Why "60 Terahertz" for conciousness ?

[Polish3d]

In the movies Terminator 3, and of course in Star Trek the Next Generation, both Data and Skynet are running at "60 terahertz"... I figure the researchers got this number from somewhere... anyone have more info on that idea? It sounds like some guy theorized that a computer would have to run at that speed to gain self-awareness or whatever.

 

[Bassyhead]

It's probably just a made up number. There's more to a computer's capabilities than clock frequency. I think the brain runs at like 200Hz or something. They probably took the common household 60 Hz and added a "tera".

 

[Polish3d]

Perhaps so. I just found it an interesting coincidence that both would peg it at 60

 

[Born2bwire]

That would be rather impressive as their chips would be operating on ultraviolet light.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
That would be rather impressive as their chips would be operating on ultraviolet light.

I don't think so.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
That would be rather impressive as their chips would be operating on ultraviolet light.

I don't think so.

Whoops, misplaced a decimal. Infrared I mean.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Whoops, misplaced a decimal. Infrared I mean.

I still don't think so. The problem is that you've forged a conceptual error, not a math error. You were right the first time in saying that a frequency of 60 terahertz (6*10^16 Hz) falls in the UV range. However, it's incorrect to state that any system running at a frequency of 60 terahertz 'operate on ultraviolet light.' If this were true, then my computer would be running on radar. My car's engine can operate at a frequency of 5000 rpm (300,000 Hz) - does that mean it's operating on long electromagnetic waves? I don't think so.

 

[f95toli]

No, 60 THz is definitly in the IR range (MIR, IR covers about 1.5 THz to 300 THz, so 60 THz), not UV.

We can build "electronics" that can operate up to about 1.8 THz or so, everything about that is just light.

 

[imported_Hamzter]

I don't think you can assign a speed to a brain, since it's not a digital system. People have tried many times to approximate its speed, which vary a huge ammount. If you measure speed as the number of chemical reactions contributing to thought it may well be in the terahertz range, but if you measure how many calculations it can do, it'll be less than 1 hertz!

I think they just chose the 'terahertz' range cos it sounds scary, and multiplied it by 60Hz so it runs on mains power

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: f95toli
No, 60 THz is definitly in the IR range (MIR, IR covers about 1.5 THz to 300 THz, so 60 THz), not UV.

We can build "electronics" that can operate up to about 1.8 THz or so, everything about that is just light.

I couldn't remember where it fell, so I looked up the EM spectrum. Of course, it would have helped if I had recalled that tera is 10^12, not 10^15.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Whoops, misplaced a decimal. Infrared I mean.

I still don't think so. The problem is that you've forged a conceptual error, not a math error. You were right the first time in saying that a frequency of 60 terahertz (6*10^16 Hz) falls in the UV range. However, it's incorrect to state that any system running at a frequency of 60 terahertz 'operate on ultraviolet light.' If this were true, then my computer would be running on radar. My car's engine can operate at a frequency of 5000 rpm (300,000 Hz) - does that mean it's operating on long electromagnetic waves? I don't think so.

I would have put it that your computer runs on microwaves than radar, but same thing. The mechanism by which electric signals flow in electronic circuits are electromagnetic waves. I do not mean that you have a magnetron in your computer scattering out radiation. But take a simple microstrip line on your everyday PCB. Although we talk about currents and voltages, the actual mechanism by which the currents flow along your trace is from electromagnetic waves that exist between the trace on top of the PCB and the ground plane underneath it. Now if we are clocking our system around 3.0 GHz, then the clock signal is trying to be a square wave and we can guarantee that some of the frequency content must be at least be in the gigahertz range. So the electromagnetic wave that flows down our PCB is going to exist in the microwave region. The difference here is that these microwaves are not radiating out like in a radar array. They are confined by the conducting trace and ground plane so that they are simply guided waves. However, there are mechanisms where we can take our guided modes from a microstrip and cause them to resonate between a trace and the groundplane and then strike them against a discontinuity to create surface waves that will radiate the microwave signal out into space. I.e: We can literally just put a patch of conductor on a PCB circuit board and feed it the signal from a chip and use it to radiate the microwaves for your wireless LAN. This works all fine on the conceptual level. The same electromagnetic waves that radiate in space in radar will create currents when they strike a conductor. So by confining the wave in a guided mode between conductors, we keep a current flowing along the traces.

