? And what does jenga have to do with omniscience?

 

[Acanthus]

1. not all brains are created equal.

2. the collective intelligence of the entire world has not yet solved many mysteries of the universe.

 

[MonKENy]

damnit I forgot what the thread was about, read the poll and thought it was a joke poll about just agreeing or disagreeing for no particular reason and chose wrong.

I actually agree

that is all

 

[zinfamous]

there are roughly 85billion neurons in the brain, meaning a potential of up to 100s and 100s of billions of synaptic signals.

This means there are more active potential signals happening in one human brain than there are stars in the Milky Way (200-400 billion). Thoughts/Ideas/actions require branches of signals, many acting in perfect synchronicity to achieve this, and the understanding of which is barely grasped, today.

I think, mathematically, that it is highly probable that all that exists in a galaxy can be known to a device that is far more complex than said galaxy.

 

[Dirigible]

Disagree.

We are like flies. Futilely banging against a glass window, not even capable of realizing it exists.

 

[disappoint]

Disagree.

We are like flies. Futilely banging against a glass window, not even capable of realizing it exists.

I wonder if flies evolve. We have evidence that humans do. What about flies? But what difference would it make? Even if flies did evolve, would their evolution be as interesting, or more to the point, as capable as human evolution?

 

[zanejohnson]

completely true, we are but an evolving virtualization.

 

[Brigandier]

My hypothesis is that the brain can only understand, at most, the magnitude of the number of connections between neurons.

While that is a huge number, I don't think that is everything in the universe. So, false.

 

[DrPizza]

Your poll was "everything" not "any particular thing." Look at the years of specialization required to be a brain surgeon, a heart surgeon, etc. - I don't think there's anyone who alone understands every single thing in the human body & how to treat it. Now throw in all the other fields... impossible.

 

[SlitheryDee]

there are roughly 85billion neurons in the brain, meaning a potential of up to 100s and 100s of billions of synaptic signals.

This means there are more active potential signals happening in one human brain than there are stars in the Milky Way (200-400 billion). Thoughts/Ideas/actions require branches of signals, many acting in perfect synchronicity to achieve this, and the understanding of which is barely grasped, today.

I think, mathematically, that it is highly probable that all that exists in a galaxy can be known to a device that is far more complex than said galaxy.

Seems like that could be true if a single signal in the brain was an entire thought. If it takes a million signals in the brain to make you decide to go to the bathroom before you wet yourself, then the signal to thought ratio may not support true understanding of very much at all. The differences in complexity don't save us if the process of thinking is sufficiently inefficient in utilizing that complexity.

 

[disappoint]

Your poll was "everything" not "any particular thing." Look at the years of specialization required to be a brain surgeon, a heart surgeon, etc. - I don't think there's anyone who alone understands every single thing in the human body & how to treat it. Now throw in all the other fields... impossible.

Impossible today, that much is obvious. But impossible forever?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Impossible today, that much is obvious. But impossible forever?

Our brains evolved here on earth to allow us to cope with things on earth. There's no reason to assume that our brain will be able to cope with everything else in the universe. I'm sure we can understand much of it, but there is no guarantee of anything.

 

[madoka]

This is one of those questions a bored, somewhat dim 4th grader would ask.

 

[Matthiasa]

It would likely take something with at least as many particles in the universe to exactly model every particle in the universe at a given instant.

As it is readily observable that ones brain is not all the exists at a given moment for it to know all at a given moment is quite impossible as pointed out already.

 

[IronWing]

We can't even model cereal pouring into a bowl and we want to claim the ability to understand everything? I think not.

 

[disappoint]

This is one of those questions a bored, somewhat dim 4th grader would ask.

Sounds like you're projecting your flaws onto others. You get out of this (and many other) discussions what you put into it. You can look at it in a simplistic way (I knock on wood my knuckles just bounce off the wood...simple...duh) or you can realize there is more complexity to it (I knock on wood and my knuckles don't go through the wood because like charges repel)

We can't even model cereal pouring into a bowl and we want to claim the ability to understand everything? I think not.

Maybe YOU can't model cereal pouring into a bowl but someone can. Ask me how I know.

 

[IronWing]

Maybe YOU can't model cereal pouring into a bowl but someone can. Ask me how I know.

Are you naked in the video?

 

[CPA]

Where's the "My brain already knows everything" option?

 

[Gibsons]

I wonder if flies evolve. We have evidence that humans do. What about flies? But what difference would it make? Even if flies did evolve, would their evolution be as interesting, or more to the point, as capable as human evolution?

Of course they evolve - they're pretty good at being fruit flies.

 

[rasczak]

there are roughly 85billion neurons in the brain, meaning a potential of up to 100s and 100s of billions of synaptic signals.

This means there are more active potential signals happening in one human brain than there are stars in the Milky Way (200-400 billion). Thoughts/Ideas/actions require branches of signals, many acting in perfect synchronicity to achieve this, and the understanding of which is barely grasped, today.

I think, mathematically, that it is highly probable that all that exists in a galaxy can be known to a device that is far more complex than said galaxy.

The universe is in our heads.

 

[BoomerD]

Where's the gawd-damned switch that lets my brain understand teh maths?

 

[blackdogdeek]

Can a being living in 2-space comprehend 3-space? Can a being living in 3-space comprehend 4-space?

 

[disappoint]

Maybe YOU can't model cereal pouring into a bowl but someone can. Ask me how I know.

Are you naked in the video?

I'm not even in the video.

Here's a video of wine poured into a glass, all fully rendered by an amateur hobbyist using blender which is a free open source rendering program. You can do this on your home PC. Imagine what you could do with a render farm or the resources of a company like Pixar, ILM, et al.

If you can model wine pouring, cereal pouring is even easier as liquid has a lot more particles to model than chunks of cereal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w278pan1jq0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B6GYR1DTFY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=rmX-TUqYOmI&NR=1

The last one doesn't use blender but same concept.