[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 497 KB, 720x717, E1jS1VM.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6947240 No.6947240 [Reply] [Original]

I read that the human brain is the most complex known structure in the universe. Is there any truth to this or just some BS?

>> No.6947243

Wtf dude, it's just 5 different types of cells, not complex at all.

>> No.6947244

>>6947243

Yet we can't reverse engineer it.

>> No.6947245

>the human brain is the most complex known structure in the universe

... according to brain.

sure thing, mr brain!

>> No.6947249

>>6947240
It's probably true.

>> No.6947250

>>6947244
Maybe because neurons have genetic material like every other organism?

>> No.6947251

>>6947243
Well, it does have consciousness...

>> No.6947257

>>6947240
Yes, this is true. I think it's quite cool personally the fact that the brain has given names to everything in the known universe including itself. Gives a sense of power when I think about that.

>> No.6947260

>>6947251
And? From a pure biological point of view, it's just a couple billion cells that connect together.

>> No.6947264

>>6947260
And give rise to such elaborate and complex phonomena such as us communicating over this unseen network of computers....

>> No.6947266

Yet again, to serve biological function.
By speaking over the internet, the Brain is simply gathering information on how to further it's self, to continue it's gene, to gather social security, etc.

>> No.6947283

>>6947260

The same way math equations are just characters written next to each other, I suppose.

>> No.6947294

>>6947260
>shit philosophy

>> No.6947336

>>6947240
1/10 bait, no one is this clueless

>> No.6947364

>>6947240

Completely depends on your definition of ''complex", as "complex" is rather ambiguous in this context.

>> No.6947374

>>6947240

>human brain is most complex structure in universe
>human brain has witnessed less than .0000000005% of universe

wow /sci/

>> No.6947403

uh not so sure about that..i mean if were talking on scales of the universe isnt the universe the most complex thing? what with gravity and shit

The brain is really just a pattern recognition machine. Its complex but with modern science were doing a pretty good job of breaking it down.

>> No.6947419

>>6947245
but that's the thing, we are the only ones to hand out the awards,

>> No.6947422

It's the only thing in the universe -as we know- which is aware of its existence.

>> No.6947430

Wouldn't a human, because it contains a brain, be a more complex structure?

>> No.6947433

>>6947240
thanks for the existential crisis faggot

>> No.6947467

>>6947240
that sounds like bullshit, I wouldn't believe it. At the same time, if there were a list of complex structures a human brain would be pretty high up there. A typical brain will have 1 million dendrites for every transistor in a typical 2014 CPU.

>> No.6947474
File: 66 KB, 670x503, deep contemplations.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6947474

You think you are a person, are alive, the only person you have ever been. You think. You know. When you lie down to rest, and when you wake up, you are you;

Upon waking, you are rested. You roll out of bed, take in the morning light and prepare something to eat. You gather your breakfast together, carbohydrates, protein, fat, sugar, sodium, potassium, calcium; You take it all into your mouth and grind it down so it can be easily absorbed into your stomach. You go about your day, working, playing, exercising; Doing all the things that you have to and want to do. Its your life, and you're living it. And at the end of the day, a sore body, satisfied hungers, joys and pains felt, you lie yourself down to sleep once more. You know this. What you may not know, or rather realize, is that you are Not merely You.

After an entire day of intaking, processing, and cataloging information, your brain is tired and needs to rest. Upon waking you take in nutrients to prepare the body for the day. Protein, for muscle growth and medium burn energy, carbs for short burn energy, fat for long burn energy, sugar for alertness, calcium for keeping bones strong, salt and potassium to keep a healthy blood pressure, vitamins and minerals to keep the nervous and bio-electric system functioning efficiently. Your muscles carry you, your skeleton holds you together, your blood takes oxygen and carries electricity and gives it to the brain so it can keep the neurons in good health.

Your body is a vehicle for your brain; The Brain. The You, you forgot was you.

>we are brains inside fleshy shells
>the brains prime objective is to keep the body functioning perfectly so that it, the brain, can continue to live
>the brain named itself
>everything we do is for the brain

what purpose does it have? Is our brain a design of our human existence, or is the brain of another origin and human is only the form it takes here on earth?
The brain is only the start. we might have to do some soul searching

>> No.6947483
File: 60 KB, 360x395, 1396394593453.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6947483

>>6947243
>Wtf dude, it's just 5 different types of cells, not complex at all.

