Originally posted by Spamtek+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spamtek)</div>
It's not a question of which is more powerful or flexible; of course human brains take the cake in that arena. But brains take in information and stimulus, process the data into a recognizable form, decide what to do based on preexisting guidelines/goals, and send out the appropriate commands. More simply, a computer takes in information, figures out what to do with it, and then does that. Although every step in that task is exponentially more complex in the human brain than in any Beige Box, the steps are fundamentally the same. Computers are mostly geared toward linear processing of course and human brains are (much more efficient) neural networks, but that doesn't change their basic functions.[/b]
When I was writing text search software, some friends and I realised how effective the brain was at executing searches in your head. Though the computer would respond much faster to clear searches, We were amazed about the way the brain would respond to an ambiguous query. We realized that the query kinda runs in the background until it finds an answer. Sometimes the answer would come days later. It got us thinking on exactly how many queries are always running in your head, trying to find an answer. A simple query would be like: Who plays in this movie. All through the day, you’d get answers that you did not immediately get when you asked the question.
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The brain is unbelievably powerful. People often are lured into thinking otherwise because they mistake their oh-so-limited conscious control over it as being the only form of brainpower around, but lying beyond our conscious perceptions is an absolute mental powerhouse. Something as innocuous as picking your nose requires an unbelievable amount of mental effort: focus of intent, coordination, firing the right muscles off at the right time, constantly checking your mental map of the body to check your coordinates... you (nor I) don't notice any of it, though. For us it's just stick, pick, and flick. I think people on this board are fond of saying something to the extent of, "you brain is constantly filtering out unbelievable amounts of information," which I also agree with although I don't agree with their often-present conspiratorial undertones. I don't know how to best illustrate just how much brains really do that we never even notice
The only way you can illustrate this (filtering) is to go talk with someone who is loosing his hearing. I am loosing some of mine myself as I am getting older. I must tell you, it is nothing like what I expected. You don’t hear anything any differently as I assumed as a child (or even as hearing technicians working on hearing aids assume). You will talk to me and say something and I would hear something else, totally related to the current situation. I do not mishear worlds and say “what, I did not hear that word“. I totally hear another word (sentence) that makes sense. You could be going deaf yourself without even noticing it. It’s like the brain does a word lookup based on what your ears heard and puts it in the sentence in a manner that is totally logical and seamless. The amazing thing is that the sentence usually makes sense. You hear the reformatted sentence. The result is quite funny sometimes. You could tell me something about the TV show and I would hear something about the lamp in the corner (using similar words to the ones you used). The brain acting as a fourrier transform starts to make sense.
Originally posted by Spamtek+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spamtek)</div>
but suffice it to say that I'm quite sure that the mind is capable of producing a month's worth of stimulus in a single night's breadth.
(by the way, the human mind operates at something like a puny 200Hz, I think it is - but the bandwidth is out of this world.)
(I also hope that someone who actually knows his way around a PC doesn't read any of this, or I'm in hella trouble)
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You’re not in trouble at all, the analogy (look up analogy before bashing pls) to computers is quite applicable. RNA reads DNA analogously (frighteningly close) to a computer reading software. It is not impossible the brain processes information using self formed functions.
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Although I do believe, Yatahaze, that most dreaming time is in realtime, and that most experiences of extended stretches of time will collapse into storybook summations if scrutinized. I knew Stephen LaBerge had people move their eyes in certain patterns in their dreams which could be recorded in waking life by watching their real eyes do the same thing, and he observed that a ten-second pattern (or whatever it was) translated into an identical 10-second pattern in the dream, so I definitely think that realtime is the norm. I just don't think it's the rule, and I think people dedicated enough can bend it, even to extremes.
I believe Lucid time may be the same. Though, I can’t help to wonder about not lucid movie type dreams. Just like life, at this moment, it is impossible to tell you actually lived your past. All you have are the memories of it. It sure feels I lived 60 years but I am 60 now and it seams I was 19 yesterday. The only assurance is that each day I live a day. I cannot go back in my memory a say the same about that (I lived a whole day the day I had that memory but I cannot prove it). Get my analogy here? (I’m not 60 btw). Could dream memories be affected by the same phenomena? I feel like I dreamt a whole lifetime but I’m awake now and I am 60 now. How can I go back and prove it.
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