
Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor? - hprotagonist
http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268
======
simonster
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11780565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11780565)

------
pakl
Alternative TL;DR: The experimental methods you use can color the results you
get.

E.g., lesioning different parts of a microprocessor may reveal "clusters of
function" much as such studies do in the brain.

------
dekhn
Prior article: "Can a biologist fix a radio?"

[http://www.cell.com/cancer-
cell/abstract/S1535-6108(02)00133...](http://www.cell.com/cancer-
cell/abstract/S1535-6108\(02\)00133-2)

TL;DR: electronics are designed modularly, for easy analysis by end-users
(mainly for repair). Biology is ... not designed so much as evolved, and
evolves in a way that is not easily comprehended by human brains.

~~~
Cyph0n
You can easily understand how to fix an electronic device, but understanding
how it works at a fundamental level is where the complexity comes in ;)

~~~
dekhn
For the purposes of this article, the neuroscientists aren't concerned with
the molecular level of how brains work. Just the higher level components.
ALthough it's argued both ways, it seems like you can understand "how a brain
works" without understanding the neuron's molecular behavior (diffusion,
electric propagation), you can just model it at a coarse grained level.

The difference in understanding is the nature of the wiring, in that
electronic systems tend to be wired in highly modular ways, while biological
systems tend to be wired in highly interconnected ways.

------
hprotagonist
not a dupe per se; this is the PLOS (peer reviewed) paper whose draft appeared
on arXiv earlier this summer.