The high frequency of terahertz radiation means that the wavelength of the wave is no longer on the order of a feasible man-made structure. I have seen papers and presentations on terahertz waveguides, but not in the visible light spectrum. The other main difference is that the physics are on a much smaller scale such that quantum EM becomes more prevalent. So it becomes better to think on the order of photons.

But for our purposes of a purely science fiction scenario, I think that it would suffice to state that by that point in time they have quantum computers and thus the idea for them to be using light waves (which people like to think of photons) is more conceptually valid than electromagnetic waves (which people like to think of electrons). But truly, the electromagnetic waves are photons, but they induce currents in conductors like copper.

EDIT: Would like to mention that we do have electronics that operate just in the terahertz region and thus would qualify to be in infrared, as f95toli previously stated. My university is developing LET's, light emitting transistors, and are able to use LET's to achieve lasing at 1 Terahertz. I cannot recall offhand what was the mechanism by which the transistors are radiating the radiation, but I doubt it is like your classic antennas. Terahertz radiation has such a small wavelength, that you really cannot, nor would not, construct an antenna like you would for your wireless LAN or cell phone, to radiate it. There are just easier ways to do it on the quantum level, as seen in light bulbs or LEDs. If I wanted to create a simple monopole antenna to radiate 1 THz waves, I would need to be able to feed currents to a wire with a length of 75 micrometers.

As for your car engine, well it might be able to radiate an acoustic wave in the 300KHz region. The engine would be fairly large in regards to the wavelength and might be able to act as an unbaffled piston to create the waves. I do not work with acoustics at all so I would not know how well an engine would be for radiating high frequency sound waves.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Frackal
Perhaps so. I just found it an interesting coincidence that both would peg it at 60

Wall outlets in the US run at 60Hz. Use that number, and add "tera" to make it sound advanced.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
But for our purposes of a purely science fiction scenario, I think that it would suffice to state that by that point in time they have quantum computers and thus the idea for them to be using light waves (which people like to think of photons) is more conceptually valid than electromagnetic waves (which people like to think of electrons). But truly, the electromagnetic waves are photons, but they induce currents in conductors like copper.

Ah, I see what you're saying now. Brain's running a little slow this week.

 

[flawlssdistortn]

idiots, it's 63.5 terahertz, not 60.

 

[Alastria]

The true intelligence of our brain comes from the "software", not the "hardware". I don't care how fast computers become, even optical- or quantum-based. Until you either develop "intelligence" software, or give the computer the means to write its own software in some sort of iterative, self-improving process, humans will still rule the world.

 

[byosys]

The intelligence of our brain comes from the software, like Alastria said, but also form the massive I/O capabilities that our nervous system has and it's massively parallel "design". Look at how severe disabilities that limit just some of the brain's I/O capacity are. Also notice that you hear, feel, see, taste and smell countless different things at once with no dificulties. In short, there really is no valid way to compare brain function to computer function.

On topic: 60 terahertz was almost certainly chosen to sound "OMG super advanced." Every one knows that "more GHz means more processing power" (not true). 60 is a large number (compared to the ~3GHz speeds that the P4 runs at) and the tera prefix just makes it that much more exotic.

 

[dguy6789]

I was under the impression that in Terminator 3, they stated that SkyNet was running at 60 teraflops, rather than 60 terahertz.

 

[everman]

Current estimates of the number of computations per second (cps) needed to emulate the human brain are 10^16 to 10^19 cps.
IBM's Blue Gene /L is about 10^16cps.

You also need enough memory, at least 2 Terrabytes, possibly 10x more.

 

[BrownTown]

computers and brains are completely different, brains are good for some things, they suck at others. Computers are good for some thing, they suck at other things. When it comes to controlling organic life forms brains are really good, when it comes to conrolling assembly lines computers are really good. Computers are really good at being very accurate and precise, they are good at doing math, and working with numbers. Brains are good inovating, and doing analog problems like voice and image recognition. Brains can solve problems even if they have nenver been trained how to do so.

On a completely die note, anyone know how many watts a brain consumes under load, and in idle? Would be kinda funny to know. See what the performance per watt is and such.

 

[everman]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
computers and brains are completely different,[...]

Not really, a brain is just a computer. It's highly parallel, designed to do certain things like pattern recognition very well. Like I posted above, theoretically we are close to being able to fully emulate the brain with around 10^19cps, and simply doing all of the functional things a brain does needs significantly less power, around 10^16cps.

Full emulation of the brain is not necessary. You only need to duplicate all of its functions, not simulate every synapse, etc.


