Science Memes

11414 readers

1819 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

556

I'm literally a thinking lump of fat (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The brain is not a "lump of fat". If you desiccate the brain, most of what's left are lipids, yes, but at that point you are not conscious anymore. The brain is a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, water and fat.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A lump of mostly fat then? Seems needlessly specific.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

I’M NOT FAT I’M JUST BIG BRAINED!!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Mostly water, in that case

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Also fairly sure that electrical impulses alone cannot account for consciousness. If that were "all" there was to it we'd have simulated a human brain by now. There's a few theories about quantum processes being involved but this isn't exactly easily proven.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

If that were "all" there was to it we'd have simulated a human brain by now.

Didn't it take them a long ass time to do this for a fruit fly brain?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Depends on when you start the timer. The fruit fly brain was only completely mapped recently. There's a simulation of it that runs on a laptop. If that simulation can run on a modern laptop and the map was otherwise available, then it likely could have been done on supercomputers in the decades prior.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I thought they were up to mice now but I might be mistaken.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

To simulate a human brain, we would need a complete map of it. We don't have that yet. If the quantum theories around neurons are correct, then the map would be incomplete without it.

I doubt we could simulate it directly without a very specialized ASIC.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

The connectome doesn't really seem to be so realistic, at smaller scales sure.