Wikipedia tells me that the brain has ~120 trillion synapses. Most of the storage cost will be the per-timestep data, not the underlying topology. If we need one byte per synapse per timestep, that’s 120TB/timestep.
I don’t think there any reason to assume that one byte is enough to fully represent the state of a synapse.
I don’t think there any reason to assume that one byte is enough to fully represent the state of a synapse.
I have no particular background in neurology—my goal was an order-of-magnitude estimate for how much storage it would take to describe a brain accurately enough for simulation. I’d enjoy hearing better numbers if anybody has them.
I have no particular background in neurology—my goal was an order-of-magnitude estimate for how much storage it would take to describe a brain accurately enough for simulation.
Accurate enough for simulation is a tricky term. It depends on the purpose of the simulation. If you just want to simulate what happens in a time window of 1 second you can ignore changes in myelin sheath thickness. But the resulting system isn’t equivalent to a human brain and it’s complicated to argue that it’s conscious.
When it comes to long term learning neurons are capable of expressing genes as a result of neurotransmitters. We don’t know the functions of all genes in the human genome.
I don’t think there any reason to assume that one byte is enough to fully represent the state of a synapse.
I have no particular background in neurology—my goal was an order-of-magnitude estimate for how much storage it would take to describe a brain accurately enough for simulation. I’d enjoy hearing better numbers if anybody has them.
Accurate enough for simulation is a tricky term. It depends on the purpose of the simulation. If you just want to simulate what happens in a time window of 1 second you can ignore changes in myelin sheath thickness. But the resulting system isn’t equivalent to a human brain and it’s complicated to argue that it’s conscious.
When it comes to long term learning neurons are capable of expressing genes as a result of neurotransmitters. We don’t know the functions of all genes in the human genome.