I hope so. I mean, the brain can suffer all kinds of damage and still handle things pretty...
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Michelle:
I heard that one of your later papers proved that you could make a reliable circuit from unreliable components. Do you think this might have applications for the brain? Claude Shannon:
[chuckles]
I hope so. I mean, the brain can suffer all kinds of damage and still handle things pretty well, which means there must be redundancy. The fact that the brain has ten billion neurons probably means it was cheaper for biology to just make more components that to figure out sophisticated circuits. Trying to work out all the different connections would be astronomical, impossible, but if we can find patterns, well, there may be ways to simplify things
I heard that one of your later papers proved that you could make a reliable circuit from unreliable components. Do you think this might have applications for the brain? Claude Shannon:
[chuckles]
I hope so. I mean, the brain can suffer all kinds of damage and still handle things pretty well, which means there must be redundancy. The fact that the brain has ten billion neurons probably means it was cheaper for biology to just make more components that to figure out sophisticated circuits. Trying to work out all the different connections would be astronomical, impossible, but if we can find patterns, well, there may be ways to simplify things
Full Transcript
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Michelle I heard that one of your last papers proved
00:00:03.052 --> 00:00:05.002
that you could make a reliable circuit
00:00:05.002 --> 00:00:07.052
from faulty components
00:00:07.052 --> 00:00:09.012
Do you think that this might have applications
00:00:09.012 --> 00:00:09.096
for the brain
00:00:09.096 --> 00:00:11.052
Claude chuckles
00:00:11.052 --> 00:00:12.032
I hope so
00:00:13.016 --> 00:00:15.048
I mean the brain can suffer all kinds of damage
00:00:16.004 --> 00:00:19.028
and still handle things pretty well
00:00:19.028 --> 00:00:21.088
which means there must be redundancy
00:00:21.088 --> 00:00:25.000
The fact that the brain has 10 billion neurons
00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.004
probably means that it was cheaper for biology
00:00:27.004 --> 00:00:30.076
to just make more components than
00:00:30.076 --> 00:00:30.008
to figure out sophisticated circuits to just make more components than
00:00:30.008 --> 00:00:35.999
to figure out sophisticated circuits
00:00:35.999 --> 00:00:35.998
Trying to work out all the different connections to figure out sophisticated circuits
00:00:35.998 --> 00:00:38.999
Trying to work out all the different connections
00:00:38.999 --> 00:00:42.084
would be astronomical impossible
00:00:43.036 --> 00:00:46.052
but if we can find patterns
00:00:48.032 --> 00:00:53.012
well there may be ways to simplify things
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Movie Summary
The Bit Player tells the story of an overlooked genius, Claude Shannon (the "Father of Information Theory"), who revolutionized the world, but never lost his childlike curiosity.
