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Comment by acro | Hacker News Reader

May I ask what is the basis of your estimate on the computational capacity of the human brain?

Especially pointed question since the statement implies someone has crossed the chasm of the physical universe in order to measure this.

(since "all of physical universe is less complex than a single human brain" and the physical universe contains around 6.7 billion brains (that we know of))

I said "physical" to exclude the misunderstanding.

Pretty sure you failed.

My point was that if you are restricting the comparison to the physical universe then logically you must be implying the brain extends beyond the physical universe somehow -- since there is more than one brain in the physical universe. Your subsequent statements in this thread confirmed you have this opinion.

If true, then it has an undefined and immeasurable complexity. You can't make all these statements about it, you can't measure it, and you have no context to even begin to talk about it. You can't even make assertions about what the measurement of complexity itself would be ("infinitely more" is just as nonsensical as a finite number more because we do not know what the units of a complexity measurement would be -- if "units" even makes sense in the "beyond").

Intelligence can't be measured in huge numbers, and every single human brain is infinitely more intelligent than any possible computer.

It's not me saying this, but science.

infinity

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

I think you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of life, the universe, and everything. Suppose we can simulate interactions between atoms nearly perfectly on a computer... then it's just a matter of making an atom-for-atom digital replication of the brain (understanding of course that this is all easier said than done, but all possible). Once that is achieved, we optimize and make it even better by thinking faster and more accurately than we ever could. What are you missing from this? Or is hacker news really starting to be trolled... because I might just cry.

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