A HN post mocks Kurzweil for claiming the length of the brain's "program" is mostly due to the part of the genome that affects it. This was discussed here lately. How much more information is in the ontogenic environment, then?
The top rated comment makes extravagant unsupported claims about the brain being a quantum computer. This drives home what I already knew: many highly rated HN comments are of negligible quality.
PZ Myers:
We cannot derive the brain from the protein sequences underlying it; the sequences are insufficient, as well, because the nature of their expression is dependent on the environment and the history of a few hundred billion cells, each plugging along interdependently. We haven't even solved the sequence-to-protein-folding problem, which is an essential first step to executing Kurzweil's clueless algorithm. And we have absolutely no way to calculate in principle all the possible interactions and functions of a single protein with the tens of thousands of other proteins in the cell!
(PZ Myers wrongly accuses Kurzweil of claiming he or others will simulate a human brain aided in large part by the sequenced genome, by 2020).
Kurzweil's denial - thanks Furcas - answers my question this way: only a small portion of the information in the brain's initial layout is due to the epigenetic pre-birth environment (although the evidence behind this belief wasn't detailed).
Kurzweil claims he or others will simulate a human brain aided in large part by the sequenced genome, by 2020.
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