Analog computers making a comeback?

Drareg

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Many of you will already know Peats thoughts on analog, its closer to how we function as humans than digital, it turns out big tech are starting to realise this now, AI works better with analog, this video is worth your time, this guys channel isn't bad, he's a bit "mainstreamy".

I think in the end we will realise nothing comes close to the human brain when fully coherent, I think their may be a desire soon to clone human brains and stimulate experiences to them, if you could stimulate a brain with all potential experiences up until the contemporary now then all perceptions afterwards will be coherent genius?

A full body stimulated clone would obviously be even more intelligent because of a more enriched experience, more structure for reality to unfold into than just a brain, the danger is a large brained human clone could take over, a chimera then is the likely go to, a creature with limited physical ability with a brain that has far more structure and connections than humans?

We know we can clone mice from stem cells, it is just too tempting for the ruling class not to attempt advanced human cloning, the correct term to use is genetically modified mammal, its a reality and far easier to achieve desired outcomes than CRISPR or gene therapy in general, the ruling class love the latter because it gives them hope of extending their delusional lives, not going to happen anytime soon.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVsUOuSjvcg
 

haidut

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I think their may be a desire soon to clone human brains and stimulate experiences to them, if you could stimulate a brain with all potential experiences up until the contemporary now then all perceptions afterwards will be coherent genius?

The "absorption" of experiences by consciousness is "rate-limited" by nature. Absorbing an imprint of "life" can happen no faster than the speed of...life. That speed of life is basically the arrow of time and its rate of flow, which is probably (as per Dudley's paper Peat often cites) the rate of production of new matter. That itself is basically the same as the frequency of the cosmic background microwave radiation, which is ~160 GHz. That limit is probably a hard limit on how much information/experiences an analog computer can process. It may also be a limit for digital computers, judging by the fact that CPU speed in computers sort of stopped increasing after they reached ~3GHz and afterwards the industry opted for doing multi-CPU systems instead, saying technology had reached a hard physical limit for making an individual CPUs faster.
The absorption/incorporation of experiences can happen more slowly though, as is the case in autistic people, hypothyroid people, people taking SSRI, etc. So, I don't think it would be possible to "imprint" a lifetime of experiences in a (cloned) human brain in shorter times. What could potentially be done is, by increasing the metabolic rate tremendously, make the cloned brain (and consciousness associated with it) be capable of super-perception - i.e. be able to extract a lot more knowledge/info about the world from the perceptions that brain has at any given time. Though, I am not sure know how well the cells would handle such a large increase of the metabolic rate. Metabolic boosters such as DNP can reliably kill through overheating by raising the metabolic rate by "just" 30%-50%.

So, our current cellular make up seems to have a limit on how much metabolic intensity it can handle, though if the metabolic rate is chronically elevated my guess is the cells would adapt/evolve to gradually be able to handle ever higher RMR, eventually with the only limit being the physical limits on rate of heat flow.
 
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JudiBlueHen

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Ironic. I was one of the earliest computer science graduates, and I had lots of classwork on analog and hybrid computers, solving mostly mechanics problems. For some applications, they absolutely make more sense than tons of digital processing power and algorithms. (I am not talking about transhumanism)
 
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Drareg

Drareg

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The "absorption" of experiences by consciousness is "rate-limited" by nature. Absorbing an imprint of "life" can happen no faster than the speed of...life. That speed of life is basically the arrow of time and its rate of flow, which is probably (as per Dudley's paper Peat often cites) the rate of production of new matter. That itself is basically the same as the frequency of the cosmic background microwave radiation, which is ~160 GHz. That limit is probably a hard limit on how much information/experiences an analog computer can process. It may also be a limit for digital computers, judging by the fact that CPU speed in computers sort of stopped increasing after they reached ~3GHz and afterwards the industry opted for doing multi-CPU systems instead, saying technology had reached a hard physical limit for making an individual CPUs faster.
The absorption/incorporation of experiences can happen more slowly though, as is the case in autistic people, hypothyroid people, people taking SSRI, etc. So, I don't think it would be possible to "imprint" a lifetime of experiences in a (cloned) human brain in shorter times. What could potentially be done is, by increasing the metabolic rate tremendously, make the cloned brain (and consciousness associated with it) be capable of super-perception - i.e. be able to extract a lot more knowledge/info about the world from the perceptions that brain has at any given time. Though, I am not sure know how well the cells would handle such a large increase of the metabolic rate. Metabolic boosters such as DNP can reliably kill through overheating by raising the metabolic rate by "just" 30%-50%.

