Xref: utzoo comp.ai:8368 sci.bio:4262 sci.psychology:4054 alt.cyberpunk:5621 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!decwrl!mcnc!uvaarpa!haven!adm!lhc!nih-csl!helix.nih.gov!young From: young@helix.nih.gov (Jeff Young) Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.bio,sci.psychology,alt.cyberpunk Subject: Re: The Bandwidth of the Brain Message-ID: <803@nih-csl.nih.gov> Date: 9 Jan 91 22:36:26 GMT References: <37034@cup.portal.com> <37353@cup.portal.com> <2753@infinet.UUCP> <37618@cup.portal.com> <2755@infinet.UUCP> <1991Jan9.150033.14718@cs.umn.edu> Sender: news@nih-csl.nih.gov Reply-To: young@helix.nih.gov (Jeff Young) Followup-To: comp.ai Lines: 15 On the one hand, you might use a textual analogy for comparing the human brain to the power of a computer, on the other hand: think of the bandwidth that is required to transmit animation over a medium. 1028x1028 resolution by 24 planes of color by 30 frames per second. Humans have little trouble understanding such animation but if you try to send this on a wire you need to transmit at speeds greater than that of FDDI. My only point is that computers are so blazingly fast and the brain is so massively parallel - can we really do a fair comparison yet? Will there ever be a fair comparison of such dissimilar systems? jy young@alw.nih.gov