[joecode]

But first, let's nail down the context, because if we can't agree on that then we really shouldn't even be discussing the topic (and I suspect the whole problem here is that Myers thinks they're arguing about something other than what Kurzweil is actually claiming) - we're discussing the amount of information that we would need to construct an effective intelligent algorithm.

If that's the question, then sure, I agree with you. In fact, I imagine something intelligent code be encoded with much less data.

My point was about the information content required for the human brain itself, and that seems to be what Kurzweil is talking about, at least:

The amount of information in the genome (after lossless compression, which is feasible because of the massive redundancy in the genome) is about 50 million bytes (down from 800 million bytes in the uncompressed genome). It is true that the information in the genome goes through a complex route to create a brain, but the information in the genome constrains the amount of information in the brain prior to the brain’s interaction with its environment.

[ewjordan]

You're absolutely right - looking at that quote (and looking through the original one that Myers responded to), he's overstated what we can conclude based on DNA length by a good amount (though Myers argument doesn't disprove the upper bound, by any means; it merely points out that Kurzweil's "proof" doesn't hold). The problematic phrase, which makes this argument pretty ambiguous, is "simulate the brain" - neither party has really pinned down what they mean by that, so it's hard to know what would qualify. In retrospect, I think I cut Kurzweil a little too much slack when deciding what he meant, esp. in light of his other writings on the topic...

It's a shame, because his argument is fully defensible if it's stated correctly and applied to the general problem of AI instead of to Kurzweil's pet theory that full brain simulation is the One True Way.