[ExI] Kelly's future

[Kelly Anderson]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 4:49 PM, Damien Sullivan
<phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 03:55:57PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>   When I say "brain emulation", what I mean in detail is emulation of
>> the human model, and not necessarily the human cellular
>> implementation. Some organelles of the brain may be simulated in a
>
> I'd guess Samantha's just talking about modeling the brain as an
> abstract neural network, with each neuron being modeled simply as its
> synaptic weights, never mind organelles or molecular activity.  I figure
> it would take 100 million desktop-PC equivalents to model the human
> brain like that, which at 20 watts per PC would be 2 GW.  And I've read
> a modern workstation can be more like 400 W.  Actual modeling the
> insides of the neurons, I can't even estimate that.

That is what I supposed too.

> Meanwhile, the actual human brain operates on like 15 W.
>
>> much more efficient manner than nature has implemented them. For
>> example, some of the organelles in the auditory and visual pathways
>> have already been emulated with great precision, without using
>> billions of emulated cells to do so.
>
> You seem to be using 'organelle' oddly.  I use it for things like
> mitochondria.

Sorry, I guess I got confused and used the wrong word. Thanks for the
correction. I suppose the right word is brain region. Each region of
the brain that has a modular function. They are like suborgans that
make up the overall brain. I understand that there are a few dozens of
such regions. Is there a better word for these brain regions?

-Kelly