18 Dec
1999
18 Dec
'99
1:27 a.m.
What I have heard is that the human brain can process
between a dozen and
two dozen "transactions" per second. But ... (sputter, sputter) ... so a 286
computer is BLAZINGLY fast by comparison ... wait, doesn't the human brain
process vast amounts of info? The human body is an absolute marvel as a
chemical plant; all those levels have to require tremendous amounts of
monitoring and adjustment? I guess I am confused on the issue of scope
versus speed ... so a brain could be considered to be parallel on a massive
scale then, whereas is a computer is serial; brain: millions of things done
slowly, computer one thing done with blinding speed ... am I way off base or
onto something???
Generally speaking we don't consider the refresh of memory, regulation of
voltages, etc. when ranking the "power" of the computer, just the stuff it
can do that we want it to do. Breathing, heartbeat, etc. are all part of
our autonoumous nerveous system and we don't have to "think" to do those
things.
It isn't so much that our brains are massively parallel, as that some part
of our brain does pattern matching very effectively and in ways we haven't
quite been able to duplicate electronically.
Pinball is a good test of the brains throughput, especially when about 4
extra balls pop out. OVERLOAD and they start getting past the flippers
because we can't track that many reliably.
Anyway I am pretty sure that is a good number, one or two dozen "decisions"
per second.