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Comment by artifaxx | Hacker News Reader

Wow, if mitochondria need to be modeled in that level of detail for accurate simulations of neurons that could be problematic. Exaflops of computational power were already the estimate just for simulating the neurons/synapses of a human brain[0], and this would increase that computational requirement orders of magnitude I imagine. Still quite fascinating. [0]http://www.riken.jp/en/pr/press/2013/20130802_1/

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Relax. No one simulates hardware down to separate electrons, the same thing applies here, I suppose.

We just need to find and agree on enough high-level representation and proceed with it.

P.S. that electronics CAD analogy the author used is really confusing and incorrect.

Its more the difference between a cycle accurate system simulator and a functionally accurate system simulator.

Understanding the additional input from the mitochondria however might help with building more accurate FMRI type systems.

That is a good distinction to make, but if we don't know exactly what the cycle is things get harder to figure out. Neurons hold state and we aren't sure how much yet, let alone a deterministic method of computing it. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-estimate-boos...

I agree the CAD analogy doesn't work well here. I don't think any of us can say for sure whether or not a high level representation will need to account for such details. You are right that it might not, but it sounds like it is a possibility worth considering

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