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mark@unicorn.com Wrote:
>>Me:
>>Signals in our brain travel at about 100 meter a second, light is
>>300,000 times faster, so signals in a super brain 60 miles
>>across would take the same time to cross from one end to
>>another as those in a human brain. 60 miles is not Jupiter
>>size but it's not exactly small either.
>Hmm, but how useful is a 60-mile brain which can only think at the same >speed as a human against microscopic posthumans who can think much >faster? Or are we assuming they're running at human speeds too?
First of all I made an error, light moves 3,000,000 times faster than the signals in the human brain not 300,000 so the brain could be 600 miles wide not 60. This just means that if a brain were much larger than that we would probably consider such a thing not a single entity as we consider ourselves but rather a colony of many very similar closely cooperating individuals. It's a matter of taste, from some perspectives a human mind is not just one thing either.
One thing is objective, such a brain would think 3,000,000 times faster than we do, more actually because the components in it would be far smaller than neurons. There is something even more important than speed however, such a being would think astronomically deeper than we do.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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