In case you havent noticed, the most advanced things ever invented by man are composed of the most basic/smallest constituents. Take for instance your fucking computer. ITS JUST FUCKING SAND GLUED TOGETHER - by your logic

>> No.6947495

Were the brain so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we could not.

The brain is complicated, but it's not the most complicated.

>> No.6947523

>>6947495
but it's the most complicated thing that we've observed, right?

>> No.6947526

Yall posting in a... troll.. thread? I hope? I don't even know what to think anymore /sci/

>I read that the human brain is the most complex known structure in the universe. Is there any truth to this or just some BS?
Depends: is your brain more complex than an entire galaxy? Cause there are twice as many galaxies as you have brain cells.

>>6947243
>it's just 5 different types of cells
You mean as few as 3, and as many as 10,000 depending on how broad your categories are. You're trolling anyway so I'll leave it at that.
>http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/neurons_intro/neurons_intro.php

>> No.6947534

we can't even model a full neuron using our bestest and most fastest computers, let alone a brain. we are only just now even beginning to be able to make biotechnology that mimics some of the most basic motor processes of like single celled organism or dna computers. I mean, our bodies and biological organism do all that they do and they are the most energy efficient processes that we have ever observed. Nothing manmade even begins to come close to being as energy efficient as the processes going on in our own bodies to even begin to think that we are close to surpassing them. Like you can think about as if we were to extrapolate the tiny processes in our body and keep that same efficiency, we'd be living in outer space by now and exploring different stars.

>> No.6947539

>>6947526
how the fuck is a galaxy complex? It's pretty simple if you ask me. Hell we can model a galaxy along with all its macro gr laws. there isn't enough processing power in the world to model a brain.

>> No.6947569

>>6947523
No. A brain is not "structurally" complex.

It's like a computer, we know how it's put together and how it works physically. It's the brains calculations and ability to recognize it's own existence that make it special.

>> No.6947578

>>6947240
Of course it is, what else that we are aware of at this point would compete with it? Galaxy clusters? The complex things we are aware of that would compete is mostly just vast and less structured.

>>6947374
>known structure
Learn to read more carefully.

>> No.6947580

>>6947539

Not the person you replied to but Galaxys are pretty complex. Yes you're basically dealing with a deterministic Newtonian system, but you have an n-body system with millions of items, which is very chaotic, non-trivial to solve and very, very complex.

>>6947526
You're link piqued my interest. I started looking into neural networks. And found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neuron

I'm wondering if it's possible for an artificial neuron to keep state (ie, can it have memory internally), or do you have to hold data with something like a flip-flop? It did say you can have a transfer function, which if I remember EE well enough, those can have hysteresis, but I'm not sure.

>> No.6947583

>>6947569
but structurally it is complex. we can't make a computer that approaches its efficiency and its efficiency is a function of its structure. If that weren't the case, the dna computers that we've made wouldn't be so pathetic comparatively. And who says we know how it works physically?

>> No.6947677

>>6947539
>It's pretty simple if you ask me. Hell we can model a galaxy along with all its macro gr laws
Okay let me be more specific. The proposition is
>The human brain is the most complex known structure in the universe
We might define complexity as how computationally intensive something is to simulate. In that case I can easily give you something harder to simulate than a brain: the galaxy IC 1101. It has 100,000 stars and god knows how many planets for every neuron in your brain.

But it depends on your definition of complexity.

>>6947580
>I'm wondering if it's possible for an artificial neuron to keep state (ie, can it have memory internally), or do you have to hold data with something like a flip-flop? It did say you can have a transfer function, which if I remember EE well enough, those can have hysteresis, but I'm not sure.
Usually with neural networks time isn't a factor. Each iteration is feeding in some input, checking the output, and modifying the weights in the network to minimize the error in the output through gradient descent. But... there are a shit ton of algorithms out there, so I guarantee at least some of them hold state for a neuron. Surely for ones intended to be physically accurate.

>> No.6947726

>>6947578
>vast and supposedly less structures

So the huge distance between atomic particles and the set rules of such particles show no complexity to you?

>> No.6947738

>>6947726
Of course it does, but we could scramble all the parts of the galaxy around whatever way and it'd still be the galaxy so it's structure is almost arbitrary.
A brain on the other hand is highly specific in it's wiring and interconnectivity.