So, our current cellular make up seems to have a limit on how much metabolic intensity it can handle, though if the metabolic rate is chronically elevated my guess is the cells would adapt/evolve to gradually be able to handle ever higher RMR, eventually with the only limit being the physical limits on rate of heat flow.
Interesting, didn't Wolfgang Smith speak about life/consciousness being like a slowing down of the flow or freezing of sorts.
Does our structure/matter and its buildup slow down the flow and help dissipate the heat, essentially an evolved being will have more of a capacity to dissipate heat, thermoregulation, moths have heat sinks for example.

Convective cooling is another mechanism used by dessert ants in extreme temperatures, their speed, heat shock proteins are involved here though, the create HSP before being exposed to heat.


 

Grapelander

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article: What‘s an analog computer? Analog is often put in opposition to digital. But that’s not quite right. It’s more like digital is a representation of analog.

Analog computers take an unbroken stream, like that crackly vinyl recording, and feed it through a series of components that change it in specific ways. They can run the stream through different components to get different results. Say you run a current of electricity through a box with resistors that cut its voltage in half. You’ve just done division. Another box can double the voltage. You have multiplication. In an analog computer, there are many components that can do many specific things like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, even logarithmic functions. String them together in the right way and you can solve many mathematical problems. You can even use them to solve complex differential equations. In fact, they’re really really good at solving differential equations.

Analog computers were a really big deal in the early days of computing. Digital computers used vacuum tubes and punch cards and were pretty limited in what they could do. No early digital computer could model complex systems or do complex calculations as fast as analog computers. Analog computers were used to calculate rocket trajectories, to model flight paths, and simulate complex systems.

In computing, having less than 100 percent accuracy is pretty terrible. But in many circumstances, approximate answers to your problems are more than good enough. And analog computers have a lot of advantages that more than make up for their lack of accuracy.

Analog computers are super efficient. Every time a digital computer flips a switch, it takes energy. And today’s digital computers have a lot of switches. Millions of them, in fact. Digital computers operate on clock speed, which you’ve probably heard. It’s the number that denotes how many computing cycles a processor can run in a second. A 4Ghz processor runs four million cycles per second. Analog computers don’t have clock speed because they don’t have clocks. They don’t operate in discrete increments, but a continuous flow. That means they can run on just a few watts.

Of course the analog computers we build can only perform very specific tasks. But the gooey analog computer between our ears can easily tackle the most complex and intricate tasks. That’s right, your brain is effectively an analog computer. It doesn’t run “code” or read and write ones and zeroes. It is a vast and insanely complex network of components (brain cells) that perform specific functions. When it needs to calculate something, it finds the right configuration, or connection, to do what it needs. And it does all this automatically with noisy low-voltage electricity within a messy soup of neurotransmitters. Still, it is immensely powerful.

The human brain is responsible for the Lascaux cave paintings, the Great Pyramids, the works of Shakespeare, the Nine Virtues, Jazz, and even science itself. A single human brain has a peak performance of about 38 petaflops, which is about ⅕ the power of the world’s most powerful supercomputer. And it runs on about 20 watts.
 

Grapelander

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book: Cybernetics Within Us - Vladimir Talmy - 1966 (USSR)
The brain is not a plain calculating machine. It is probably more like the cybernetic devices technically known as analogue computers. Such machines do not require a program to be translated into digital language and they are not used to calculate, say, the number of bricks to be delivered at a construction site every day to complete a building on schedule. An analogue computer is fed, for example, the temperature inside a blast furnace, the air pressure and the composition of the charge, its task being to state the optimum operating conditions of the furnace. Or it is fed the speed of an aircraft and the strength of the headwind and must determine the best flight conditions.

