On Apr 18, 2:55 pm, Andrew Smallshaw
I wouldn't say that that is a general rule. AI is the classic
example of an area where despite decades and millions of dollars
worth of research, the results have been somewhat less than
spectacular. Consider the relative lack of progress on the Turing
test, for example.
I only meant to imply when the understanding comes, it will seem, in
retrospect, a simple problem, the getting will still be long and
hard.
As for the question of whether the brain is "unknowable", this is
a legitimate question. It's impossible to emulate a system in
another system less complex than itself, and so it could well turn
out that we simply don't have the mental capacity to understand
the brain. We may be able to make progress using a divide and
conquer approach, breaking the brain down into different "subsystems"
which can be analysed, but the brain as a whole must surely be
simply too complex to understand in its entirety.
Maybe, but I don't think so, the average human brain by itself doesn't
do anything spectacular. The apparent complexity we now see is the
result of the accumulation of many thousands of years of the combined
achievements of many millions of brains . (And many of the
achievements have come by accidents along the way too.)
Take a group of human children and throw them onto a deserted island
for 30 years and you will have a display of brain power that is more
complex then a group of apes, but not by much.
I'm just saying that when we think of a human brain most people
immediately think of Einstein, when that is the exception to the rule,
not the norm. The average brain mostly knows how to interact with
other humans, learn and repeat tasks shown to them, reproduce etc,
with little "originality".
Indeed, the conversation we are having now is mostly of regurgitation
of past articles, books, texts that have been produced over many
years, with little original content.
I don't think we need exotic
technology (e.g., quantum physics) to explain it.