A cloud of particles is very complicated, but not complex. Like an entire sun made of pasta is less complex than a single bawl of chicken soup.

>> No.6947749

>>6947738
Hmm, I think the galaxies we can observe are a little more complex than that, Jim. By simple fact of existence, a galaxy's layout is computed by a great many interactions following set physical laws. By scrambling a galaxy, you are disrupting it's computation as much as you would disrupt a nervous system by randomizing spike thresholds and other influences on biology.

>> No.6947758

>>6947749
Well think of it like this, we have a ~fuckton of hydrogen and we spray it into a space, eventually stars will form and start to starbomb themselves
nova'ing out them heavier elements. no matter how we go about it somekind of galaxies and starsystems will always form right?

On the other hand If we take a single brain and throw it into a blender and let it run for a million years it'll be a complete nightmare to reassemble it into a brain again.
That's complexity.

>> No.6947760

>>6947758
A self-assembling system is less complex than one that self-assembled over a short period of time?

>> No.6947774

>>6947760
That is to say: why does your definition of complexity prioritize the system that evolved into your specific computronium-- your body? The extra selective pressures that evolution affords? I just don't see any meaningful difference, except that a galaxy has a greater number of computing atoms than a brain does. It seems like the brain can add complexity to the system, but I don't think the computational power a brain's theory even compares to the computation that the brain's "fundamental particles" are displaying.

>> No.6947787

Name some other structured system with over 100 trillion variables in something the size of the brain.

>> No.6947795

>>6947774
You seem to completly disregard all the emergent properties of systems and view them strictly in terms of the properties of their parts.
Ofcourse something more massive appears to be the more complex if you completly disregard the macroscopic phenomena that
only springs into existance as a relationship between those individual parts.

>> No.6947895
File: 96 KB, 800x449, 1409799792468.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6947895

>> No.6947901

The answer is categorically yes.

>> No.6947904

>>6947260

/b/ ...

>> No.6947906

>>6947787
Only after you name the best person in the world.. but they must be 5'11, have blue eyes, and be named Trevor

>> No.6947908
File: 13 KB, 500x332, img-2913045-4-FB,21414,40,eti-top-kek-meyveli-40-gr-cakes[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6947908

>>6947483
>sand glued together
I lost it, pic related

>> No.6947909

>>6947787
a very small galaxy

>> No.6947978

>>6947422
there are many self-aware animals and aliens

>> No.6947993

>>6947978
Not gonna talk about aliens (we don't know shit about that anyway) but there are not MANY self aware animals, just a bunch. And even those, they may know they exist, but are they aware of the fact that is their brain the one thinking and stuff? I highly doubt they even realise they have a brain.

>> No.6948009

>>6947993
Aristotle thought the brain was for cooling blood.

>> No.6948058

As a previous anon mentioned, it depends on how you define complexity.

If you consider it from the point of view of pure information encoded, then a rock larger than you head could be considered more complex than your brain, simply because it contains more particles and thus more 'information' in the form of the types these particles are and their positions, etc.

You could take the idea that the information required to created something is a measure of complexity, but the amount of DNA used to produced a human is quite small in comparison to some plants and animals. Are they then more complex than us? You could consider the idea that the act of processing information adds to the complexity, but does that then mean the brains of older people are more complex than those of younger people?

>> No.6948211

>>6947993
What the hell does knowing what your brain does have to do with consciousness? Overrated post.

>> No.6948372

>>6947240
how do you quantify complexity?

also the brain of a whale/elephant is larger, unless there is something special about the human neo-cortex in terms of this undefined measure of complexity I don't see how it can be described as the most complex

>> No.6948385

i think the human brain is the most effective instrument the universe has ever produced to reduce entropy

>> No.6948389

>>6947422
Do you even x-files?

>> No.6948409

>>6947422
other animals have self awareness as well

I don't think *you* have enough self awareness to realize how stupid you sound right now

>> No.6948413

>>6947240
the universe is the most complex structure known in the universe

>> No.6948453

>>6948009
hadn't he ever met someone who had gotten a brain injury?

>> No.6948905

>>6947906
Irrelevant to the conversation being had, especially since you're giving criteria which has no bearing on the best person in the world. Size is absolutely relevant when talking about complexity or else the question is completely meaningless since you can just say the universe. You might actually have to think about it instead of just spitting out a smartass answer and thinking you're still impressing someone.

