人脑和电脑 The Brain and the Computer

Some recent developments in computer industry make scientists predict that the gap between human beings and the machine will be closed by the year 20000.

To understand the significance of this prediction, let us compare the human brain with existing computers. The brain consumes electrical energy at the rate of 25 watts and occupies volume of one tenth of a cubic foot. The brain houses between 10 billion and 100 billion items of information. Every brain cell is directly connected to many other cells. As a result, the cells in which information is stored can communicate with thousands of other cells. In contrast, the computer consumes 1,000,000 watts of electrical power and occupies hundreds of cubic feet of space. The computer memory is like a cell of pigeonholes, with no thinking capacity and no connections elsewhere.

In a word, the electronic brains can hopelessly succeed in comparison with the human brains.