You should be ashamed of yourselves. 10 bits? That’s ten times the graphics speed in Pong. It’s also the speed Caltech has assessed as the speed of human thought.
It’s already controversial enough. Sensory perception is 100 million times faster. How do you get 10 bits per second out of that sort of input? Leading also to the not-too-impressive question “why do we only think of one thing at a time?” etc. it gives the impression of a pretty shoddy thought process at best.
Meanwhile, some of us critters think that’s too simplistic. Ten bits may be a starting point, but if you want to rationalize human behavior into 10 bits, not so easy. Human scatterbrains may process things at whatever rate, but “one thing at a time” seems optimistic. It also seems inaccurate.
Bits of lots of things, coalescing into thoughts later, maybe. The 10 bits have to encompass a lot of elements in life situations. The sensory inputs don’t actually have to be processed.
“Ooh, look, a universe!” your senses tell you.
“Ahh…yeah,” you reply while trying not to be outwitted by the toast.
In terms of pure functionality, you may well be perceiving 100 million bits of whatever, but what are you supposed to do with them?
Then there’s the autonomic nervous system, the automatic functions that do most of the work in relation to survival, adjusting to situations, and so on. It has to react to perceptions, so it’s part of the active processing consciousness, no doubt in some highly patronized way.
I would now like to take some time out to heartily abuse some of the smugger academic ideas of brain functions.
The theory that brains which have been evolving for tens of millions of years are somehow less functional that humanity’s few evolutionary seconds needs burying somewhere
Those “inferior” brains are obviously fit for purpose. They work and work well.
A comparison between human brains and others may define the exact value of this 10 bits a second issue. There are also behavioral and social issues.
Ants, for example, live in highly efficient societies with a vast range of communications. The individual functions are limited by necessity although observations indicate that individual ants behave differently. Other animals have quite different ranges of perception. What about a comparison?
That was fun. I feel much better now.
Back on the subject of Homo Sap’s dismal bit rate, we’re stuck with a problem.
10 bits is functional for humans.
Why?
To the background of a much slowed-down version of Turkey in the Straw, for a bit of ambiance, how do 10 bits a second turn into the planetful of overstressed human wrecks we see every day?
Isn’t there a bit of a contradiction in this almost comatose speed and the good old global psychological hyper-neurotic crap-scape? From a purely neuroscientific perspective, how does this work at all?
It IS kinda clunky and it cannot possibly be the whole story. Let’s investigate, shall we?
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
