the brain - too complex to understand?

[DrPizza]

Didn't someone prove at some point that to understand the brain would take something more complicated than the brain - a system cannot understand itself using that system alone?

Help, please...

 

[MrDudeMan]

woah...ive never heard it put that way. your statement boggled my mind

 

[itachi]

"... Because the complexity of the brain lies beyond the full grasp of human understanding, it seems complex enough to embody a mind. Indeed, if a single person could fully understand a brain, this would make the brain less complex than that person's mind. If all Earth's billions of people could cooperate in simply watching the activity of one human brain, each person would have to monitor tens of thousands of active synapses simultaneously - clearly an impossible task. For a person to try to understand the flickering patterns of the brain as a whole would be five billion times more absurd. Since our brain's mechanism so massively overwhelms our mind's ability to grasp it, that mechanism seems complex enough to embody the mind itself."

taken from http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_5.html

dunno if thats what you were looking for..

 

[walla]

What do you mean by "understand the brain"?

Obviously, humans have come a great way in being able to descibe how the brain functions.

As far as being able to understand consciousness, existence, what the soul "is" or "is not"...I would agree that that would be impossible for a human to comprehend in exact terms because we lack the ability to extract ourself from it and view it externally.

Of course, thats where religion and philosophy come in

 

[Borealis316]

And that would be where I check out of this thread....at least the religion part. lol

 

[Syringer]

It's interesting how this applies to pretty much all creatures, not just humans. Take for instance a simple minded creature like a dog. Their brain power is exponentially lower than ours, so their ability to understand concepts is proportionally low..and it'd be entirely impossible as well to try to teach a dog how his mind works.

 

[ThatWasFat]

I don't see why there would be a limit on our understanding. Thousands of years ago the stars were just a distant fantasy, unreachable by mortal men. But now we are getting closer and closer. To assume that we'll never understand consciousness is too hasty. That's assuming that there is nothing more complex than consciousness, that consciousness is the end of questions. If we understood what makes us human and why we are the way we are we could move on to other problems and questions, and then the next generation would take consciousness for granted just like we take physics and computers for granted.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: itachi
"... Because the complexity of the brain lies beyond the full grasp of human understanding, it seems complex enough to embody a mind. Indeed, if a single person could fully understand a brain, this would make the brain less complex than that person's mind. If all Earth's billions of people could cooperate in simply watching the activity of one human brain, each person would have to monitor tens of thousands of active synapses simultaneously - clearly an impossible task. For a person to try to understand the flickering patterns of the brain as a whole would be five billion times more absurd. Since our brain's mechanism so massively overwhelms our mind's ability to grasp it, that mechanism seems complex enough to embody the mind itself."

taken from http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_5.html

dunno if thats what you were looking for..

That's a little dumb. What is 'understanding' the brain? That we can see all the neurons that is activating and know what it's exactly doing? That's not what i would call 'understanding' the brain, but interpretating. But even then, we have something that seperates us from all the other things in nature, and that's to trascend nature. We'll be 'inrepretating' the brain with computers when the time comes.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Didn't someone prove at some point that to understand the brain would take something more complicated than the brain

I could understand YOUR brain DrPizza

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: ThatWasFat
I don't see why there would be a limit on our understanding. Thousands of years ago the stars were just a distant fantasy, unreachable by mortal men. But now we are getting closer and closer. To assume that we'll never understand consciousness is too hasty. That's assuming that there is nothing more complex than consciousness, that consciousness is the end of questions. If we understood what makes us human and why we are the way we are we could move on to other problems and questions, and then the next generation would take consciousness for granted just like we take physics and computers for granted.

you arent understanding the question. knowing what a star is as opposed to it being a bright dot has nothing to do with it. that is a completely dependant on new advancements in technology. people 2000 years ago were no different than we are today. we are not inherently smarter than they were, but we have a lot more to learn than they did due to advancements in technology and mathematics.

 

[everman]

Even if it was true that a human brain can't understand itself entirely, I believe it's only a matter of time before we create machines superior to the brain in every respect. (we're probably talking about a "very" long time from now). In which case it should be able to explain things clearly. This would be a roundabout way of doing it. I still don't see why not directly though, I think it's just some "profound" theory that sounds good in academia as long as it can't be proven wrong for the time being.