>> No.6948921

>>6948453
Probably but he might have just thought whatever problems they had were a result of their blood being too hot.

>> No.6948951

The moment in time is the most complex structure in the universe.

>> No.6948968

>>6948413
This. OP your question separates brains from anything else. What you aren't realizing is that the brain is something that the whole universe has made. It's emergent from the boundary conditions, everything is. Looking at the brain is looking at a very small portion of our 13.7 billion year old body.

>> No.6949053

The human body is more complex than the brain, because it contains the brain and its integration with other complex features

>> No.6949062
File: 38 KB, 720x368, dont-believe-his-lies.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6949062

>>6947245

>> No.6949068

>>6947474
The first vertebrate organisms were just tubes in the ocean that took food in one end and put it out the other.

Millions of years of evolution have added more structures to the tube to make it better at taking in food.

You are not a brain in a vessel. You are a colon with a body and brain attached.

>> No.6949088

>>6949053
But the human body is no more advanced than that of other animals, so we narrow our criteria and we end up with our brain
which is the one piece of hardware that make us stand out from all of our relatives in air on land and sea.

>> No.6949157

>>6949088
The human body is more advanced than that of other animals because it contains the human brain, which other animals' bodies do not contain.

>> No.6949178

The brain produces qualia and neuroscience still has no way to figure out the mechanism.

>> No.6949184

>>6949062
fukken saved

>> No.6949187
File: 33 KB, 720x368, dont-believe-his-lies.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6949187

>>6949184
>>6949062
improved?

>> No.6950376

>>6947245
top post

>> No.6950387
File: 126 KB, 900x441, rainbow_mandelbrot[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6950387

Hah, poor scientists. The brain is the most complex structure you can study? That is really sad.

That's why I studied math.

>> No.6950390

>>6950387
Can you describe the human brain mathematically? No? That's alright, I guess it's just above your level.

>> No.6950411

>>6950387
>tips poverty

>> No.6950424

>>6947240
>I read
[citation needed]

>> No.6950486

>>6947474
I disagree, is a computer a computer without a cooling system and the power to run it? It's all one device.

>> No.6950488

>>6950387
(B*R*A*I*N)^2–1*i

Done.

>> No.6950494

>>6947364
>Completely depends on your definition of ''complex", as "complex" is rather ambiguous in this context.
It also depends on where you draw the line on "structure".
Is the CPU in my computer a "structure"?
What about the entire computer?
What about the entire wired internet?
What about all rooted plants plus the topsoil?

Why stop at "structure"? Wouldn't "system" be more appropriate?

>> No.6952094
File: 1.65 MB, 2466x3184, biochemistry.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6952094

>>6947240

The human brain is the only structure known in the universe able to analyze itself, able to observe and interpret the universe.

So yes, it is the most complex known structure in the universe.

>> No.6952100

>>6952094
> What is SPICE

>> No.6952108
File: 175 KB, 791x606, 1413344158471.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6952108

>>6952100

>From where does SPICE come ?

Humain brain.

>> No.6952119

>>6947534
>Implying we didn't just copy a worm's brain into code and put it in a Lego robot
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/world/scientists-put-worm-brain-lego-robot-body-article-1.2045518

>> No.6952210
File: 19 KB, 438x363, 1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6952210

>>6952108
Wrong.

>> No.6952245
File: 200 KB, 934x758, dLBcKVA.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6952245

>>6952210

not bad

>> No.6952429

>>6947240
It reeks of Anthropocentrism. How convenient: the most complex structure in the universe just happens to be something belonging to our own species (just one out of hundreds of millions), on a planet we just happen to live on (out of 10^20 or more planets).

>> No.6952440

>>6947243
>Wtf dude, it's just 5 different types of cells, not complex at all.

Wtf dude, everything in the universe is made from like 17 different elementary particles, not complex at all.

>> No.6952488

>>6948385
*increase*

>> No.6952491

>>6952429
>known

>> No.6952499

Brain = most "complex"

The problem here is not the brain, the problem is the question, you can see the brain for many point of view (physical, bio, logic, etc...).

For me the brain is just amazing, a group of cells together communicating by synapse giving a name to everything and try to learn more from not only natural thing, also thining about super-natural.

