[sbanach]

Presumably you're referring to the neuron-level simulations that crop up in the news every time some university gets a new supercomputer? Maybe there are some shortcuts.

Just like 10 years ago the only conceivable way of rendering diffuse light was with raytracing or radiosity simulations. Now we have modern techniques like ambient occlusion that makes it reasonably cheap to do in a rasterizer in realtime.

[debacle]

We can simulate approximations of intelligence now, and those will continue to get better all the time, however, like raytracing, we simply don't have the technology to do real AI at the human scale right now.

[sbanach]

My point is that should there exist some higher level structure in the brain that is more amenable to simulation than the equivalent quantity of low-level synapses and neurons, then all bets are off about exactly what sort of computer is required to simulate it. The brain has to be replicable by biological processes - who knows what tricks it has to pull to achieve its function? Maybe it's possible to come up with an 'optimizing compiler' that tosses the junk.

[king_magic]

Makes me think back to UltraHLE, and how that was a quantum leap over existing N64 emulators when it came out. Similar approach - UltraHLE didn't emulate every detail of the system. It took a higher-level approach.

Obviously not the same thing as emulating the brain :-) but just what came to mind.

[paulgb]

For anyone not familiar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraHLE#The_HLE_technique

Here's hoping the brain is implemented in C ;-)

[jmmcd]

We don't have the right software. But if we had the right software, maybe current hardware would be plenty. There's no way to tell until we see the software.