To what extent are humans optimized? Compared to the most efficient method of land mobility (that still retains all the same functionality e.g. ability to climb stairs) how efficient are human legs? Compared to the most efficient way to take in their respective types of data, how efficient are human eyes, ears, etc?
Most importantly, compared to the most efficient way to do the types of calculations it does, how efficient are human brains/neurons etc.? Obviously, digital computers are much more efficient at the types of computations they do. With semiconductors as an obvious counterexample, we can be fairly certain that any digital computation human brains do is not even close to the theoretical maximum efficiency it could have. But I've heard some say that human brains might use certain types of analog computation at least in part. Is it possible that the analog parts of human brains are even e.g. 10 percent as efficient as a maximally efficient version of computational substrate designed for a similar purpose?
Obviously, all the answers to this will probably be well within the realm of conjecture. Unless, that is, anyone actually does have some sort of publication going into detail about this type of thing, but I doubt it. I'd still like to see what this community cares to predict about this subject/offer as conjecture.
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Notes -
? The conventional view is that human brains are digital computers. Information is represented symbolically in the form of nerve impulses, which is what enables the otherwise uniform computational substrate of the cerebrum to otherwise be able to process such a variety of different things from simple sensation to the considerations involved in complex planning etc.
This just means that neurons don't work in binary like most artificial electrical computers, it doesn't mean they aren't components of a digital computer. Digital doesn't mean binary.
From your comment I'm afraid you might just have no idea what a digital computer actually is. Whether information is transferred electrically or not isn't what separates digital computers from analog ones, but rather the fact that information is represented symbolically in digital computers and not in analog ones. Information is represented symbolically in the form of action potentials in neurons in the brain meaning it is a digital computer.
When you want to be a dick, you should at least try and know something of what you're talking about so you don't come across as both needlessly overconfident and a dick. The fact that neurons can process both sense information as well as consider things like complex planning means that by definition they must be the components of a digital computer. What is uniform about the substrate is that it is all composed of neurons, not whether the architecture happens to be similar or not across various cortical layers (just as the architecture of different computer processors is not uniform despite all being made of transistors.)
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