[ExI] [Bulk] Re: More Bird IQ demonstration

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Mike Dougherty
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 12:28 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: [Bulk] Re: [ExI] More Bird IQ demonstration

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 9:46 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> How a 5-Ounce Bird Stores 10,000 Maps in its Head Robert Krulwich 
> 12/3/2015
>
> <http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/03/how-a-5-ounce-bird
> -stores-10000-maps-in-its-head/>

>
> >...The mystery here, the deep mystery, is how do they manage to store so 
> much data in their heads?

>...Since I recently encountered this article, I'm seeing applications for
it everywhere:
http://blog.kleinproject.org/?p=162
>...Mike


It is mysterious, but brains somehow store information much more efficiently
than we can with computers.  This should be no real surprise to those who
follow computer graphics in cinema.

There was a Pixar film (do we still call it a film?) which featured some of
their latest tech magic.  A scene which is most impressive showed a field of
grass on a blustery day.  Perhaps you have seen a wheat field on such a day;
the wind creates ripples and waves.  That in itself is a thing of beauty.
Perhaps it was the inspiration for the second line right after spacious
skies, the amber waves of grain.

Pixar figured out a way to do jillions of animated blades of grass, to
create that moving image.  In the Khan Academy computer graphics course,
they explain how that was done.  The math behind it is so clever; it doesn't
take a lot of code and it is super-efficient.  Until I saw how they do it, I
sucked.  I had no idea how one would generate a computer graphic of an amber
wave of grain.  My way would have been super inefficient.

It is easy enough to extrapolate that lesson to brains.  We know there are
all these cells, we know there are synapses and so forth.  But we don't know
how brains respond to images.  We don't know how brains store information.
We have every reason to believe the way computers do it is grossly
inefficient compared to brains.  My fond hope is that we will do a brain sim
good enough to store info in this more efficient manner, analogous to
Pixar's cool trick they used on the grass.

spike