In such cases the machine does not “calculate”. It deals not with numbers but with physical quantities. Not the actual temperature or pressure, of course, but with their “analogues”. Temperature, for instance, may be denoted by the current in amperes generated by a thermoelectric measuring device, and pressure by volt- age. The machine constitutes a kind of electronic analogue of the processes going on in the blast furnace or in the earth’s atmosphere. It selects the components participating in the “game” one by one and analyses their effects, continuing until it chances on the optimum variant. Then it reports: for the blast furnace to operate economically and to full capacity temperature must be maintained at so-and-so, pressure at so- and-so, etc.

Sometimes the machine is made to look after the controlled variables itself. In this case it continuously constructs new analogues, depending on the changing temperature or pressure. It introduces the necessary corrections in the processes, thus acting as a control unit.

Our brain operates in a somewhat similar manner. It “mentally” constructs an analogue of the future motion, utilizing, of course, its incomparably greater capabilities. The different stores of the body control system operate in different ways. The lower levels, which are similar in operation to simple automatic governors, most probably seek the required sets of muscular tensions at random. The more complex regulators in the level above are apparently capable of appraising the chosen values to some extent and improving them by local search. The topmost levels of the brain carry out complex analyses in which they compare widely separated quantities and detect general tendencies in their fluctuations. This is done empirically, without computation. That our brain is an analogue system which employs “step search” is a discovery of tremendous importance and it is finding increasing confirmation. We shall return to step search later on. Meanwhile let us see what happens next.

It is not sufficient for the cerebral cortex to solve the motor problem, that is, to determine by experiment what muscles should contract at what precise moment for a person to reach out and pick a glass of water off the table. The brain must also anticipate what the action will lead to. In other words, it must look ahead and develop an analogue of the future as well as of the present.

Step Search:
A combination of factors is first chosen at random, as in the case of random-search. Then a local adjustment is effected, as in local search, to find the best variant in the neighborhood of the initial set of values. The process is then repeated for a new set of randomly chosen values at some distance from the initial ones. Then comes the most important stage: comparison of both adjusted variants and elimination of the less suitable set. A third set is now chosen— not at random any more but on the basis of the preliminary search. This is repeated many times: a random selection of the first available combination of values, followed by local adjustment, then a big jump and another local search, followed by another big jump depending on the results obtained, and so on.

This mode of search has been called “step” search, and it will be observed that it incorporates the aforementioned simpler modes. The secondary values are determined in the course of local search, the primary ones, which substantially affect the action, in the course of the “steps”.

If the “steps” are correctly chosen, the degree of local search diminishes. More attention can be given to the steps, the search proceeds faster and “costs” less. If eight or ten quantities are involved the cost of the search drops to fractions of that of the two simpler methods.

Thus the speed and success of the search depends on the quality of the steps. A judicious choice of steps takes a traveler over low hills and around high mountains. A decision to end the local search and make another step requires an appraisal of the situation, which takes time. The more complex modes of search involve analyses of events separated in time. They are comparatively slow but they yield better results. In the simpler modes each stage is faster because the events to be evaluated are much closer in time.


In man, each receptor of external stimuli appears to have a local memory store of its own . Our brain memorizes visual/ acoustic, tactile or motor sensations separately. This explains why some people remember faces but forget names. Others can memorize rows of numbers but learn languages with difficulty, etc. The implication is that various sections of the memory develop differently.

These are things we all know from daily experience. You, for example, easily remember what you read while your friend must repeat a passage out loud or write it down if he wants to remember it. From what we know we can say that in your case your visual memory is better developed, in your friend’s it is memory associated with the motor or auditory center. How these various visual, auditory and other sensations are stored is not, however, known.

Equally vague is our knowledge of the process of memorization. The memory of something seen or heard is evidently a record of the original stimulations of certain nerve centers. The stimulations come to an end, but leave invisible “imprints”, which can be subsequently projected in the mind to relive bygone experiences and events and the logical processes linking them. How does the brain store these imprints of bygone nerve connections? This is an intriguing riddle, which continues to baffle both physiologists and cyberneticians. They can do no more than engage in guesswork on this score.

