• Question: Why do we have a super computer but still we don't know that how our brain works exactly and sharply?

    Asked by ryantm to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 24 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Helen O'Connor

      Helen O'Connor answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      There is so much that we don’t know about the brain yet – although we now have technologies that help us understand more about it, like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI etc).

      IBM created a so-called super-chess-computer in 1996 that was unable to beat the then world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Even when they created their new supercomputer, Deep Blue, in 1997, Kasparov still beat the machine once, and drew three times in a 6 game match. This goes to show that the human mind is capable (with training) to make calculations that are equal to, or even better, than a supercomputer.

    • Photo: Mark Burnley

      Mark Burnley answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      Helen is right – we are beginning to “look” inside the brain but even fMRI is very crude. It doesn’t measure thoughts, but rather blood flow changes in the brain. If a part of the brain receives a little more blood, it’s fair to conclude that that part of the brain is active. The unanswerable question is “active doing what?”. Other techniques are just as indirect as fMRI, or are even worse in terms of the strength of the signal you receive. The monitoring of brain waves by EEG is a good example: it is HORRIBLY “noisy” – that is to say that the amount of signal you get (real brain activity) relative to the noise (junk information) is very small.

Comments