From: "Andy Robertson" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Mr Million v Oreb
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 08:49:07 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Wilson" 
>
>>There are numerous documented cases of microcephalics with normal mental
>>functionality; a lot of the human brain is redundant, something that is
>>mentioned as a performance boosting factor in "5HC".


I am begnning to have serious doubts about the "numerous microcephalics"
being true, and I'd appreciate a link to a primary source (not a dodgy
populist like Sagan).   I have chased these rumors up before and they seem
to come to nothing, or to ignore the fact that the "normal" person in fact
has serious behavioral deficiencies, though they may score averaage on an IQ
test.   But I bow to correction on this point.

I agree that a human brain can work at half human size.  After all, children
manage!   But not at 1/10 or 1/40 human size.


>. However, almost 10 years ago,
> Pentium processors with 3.3 million transistors were running at 100
> megahertz, for 3.3 x 10^14 switching events a second, and just consuming
> a few watts.
>
> Ray Kurzweil writes on this sort of comparison extensively; at current
> rate of development, computers will approach the complexity of the human
> brain in terms of informational and interconnected capacity in about 30
> years.

Thanks for the correction.   But the "30 years to equality" figure is one I
have heard before. Indeed I was hearing it 30 years ago, and  I suspect we
will be hearing it 30 years from now.

    hartshorn








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