Some investigators have discovered closed loops of nerve cells and their processes in the brain. Maybe stimuli can circulate round these loops for a long time? The brain could thus keep records of old stimuli that had once excited the nerve centers concerned. On the other hand, the memory of an event may be “smeared out” over millions of nerve cells, with each single imprint representing a small stimulus extending over all of them. Simpler yet, information entering the brain may be “recorded” in neurons as on magnetic tape. Neurons, it was found some years ago, are like little magnets. The brain may well be a kind of storehouse of micro-recordings which can be kept as long as required and “played back” at will. I, for one, should like to think that such a perfect system as the brain has adopted such a modern technique, all the more so as it is very convenient. Unnecessary recordings can easily be erased so as not to clutter up the memory with useless items— just what the brain does, in fact.

Man is forgetful, and not without good reason. Old and useless information is gradually erased from our memory, thus making room for new information. In one experiment several persons were asked to memorize an unfamiliar text. Twelve hours later they were found to have forgotten half the memorized information in terms of words and syllables. Possibly 12 hours is the “half-life” of one of man’s many memories, i.e., the time in which he forgets half of newly introduced data. Machine memory, on the other hand, holds information practically indefinitely, and very soon it is crammed full.
 
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Drareg

Drareg

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book: Cybernetics Within Us - Vladimir Talmy - 1966 (USSR)
The brain is not a plain calculating machine. It is probably more like the cybernetic devices technically known as analogue computers. Such machines do not require a program to be translated into digital language and they are not used to calculate, say, the number of bricks to be delivered at a construction site every day to complete a building on schedule. An analogue computer is fed, for example, the temperature inside a blast furnace, the air pressure and the composition of the charge, its task being to state the optimum operating conditions of the furnace. Or it is fed the speed of an aircraft and the strength of the headwind and must determine the best flight conditions.

In such cases the machine does not “calculate”. It deals not with numbers but with physical quantities. Not the actual temperature or pressure, of course, but with their “analogues”. Temperature, for instance, may be denoted by the current in amperes generated by a thermoelectric measuring device, and pressure by volt- age. The machine constitutes a kind of electronic analogue of the processes going on in the blast furnace or in the earth’s atmosphere. It selects the components participating in the “game” one by one and analyses their effects, continuing until it chances on the optimum variant. Then it reports: for the blast furnace to operate economically and to full capacity temperature must be maintained at so-and-so, pressure at so- and-so, etc.

Sometimes the machine is made to look after the controlled variables itself. In this case it continuously constructs new analogues, depending on the changing temperature or pressure. It introduces the necessary corrections in the processes, thus acting as a control unit.

Our brain operates in a somewhat similar manner. It “mentally” constructs an analogue of the future motion, utilizing, of course, its incomparably greater capabilities. The different stores of the body control system operate in different ways. The lower levels, which are similar in operation to simple automatic governors, most probably seek the required sets of muscular tensions at random. The more complex regulators in the level above are apparently capable of appraising the chosen values to some extent and improving them by local search. The topmost levels of the brain carry out complex analyses in which they compare widely separated quantities and detect general tendencies in their fluctuations. This is done empirically, without computation. That our brain is an analogue system which employs “step search” is a discovery of tremendous importance and it is finding increasing confirmation. We shall return to step search later on. Meanwhile let us see what happens next.

It is not sufficient for the cerebral cortex to solve the motor problem, that is, to determine by experiment what muscles should contract at what precise moment for a person to reach out and pick a glass of water off the table. The brain must also anticipate what the action will lead to. In other words, it must look ahead and develop an analogue of the future as well as of the present.

Step Search:
A combination of factors is first chosen at random, as in the case of random-search. Then a local adjustment is effected, as in local search, to find the best variant in the neighborhood of the initial set of values. The process is then repeated for a new set of randomly chosen values at some distance from the initial ones. Then comes the most important stage: comparison of both adjusted variants and elimination of the less suitable set. A third set is now chosen— not at random any more but on the basis of the preliminary search. This is repeated many times: a random selection of the first available combination of values, followed by local adjustment, then a big jump and another local search, followed by another big jump depending on the results obtained, and so on.

