1/ A naive computer model for a human brain.
(A thread of ideas too half-baked to be a blog post.)
(A thread of ideas too half-baked to be a blog post.)
2/ If we try to use known computer science concepts to describe a human brain, what would the model look like?
I love that question. I don't think we have answers yet. Here is a theory.
I love that question. I don't think we have answers yet. Here is a theory.
3/ I don't think our brain is a computer processor; it's probably a network of small processors. In fact, two large networks of processors (right and left hemisphere) that can function independently but are strangely connected.
4/ The I/O of our brain works fairly similar to operating system interrupts. Your eye (visual input) sees a car coming, send an interrupt "drop whatever you're doing and pay attention to that car now!".
5/ The I/O to our brain works differently from contemporary computers; most of the data from input devices (eyes for examples) gets thrown away. Imagine I/O devices sophisticated enough to generate data at a rate that you cannot process or store.
6/ There seems to be intelligence (machine learning?) dedicated to focusing on patterns on the I/O data and throwing away the raw data. Which brings me to data storage.
7/ There is working memory (very similar to RAM) and long-term memory (very similar to disk). However, I think that the same data is saved at various levels of compression/granularity many times over i.e., a network of storage systems saving same data for many use cases.
8/ The deepest level of storage (and probably storing the most amount of data) might be in the unconsious domain. When you sleep a lot of background processes chew up and rearrange this data.
9/ We talk a lot about networks of processors inside a single brain rearranging and learning but not enough about the connection of these networks to other networks in other brains. Long before the WWW, our brains were already connected to others in an "internet" (inter-network).
10/ Human brain is a lot more complex than any known computer system. But some CS concepts apply, leaving the possibility open to me that we might already be living in a simulation in which we're trying to (re-)invent the science that already dictates our existence.