Anyways, this is all speculative and fun to think about. I pulled most of this info out of a book I picked up which is quite fun to read called "The Singularity Is Near". See the section on reverse engineering the brain

If current computer technology continues increasing in power at the rate it has been historically, and currently is, then we will reach the computational capacity of every human brain on earth before the end of this century, all in one computer (which can be mass produced).

 

[spikespiegal]

The intelligence of our brain comes from the software, like Alastria said, but also form the massive I/O capabilities that our nervous system has and it's massively parallel "design".

True. Neuro Physists seem to be in agreement that "Consciousness" is a product of the cumulative reactions in our brains all occuring at the same time. Essentially a massive parallel processing system not using clunky base 2 determinators like electronic computers do.

Regardless of how you program a computer or how fast you make it, modern computational defined data as either "yes" or "no", and are limited as such until quantum state devices becom the norm. The human brain does not function like this, which can best be proven by taking your GF shopping for shoes,

What irriates me is when the press starts making claims about gadgets like chess computer beating human opponents as being 'artifical intelligence'. I'm sorry, but designing a mathematical algorithm designed to play a discrete game like chess doesn't make a computer 'intelligent'.

60Terahurts huh? If a dual Core P4 were running at that speed, woulnd't it have the heat out-put of our sun? You'd need a heat sink able to beam the thermal energy into hyperspace or something, and you'd still have some nitwit on Anandtech want to over-clock it :evil:

 

[inveterate]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

The intelligence of our brain comes from the software, like Alastria said, but also form the massive I/O capabilities that our nervous system has and it's massively parallel "design".

True. Neuro Physists seem to be in agreement that "Consciousness" is a product of the cumulative reactions in our brains all occuring at the same time. Essentially a massive parallel processing system not using clunky base 2 determinators like electronic computers do.

Regardless of how you program a computer or how fast you make it, modern computational defined data as either "yes" or "no", and are limited as such until quantum state devices becom the norm. The human brain does not function like this, which can best be proven by taking your GF shopping for shoes,

What irriates me is when the press starts making claims about gadgets like chess computer beating human opponents as being 'artifical intelligence'. I'm sorry, but designing a mathematical algorithm designed to play a discrete game like chess doesn't make a computer 'intelligent'.

60Terahurts huh? If a dual Core P4 were running at that speed, woulnd't it have the heat out-put of our sun? You'd need a heat sink able to beam the thermal energy into hyperspace or something, and you'd still have some nitwit on Anandtech want to over-clock it :evil:

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[Munky]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

The intelligence of our brain comes from the software, like Alastria said, but also form the massive I/O capabilities that our nervous system has and it's massively parallel "design".

True. Neuro Physists seem to be in agreement that "Consciousness" is a product of the cumulative reactions in our brains all occuring at the same time. Essentially a massive parallel processing system not using clunky base 2 determinators like electronic computers do.

Regardless of how you program a computer or how fast you make it, modern computational defined data as either "yes" or "no", and are limited as such until quantum state devices becom the norm. The human brain does not function like this, which can best be proven by taking your GF shopping for shoes,

What irriates me is when the press starts making claims about gadgets like chess computer beating human opponents as being 'artifical intelligence'. I'm sorry, but designing a mathematical algorithm designed to play a discrete game like chess doesn't make a computer 'intelligent'.

60Terahurts huh? If a dual Core P4 were running at that speed, woulnd't it have the heat out-put of our sun? You'd need a heat sink able to beam the thermal energy into hyperspace or something, and you'd still have some nitwit on Anandtech want to over-clock it :evil:

In Soviet Russia, computer overclock you...

 

[Snooper]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
My car's engine can operate at a frequency of 5000 rpm (300,000 Hz) - does that mean it's operating on long electromagnetic waves? I don't think so.

Strange how we have all these folks talking about how close we are to having a computer be powerful enough to simulate a human brain, yet no one caught on to the simple failure in the math above!

5000 revolutions / minute * 1 cycle / revolution * 1 minute / 60 seconds = 83.3R Hz!

And they are not even CLOSE to simulating the human brain. Heck, they can't even fully simulate the brain of a cockroach yet. For that matter, we don't even understand exactly what the brain does nor how it does it yet. But there area always people that want to claim we are "x years away" from duplicating it.

 

[obeseotron]

Provided some basic requirements were met (RAM, etc) isn't the speed of the processor not that important in terms of consciousness. I mean if the software were there, but the hardware were only 1/1000th the necessary speed to equal a human, wouldn't it still be conscious but just take 1000 times as long as a human to come to conclusions?