 

[itachi]

Originally posted by: Hardcore
That's a little dumb. What is 'understanding' the brain? That we can see all the neurons that is activating and know what it's exactly doing? That's not what i would call 'understanding' the brain, but interpretating. But even then, we have something that seperates us from all the other things in nature, and that's to trascend nature. We'll be 'inrepretating' the brain with computers when the time comes.

you tell me then.. how would you define understanding? if we knew what synapses fire and in which sequence they fire for every action, reaction, thought, etc.. how would that not be understanding the brain? (ps.. interpreting)

 

[jackschmittusa]

I do not believe that to understand how something works you need to be aware of every action in the nth degree of detail. When I observe my car engine running, I understand virtually every thing that is happening without knowing: how many oxygen molecules have entered each cylinder or their exact proportion of the intake mixture, that when a cylinder fires, the valves are closed without knowing the rotational speed of the camshaft, the exact dimentions of the cams, or their alloy composition. I have no doubt that one day we will understand all of the systems that are at work in the brain. We will then determine how the actions of any given system effect the others. We will then understand the brain, without the necessity of tracking every synapse firing. We will likely never understand for sure how any individual might react to a set of sensory inputs though, as inputs to the brain are compared to stored data (memory) and the outputs then branch from that interaction. Not having an accessable copy of that record would make branch prediction difficult.

 

[ThatWasFat]

Well I think what I said was more valid than it got credit for. People many many many years ago all have the same hardware (the brain) but the amount of information that we know and take for granted allows us to focus on different, more complicated problems with ease. We can do Calculus because we know math well. We can build a fMRI because we understand electronics and computer science. The things that we know and take for granted are what creates our intelligence. How smart you are is defined by what you take as obvious compared to someone else. We will understand alot more about the brain in the next 50-100 years and the generations after that might discover the secret of consciousness.

 

[Steffenm]

One smart persons brain could probably understand the lesser-smart persons brain, since it's not the same. Or could it? I honestly think humanity is better off not understanding all things. It's not "meant to be".

 

[itachi]

Originally posted by: ThatWasFat
Well I think what I said was more valid than it got credit for. People many many many years ago all have the same hardware (the brain) but the amount of information that we know and take for granted allows us to focus on different, more complicated problems with ease. We can do Calculus because we know math well. We can build a fMRI because we understand electronics and computer science. The things that we know and take for granted are what creates our intelligence. How smart you are is defined by what you take as obvious compared to someone else. We will understand alot more about the brain in the next 50-100 years and the generations after that might discover the secret of consciousness.

define consciousness.

One smart persons brain could probably understand the lesser-smart persons brain, since it's not the same. Or could it? I honestly think humanity is better off not understanding all things. It's not "meant to be".

i agree.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: itachi

Originally posted by: Hardcore
That's a little dumb. What is 'understanding' the brain? That we can see all the neurons that is activating and know what it's exactly doing? That's not what i would call 'understanding' the brain, but interpretating. But even then, we have something that seperates us from all the other things in nature, and that's to trascend nature. We'll be 'inrepretating' the brain with computers when the time comes.

you tell me then.. how would you define understanding? if we knew what synapses fire and in which sequence they fire for every action, reaction, thought, etc.. how would that not be understanding the brain? (ps.. interpreting)

Understanding to me is understanding how it mechanically works. What you describe, is just that. If we know the relative sequence of what is being fired when we're thinking of cooked bacon (which we do btw), we're understanding how the brain works, and there's no limit to that. Where would the limit be?

The limitation that might come into play is what i said earlier... if we as humans are suppose to look at the billions of synapses that are activating and are supposed to tell exactly what is happening through visual observation only, then no, that's impossible, and i wouldn't call that understanding the brain. We can understand the brain and not need this level of detail. And even if our definition did come down to this, it's still possible... we just let computers do all the work for us, and we'll have the result.

 

[ender11122]

It simply isnt possible to know everything. Think about it in the spiral sense.

I am understanding, how im understanding, how im understanding, how im understanding.....(infinite) how the brain works.

Therefore you will never ever be able to "understand" the step you are currently on.
End of discussion if you wanna describe "understanding" in those terms.


PS. Hardcore, I love your first quote.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Didn't someone prove at some point that to understand the brain would take something more complicated than the brain - a system cannot understand itself using that system alone?

Help, please...

