Re:Single cortical neurons as deep artificial neural networks
by ajross on Thursday August 12, 2021 @11:51AM
(#28157829)
> 2. Most of the brain's computation is not involved in cognition. That may be true. We don't really know
I think that's largely known, depending of course on how you define "cognition".
Huge tracts (I don't have numbers) of the cortex are dedicated to things like vision, motor control, etc... Those aren't "cognition" as generally understood, and there are many stroke victims out there who can testify (like, actually "testify", in the sense of using their brain to explain it to you) to the fact that they can no longer see, or move their left side, etc... Their "cognition" is not impaired.
It gets fuzzier with things like speech and recognition, which also have dedicated real estate but are, kinda, "para-cognition" tasks.
Really, yes: you can have a "thinking" engine with a tiny fraction of the computation power of the human brain. I think most folks agree with that. The broader question is that with so limited an I/O structure: what is there for it to think about?
I think that's largely known, depending of course on how you define "cognition".
Huge tracts (I don't have numbers) of the cortex are dedicated to things like vision, motor control, etc... Those aren't "cognition" as generally understood, and there are many stroke victims out there who can testify (like, actually "testify", in the sense of using their brain to explain it to you) to the fact that they can no longer see, or move their left side, etc... Their "cognition" is not impaired.
It gets fuzzier with things like speech and recognition, which also have dedicated real estate but are, kinda, "para-cognition" tasks.
Really, yes: you can have a "thinking" engine with a tiny fraction of the computation power of the human brain. I think most folks agree with that. The broader question is that with so limited an I/O structure: what is there for it to think about?