Ahh... the power... of Brain.

[eeboater]

So I was watching a show on Discovery Health last night and they were discussing how the brain works. I always knew the brain was made up of millions of neurons with trillions of spaces between them but the show sparked a thought I never considered before.<br /><br />Have you ever sat down and thought about the fact that the human brain has the ability to keep memories? Now, before you go "What the heck is EE smoking" here is my thought process.<br /><br />Being a computer guy, I see thing in quantities and space. As an example, a hard drive is made up of thousands of sectors. As you save data to the hard drive the sector becomes used and is then unavailable for new data. Simple concept.<br /><br />Yet the brain has the ability to retain information without sectors or holding areas. In a spur of a moment we can generate a thought or memory years or even decades ago!<br /><br />If only we could somehow harness the power that we have in our brains into something like a computer... the ability to store data without a physical apparatus like a hard drive of memory... Dang...<br /><br />Not to make this political, but if there was any argument FOR creationism... I think this might be it. After all, for us to believe that something as amazing as the Human brain came from a single cell millions and millions of years ago is as believable as a Creator from above creating us.<br /><br />Sean

 

[Tyme2fish]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Everytime I have to learn something new at work (which is daily) I say, "Well,there goes the birthdays of the grandkids." <br /><br />This past weekend I was with four adults (all over 50) and we just could not think of the name of a friend's son. Drove us crazy! Finally had to make a call to another friend to get the answer. Dang, I hate it when that 33LP in my brain skips over that one fact I know is in there.

 

[technostingray]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Turn on, Tune in and Drop out.<br />When I was a lad in school there was an article in Scholatic Magazine (any of you other chronologically challenged cats remember that). It stated for a computer to have the brain power of a rat it would have to be the size of, dare I say it, Texas. Equating the brain to a computer is like saying that Einstein was stupid and Raymond (definitely, definitely) was a genius. Think about it. The brain is a computer that relies on RAM. But there are other devices that can be used to supplement that, hence books, television, computers. It was commonly thought, by the learned medical scholars that brain tissue is not regenitive. Studies have shown that this is not absolute. When a computer makes a mistake it takes a human to fix it....

 

[magster65]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

It is amazing without a doubt. My old buddy Jim said his brain was like a table that was covered in stuff (memories) and when you added something new, something would fall off the other side (forget). He was a funny man... a multi-millionaire yet lived like a bum

 

[KaGee]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Originally posted by Tyme2fish:<br /> Dang, I hate it when that 33LP in my brain skips over that one fact I know is in there.

Hmmm, yours still runs @ 33? I think mine has switched to 16.... and warbly at that!

 

[stan_deezy]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Here's a little trick that you might want to try next time you can't remember something: try looking up to your right and stare into space for a minute or two. 98% of the time you will find that you will remember the forgotten item.<br /><br />The other 2% of the time you'll get hit by a bus because you were trying to remember why you were crossing the main road

 

[gonefishie]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Million and million of years is the key EE. Just think about how long is a million years. Evolution took that long to developed this ability so we can survive. No memory= no intelligence. We do have a storage space in our brain for memory, I believe it's the frontal lobes. I might be off on the exact location. I don't think we lost the actual memories stored but lost the address of the sector where a certain memory is stored that why we can't retrieves it on queue and have to think about it. Have you read about the new 3-D storage? supposedly you can store ridiculous gigabytes on a very small space.

 

[jtexas]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Originally posted by eeboater:<br /> Not to make this political, but if there was any argument FOR creationism... I think this might be it. After all, for us to believe that something as amazing as the Human brain came from a single cell millions and millions of years ago is as believable as a Creator from above creating us.<br /><br />Sean

Couldn't agree more. Don't believe it could have happened in the alloted time without intervention.<br /><br />I think gonefishie is right...absent some kind of trauma, lost memories are still there. Probably just waiting for dementia to start bringing 'em back up in a random sequence.<br /><br />Brain and Computer: both run on electricity. What holds the computer back is that pesky binary code. Make it small and fast as you like, I don't think single-molecule transistors working at light speed will equal the brain. You'll have to figure out something else.<br /><br />But can you get a computer to ponder its own existence...

 

[Vlad D Impeller]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Technounderstoodo Wrote: "It was commonly thought, by the learned medical scholars that brain tissue is not regenitive. Studies have shown that this is not absolute."<br /><br />I am one who was taught in biology class (Back in the 70's) that the cells of the brain were not regenitive, therefore it affords one to retain the ability to recall events, places and so-forth.<br />Gee! The times are a changin'

 

[eeboater]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

GF and Jtexas - you guys are right, I think the way the computers are structured down to the bits and pieces are what are limiting us. I wonder if figuring out to switch from something mechanical to bionic, i.e. with living cells performing functions similar to a brain, only then will we be able to achieve a "computerized version" of the human brain.<br /><br />I don't think it is an impossibility. Related to that, I am just thinking that its possible we will never come up with "cold fusion" rather, we will come up with something better which works entirely differently. Of course, this all goes back to the human brain and its ability to get more and more developed.<br /><br />Interesting stuff!