This mode of search has been called “step” search, and it will be observed that it incorporates the aforementioned simpler modes. The secondary values are determined in the course of local search, the primary ones, which substantially affect the action, in the course of the “steps”.

If the “steps” are correctly chosen, the degree of local search diminishes. More attention can be given to the steps, the search proceeds faster and “costs” less. If eight or ten quantities are involved the cost of the search drops to fractions of that of the two simpler methods.

Thus the speed and success of the search depends on the quality of the steps. A judicious choice of steps takes a traveler over low hills and around high mountains. A decision to end the local search and make another step requires an appraisal of the situation, which takes time. The more complex modes of search involve analyses of events separated in time. They are comparatively slow but they yield better results. In the simpler modes each stage is faster because the events to be evaluated are much closer in time.


In man, each receptor of external stimuli appears to have a local memory store of its own . Our brain memorizes visual/ acoustic, tactile or motor sensations separately. This explains why some people remember faces but forget names. Others can memorize rows of numbers but learn languages with difficulty, etc. The implication is that various sections of the memory develop differently.

These are things we all know from daily experience. You, for example, easily remember what you read while your friend must repeat a passage out loud or write it down if he wants to remember it. From what we know we can say that in your case your visual memory is better developed, in your friend’s it is memory associated with the motor or auditory center. How these various visual, auditory and other sensations are stored is not, however, known.

Equally vague is our knowledge of the process of memorization. The memory of something seen or heard is evidently a record of the original stimulations of certain nerve centers. The stimulations come to an end, but leave invisible “imprints”, which can be subsequently projected in the mind to relive bygone experiences and events and the logical processes linking them. How does the brain store these imprints of bygone nerve connections? This is an intriguing riddle, which continues to baffle both physiologists and cyberneticians. They can do no more than engage in guesswork on this score.

Some investigators have discovered closed loops of nerve cells and their processes in the brain. Maybe stimuli can circulate round these loops for a long time? The brain could thus keep records of old stimuli that had once excited the nerve centers concerned. On the other hand, the memory of an event may be “smeared out” over millions of nerve cells, with each single imprint representing a small stimulus extending over all of them. Simpler yet, information entering the brain may be “recorded” in neurons as on magnetic tape. Neurons, it was found some years ago, are like little magnets. The brain may well be a kind of storehouse of micro-recordings which can be kept as long as required and “played back” at will. I, for one, should like to think that such a perfect system as the brain has adopted such a modern technique, all the more so as it is very convenient. Unnecessary recordings can easily be erased so as not to clutter up the memory with useless items— just what the brain does, in fact.

Man is forgetful, and not without good reason. Old and useless information is gradually erased from our memory, thus making room for new information. In one experiment several persons were asked to memorize an unfamiliar text. Twelve hours later they were found to have forgotten half the memorized information in terms of words and syllables. Possibly 12 hours is the “half-life” of one of man’s many memories, i.e., the time in which he forgets half of newly introduced data. Machine memory, on the other hand, holds information practically indefinitely, and very soon it is crammed full.
Thanks, interesting book, I will try downloading it.
 

yerrag

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The analog world is infinite, as God is.

The digital is man-made, and limited. It is as limited as being in cubicles, conforming to a simplifying yet complicating tendency of being civilized and digitized and efficient.

When you use the neuro hammer, you are hypothyroid. When you use the digital printouts of the costly thyroid panel, you're not.

When you follow cut-offs of values, you can be false positive or false negative, but why rely on cut-off values as much, when the analog brain is there to make a decision?

In the digital world, there is only yes or no. In the analog world, there is that and maybe.

Wisdom is not digital, it is analog.

And judgment too. Good judges follow the spirit of the law, not the letter. He is analog, not digital.

Using carbogen requires an analog mind. Trained on a boolean yes or no, hospital staff cannot use carbogen correctly.

Medical training is digital oriented - for robotic minds.
 

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