It's just awesome, but idk if complex is the word to describe the brain

(Latin fag here, sorry for my "Ingles")

>> No.6952521

>>6947240

>BIDF shills detected.

>> No.6952565

>>6947474
The Brain is a tool for our genetic code to live on and multiply.
We are "lucky" that it discovered itself.
Most (because I'm not sure if all) animals think in basic paths of living. (Danger bad, good memories good, "sexy" good, yummy good, poisonous scary etc.)
We discovered a way to form more complex forms to deal with complex problems.
And in order to do this our organizing had to improve and hence the less organized (dumb) humans died out and the smarter sapiens lived on.
Tl;Dr:
>Brain = tool
>Simply defined as a tool for the survival of every "brainees" genetic code.
I didn't check the structure of my response so sorry if it's messy.

>> No.6952578

Complicated?

All I have to do is stick my dick in a vagi and 9 months later, bingo I've created a brain. (Inb4 >imply you can get laid, been there done that)

Try explaining how we create a black hole, or how the singularity is structured.

>> No.6952580

>>6952565
neanderthals are actually thought to have been smarter than Homo sapiens.

It's not always the smartest that win, it believe they were outbreed, out numbered (and killed) and couldn't physically adapt to temperature changes like our bodies can

>> No.6952582
File: 239 KB, 600x820, image.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6952582

>>6952245

>> No.6952588

>>6952580
>Smart
Smart has a low correlation to useful intelligence
as does brain size to smartness.

>> No.6952589

>>6948968
Yes, but we label and sort things instead of referring to everything as the universe.

ITT a network of human brains are arguing against their own complexity

>> No.6952592

>>6952578
But you're forgetting the 4 billion years of evolution that took place to perfect that baby-making process.
The human brains is the apex of universal entropy.

>> No.6952604

>>6952582
>le sad belly

>> No.6952630

>>6947430
Per unit volume a brain is more complex, but by that logic a cell is more complex than a brain, as a brain contains a lot of extra-cellular space.

>> No.6952632

>>6952119
The virtual neurons aren't an accurate simulation, merely an approximate. Supercomputers today still have trouble with protein folding.

>> No.6952783
File: 737 KB, 943x661, Schermafbeelding 2014-12-16 om 17.08.55.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6952783

>>6952094
u wot m8

>> No.6952793

>>6952783
>impliying
>http://www.reactome.org/PathwayBrowser/

>> No.6952830

>>6952793
Th-thank you for this.

>> No.6952917

>>6947240
The structure of a galaxy or quasar is more complex. It is just that people are not interested in it on a molecular level, and generally not interested in it at all. And they just want to keep believing humans are the centre of the universe.

>> No.6953266

>>6947260
>from a pure biological point of view
Your fedora fell off you tipped it so hard

>> No.6953304

>>6947240
i mean it depends how you define complexity, but it does have a metric shittonne of synapses

>> No.6954466

>>6950486
A computer needs an observer to have any meaning. A brain without an operator is dead. But the brain operates itself internally via the operator(you) via the body(also you). the brain is independent of You in this way. I know what comparison you're trying to make, the human body being like a computer, but this is more like the brain being the Whole computer, and the body being the User Interface. And to reiterate, the brain is both the operator and observer, as well as the body in which it operates is the operator(your body).

That is confusing, to be honest. Rather than erase all that i just said, just incase it DID by some chance make sense; The brain is the key component in making the body work. The body is the only thing the brain can use to stay alive. The brain operates the body, and the body is the operator. (YOU) operate the body, but your brain operates (YOU) by its own(the brain) necessity. The brain is the observer that makes the body operate and be useful. The brain operates the body so that the brain can continue to observe, and make useful the body.

for example; as you sit at your computer and use the internet. you are interfacing with an entity of multitudes via websites. Much in the same way that the brain is interfacing with the world, through the "internet"(the world), via the body.

>> No.6955391

>>6952588
brain size in relation with the body mass definitly has impact on intellegence

>> No.6955466

>>6949068
As I heard in a vsauce video: "a chicken is just an eggs' way of making another egg." We're just slaves of or reproductive organs.

>> No.6955471

>>6955466
>vsauce
stopped reading right there

>> No.6956327

>>6955471
>watching vsauce
Opinion disregarded.