Brain modelling

Question

Just wondering, since we\'ve reached 1 teraflop per PC, yet we are still not able to model an insect\'s brain. Has anyone seen a decent implementation of a self-learning, self-d

Answer 1

It's the structure. Even if we had computers today with the same or higher performance than a human brain (there are different predictions when we'll get there, but there are still a few years to go), we still need to program it. And while we know a lot of the brain today, there are still many, many more things we do not know. And these aren't just details, but large areas that are not understood at all.

Focusing only on the Tera-/Peta-FLOPS is like looking only at megapixels with digital cameras: it focuses on only one value when there are many factors involved (and there are a few more of those in a brain than in a camera). I also believe that many of the estimates just how many FLOPS would be needed to simulate a brain are way off - but that's a different discussion altogether.