I think this sort of thing applies to cooling objects - you always need some area of lower kinetic energy in order to cool something else down. That's why you can't get absolute zero.
But I don't think the same argument can be made for many other things.

 

[MisterChief]

<---Too complex to understand :laugh:

 

[itachi]

Originally posted by: Hardcore
Understanding to me is understanding how it mechanically works. What you describe, is just that. If we know the relative sequence of what is being fired when we're thinking of cooked bacon (which we do btw), we're understanding how the brain works, and there's no limit to that. Where would the limit be?

The limitation that might come into play is what i said earlier... if we as humans are suppose to look at the billions of synapses that are activating and are supposed to tell exactly what is happening through visual observation only, then no, that's impossible, and i wouldn't call that understanding the brain. We can understand the brain and not need this level of detail. And even if our definition did come down to this, it's still possible... we just let computers do all the work for us, and we'll have the result.

if you're working out a math problem.. and you have problems at first, then you realize the solution to the problem.. there's something going on inside your head that allows you to realize that solution. if someone were looking inside your brain and realized that a pattern of activity x is what occured when you realized the solution.. then something inside that persons brain had to have occured to have allowed them to realize such a pattern. and that's the limit.. "i don't know what i don't know".
that's just the way i interpreted it tho.. could be wrong.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: ThatWasFat
Well I think what I said was more valid than it got credit for. People many many many years ago all have the same hardware (the brain) but the amount of information that we know and take for granted allows us to focus on different, more complicated problems with ease. We can do Calculus because we know math well. We can build a fMRI because we understand electronics and computer science. The things that we know and take for granted are what creates our intelligence. How smart you are is defined by what you take as obvious compared to someone else. We will understand alot more about the brain in the next 50-100 years and the generations after that might discover the secret of consciousness.

the reason you didnt get credit for your quote is because it was COMPLETELY opposite from what you just said. I am the one that said our brains are no different than they were thousands of years ago. if anything, give me credit :roll:

 

[ThatWasFat]

How was it opposite? I said practically the same thing again. Our brain hardware isn't the ONLY thing that determines what we can learn. Previous knowledge gives us things to build off of and rationalize from.

 

[Burn2619]

"Obviously, humans have come a great way in being able to describe how the brain functions"

True but sadly this is not even a smidgen of what's there or what's in store for more to discover. While we may have ventured the amazons, scaled mountains and paved way to space. The human mind will be by far the longest ongoing exploration and achievement for us to have.

"Take for instance a simple minded creature like a dog. Their brain power is exponentially lower than ours, so their ability to understand concepts is proportionally low"

Then again they may have us fooled It is us who buys them food takes them for walks and pampers their needs. Wait hey I want to be a dog

"That's a little dumb. What is 'understanding' the brain? That we can see all the neurons that is activating and know what it's exactly doing? That's not what I would call 'understanding' the brain, but interpretating. But even then, we have something that separates us from all the other things in nature, and that's to transcend nature. We'll be 'inrepretating' the brain with computers when the time comes"

Well the post taken from The engines of creation is focused on nanotech to uncover and discover the workings of the mind and how to AI off of that. But personally I feel it's a bit more religious/philosophical/spiritual for my tastes but a good read anyways.

"Even if it was true that a human brain can't understand itself entirely, I believe it's only a matter of time before we create machines superior to the brain in every respect. (we're probably talking about a "very" long time from now). In which case it should be able to explain things clearly. This would be a roundabout way of doing it. I still don't see why not directly though, I think it's just some "profound" theory that sounds good in academia as long as it can't be proven wrong for the time being. "

Well no offense or not a flame job here but to create something superior to a current something you must understand that something entirely first. Even at that I doubt in the near or far future we will even begin to understand the entirety of the human brain to create something more complex then we understand.

"I honestly think humanity is better off not understanding all things. It's not "meant to be".

Hence the reason science is preformed. Meant to be or not it's our nature to be ever curious and understanding about our environments and self. Humanity would be done an injustice if we were not to discover more about ourselves.


Just a few of my thoughts no pain or maim intended just observations and interpretations or my on brain chugging along

 

[nyarrgh]

to put it in another way that is probably way- off course, With enough patience, somebody could probably program an Atari 2600 to emulate an Atari 2600 ( or something even more complex) but it will be much slower than the original. So a human brain might be capable of "understanding" a human brain someday but it all depends on what you mean by "understanding".