 

[ZooMbr]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

I started my computer career in the days of donut memory - 4K. Could open up the back and see the core with wires running though each donut.<br /><br />That's just so you can see the progress since 1965.<br /><br />I'm with ee; and, if you take the brain add the eyes, ears, nose and other organs; figure out the odds and even the oldest est. of the earth's age is not enough time for evolution to take place. Ever wonder where all the fossils are that only got so far in the process?<br /><br />IMO; however, you can choose to be wrong.

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

The brain physically does store memory, but it zips older stuff. A smell, a song, whatever - unzips it. Sometimes it unzips with an unrecoverable error, sometimes we get bluescreen. But it's there, just waiting to be unziped.

 

[gonefishie]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

<br />I'm with ee; and, if you take the brain add the eyes, ears, nose and other organs; figure out the odds and even the oldest est. of the earth's age is not enough time for evolution to take place. Ever wonder where all the fossils are that only got so far in the process?<br />

You obviously haven't watch enough Discovery and Science channel, they found quite a few pre-homosapiens(sp), prehistoric man. Those can definetely be call half way in the process. The earth is billion of years old and I think that's plenty of time for thing to evolve. I think this debate probably surfaced before and got heated up quickly on this forum. Hell...I can resist, let me ask you this. If you think there is a Creator then where does he/she come from?

 

[ZooMbr]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

gonefishe, Discovery and Science channels are two of my favorites - rarely a day goes by that we don't watch them and NG. I have never seen a program on a prehistoric man that lacked eye, nose, ear development (I assume from the pieces they show). And, to my knowledge, digestive tracks, heart, liver, etc. Just show me one that got out of the ooze or explain how all the sense's we have developed all at once. Big bang?<br /><br />I have thoughts on where our creator came from - that would invoke a troll (as viewed by many) I pass on that question. Plus, the thread was about brains -- and we are hijackings the tread. My fault: apologies offered.

 

[eeboater]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Originally posted by gonefishie:<br />

If you think there is a Creator then where does he/she come from?

GF... can I answer that question with a question? If you don't think there was a creator, what was there before the big bang... banged?

 

[jtexas]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

"Ever wonder where all the fossils are that only got so far in the process?"<br /><br />ain't that them in my gas tank? <br /><br />I don't see "creation" and "evolution" as mutually exclusive.<br /><br />

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. <br />

--Genesis 1:20 (KJV)

 

[gonefishie]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

ee...nobody know for sure but it is widely believed in the scientific community that there was nothing just a great big super ginormous ball of matters that got compressed together by gravity created by the size of this ball and when it got too pressurized, it blow up.<br /><br />

<br />"Ever wonder where all the fossils are that only got so far in the process?"<br /><br />ain't that them in my gas tank? <br />

That probably right on!

 

[QC]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Originally posted by jtexas:<br /> I don't see "creation" and "evolution" as mutually exclusive.

Jtex,<br /><br />You're starting to worry me . . . I think I posted those exact words within the last week. Man, sorry I missed this thread, but I am going to leave it alone. Too much good stuff already there. Great thoughts ee!!!<br /><br />Evolution was created . . . next issue?

 

[grotmeister]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Think how far computers have evolved in fifty years, what they gonna be like in a million years? As clever as a human brain perhaps? who knows

 

[Pogo123]

Re: Ahh... the power... of Brain.

Interesting thread you've started here, EE.<br /><br />I agree with your position .. I, too, am boggled by the sheer power of the brain. Harnessing or even emulating that power, however, remains waaaaay beyond not only our technical ability, but our conceptual capability. <br /><br />I'm a Physicist and also have been around computers since the days when you opened a door and walked into one to repair it (diodes were 2 ft long glass tubes that weighed about 2 pounds - now there are millions of diodes on one CPU chip) and, although computer technology has grown immensely in that time, it isn't even in the same league, let alone ball park as the human brain in capability.<br /><br />Even more amazing, EE is, I think, that we don't even now how the brain works .. not really. Yes, as you say, we know what neurons, emitters, receptors and synapses are ... the mechanical parts, but we haven't a clue how those are used to add, subtract, make your hand work or remember your child's birthdate. <br /><br />Just one more reason (on a very long list) why I've never encountered a serious scientist who didn't believe in God ... all this just could not have all happened by accident.