The Powerful Human Brain

Larry A. Law

Supercomputers, digital cell phones, ubiquitous laptops, quantum calculators, artificial intelligence... comprehending all of this impressive computing technology makes my head hurt. Billions of dollars are spent on developing the latest sophisticated devices which harness greater and greater processing power in ever shrinking packages. But how do they compare to the ordinary human brain? I think you will be surprised to see how well you do versus these expensive machines.

Processing (Calculating) Power

Currently, one of the fastest supercomputers in the world is the Fugaku, housed in the RIKEN Center in Kobe, Japan. It can perform 442 Petaflops (Pflops). Flops stands for floating-point operations per second. Peta means it can do 442,000 trillion calculations per second (or 442 quadrillion flops). It can accommodate a network model of about 10 billion nerve cells (neurons in the brain). The human brain has over 100 billion neurons, which is approximately the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Fugaku supercomputer would require at least 4 minutes to simulate 1 second of human brain activity. That makes your brain pretty impressive! 

Size and Energy Required

Supercomputers cost about $500 million to build and need about 20 megawatts of power to operate. They can cover upwards of 2,400 square feet of space. One megawatt is the same as 1 million watts. A 60-watt light bulb draws 60 watts of electricity instantaneously when it is turned on. So, the fastest computers need as much power as 333,333 light bulbs. 

The human brain needs power too. Its energy comes from food. Our brain needs only 20 watts to operate (one-third of a 60-watt light bulb). That means the human brain is more powerful but more energy efficient by far than a supercomputer!

Learning and Inventing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is in the news as one of the most promising fields in computer technology. AI seeks to enable computer systems to think like humans. A few basic tasks like visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages have shown promise. But machines are extremely limited. Data is located and accessed only from within logical, physical memory storage sites in a computer. The human brain, however, stores and retrieves information in virtually an unlimited number of ways by making use of cues and concepts in a vast variety of ways. In addition, human brains can step outside of themselves and consider ideas and relationships that a machine will never be able to do. 

Bottom Line

If you ever feel depressed about your life and the value you represent in the world, just remember: the human brain is incredible. You own and control what is in your head. This means YOU are incredible too!

​Your brain is capable of perceiving, assessing, and incorporating truth. There has been so much propaganda and censorship dominating the news—it is an information war! If you want to cut through the fake news promulgated by the military-medical-pharmaceutical industrial complex, I encourage you to watch this U.S. Senate Vaccine Hearing led by Senator Ron Johnson as expert doctors discuss the truth about COVID-19 vaccines.