The Singularity that is the Brain

ehak Khan
University of Southern California
This sketch shows the brain sitting in and warping a spacetime diagram to infinity. Physically speaking, the brain doesn't have enough mass to even impart a blip onto the fabric of space.The point of this sketch is instead to metaphorically and philosophically show that the brain is a physical entity so dense in information, intellectual prowess, and computational abilities that it truly does seem to be a singularity at times. Think of the 85 billion neurons and their trillions of synapses. How can these physical connections give rise to the thoughts that make me and you who we are? How does the brain compute through and make sense of our physical experience so quickly, allowing us to "effortlessly" carry through our lives? If the brain is a physical system and physical systems can be predicted until Heisenberg uncertainty must dominate, can it be possible for us to retrace or predict our thoughts mathematically? If so, what type of advanced computational technology would be needed? You see that we can ask so many overwhelmingly profound questions about the brain, many of which have no accessible answer. The brain is a mystery not unlike a proper singularity in physics.
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