What is more mysterious?

The brain is less mysterious because I have direct experience of one of them. The Universe on the other hand is something I'll only ever have second hand information about. Since we will never be able to see light from the furthest reaches of space due to the time it takes to reach us, those parts of the universe will always remain a mystery. Or so I would think...

  On 3/31/2011 at 10:49 PM, DerWaschbar said:

  On 3/31/2011 at 10:28 PM, hahathhat said:

i just want an ice cream scoop of brain cells as a USB peripheral.

 

This is the most reasonable thing I have heard in days.

i've been saying this for years.

"computers can't emulate the human mind!"

"then give me a human mind as a usb device..."

  On 4/1/2011 at 6:06 AM, Tamas said:

I think the Universe is pretty mysterious but the fact that the brain is so close to us and is still not very well understood, I would say the brain is more mysterious. I don't know too much about the brain, though what I do understand is that various areas are connected to different functions based on activity, and enzymes/nutrients going to different parts. But to me it doesn't prove much, except that the brain definitely connects our mind to our body. Other than that, everything that I've read, seems to be jumping to a lot of conclusions, like that our memories are stored in the brain, etc. It could be like RAM I guess, but until we can connect a brain to some sort of device and download memories, I won't believe that...

 

The Universe, most of what we know in general seems to be going in a direction of more understanding, and so far I don't think we've hit many roadblocks about what we could learn about it.

 

Also, in terms of macroscopic and microscopic, to me, things that are macroscopic make more sense, and although the microscopic world effects the macroscopic one, I feel like we'll come closer to answering questions about the Universe as a whole as opposed to the brain itself. Since things in the brain happen at such a small scale, quantum mechanics could become involved, and fucked if I'd ever understand that haha. I suppose black holes etc are equally mysterious, but to me, considering how "close" we are to our brains, I definitely think it's more mysterious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-addressable_memory

If you have never heard of the double slit experiment, watch this. It's crazy how the universe and the brain are tied together in strange ways.. I would say there's definitely a different level of consciousness available in our brains and there is an infinite amount of information to be discovered about the universe as well

That clip is from What the Bleep Do We Know? and it's just that kind of quantum mysticism that I was talking about.

  On 4/1/2011 at 9:14 AM, azatoth said:

That clip is from What the Bleep Do We Know? and it's just that kind of quantum mysticism that I was talking about.

how about this? https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/gtpp/

yea it is from what the bleep do we know

This is clearly a trick question. The answer is indisputably the human brain - if you're talking about the female human brain.

Otherwise, universe.

The answer is obvious, since the human brain is a subset of the Universe.

which gets girls wetter, quantum mechanics or general relativity?

I chose the universe because sometimes it needs to be analysed with more than 3 dimensions or something.

  On 4/1/2011 at 10:01 AM, lumpenprol said:

which gets girls wetter, quantum mechanics or general relativity?

Quantum mechanics - because when they are observed they act differently.

Azatoth: why would you conflate Deepak Chopra with any reasonable scientist?

  On 4/1/2011 at 9:45 AM, psn said:

The answer is obvious, since the human brain is a subset of the Universe.

  On 4/1/2011 at 11:22 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/1/2011 at 10:01 AM, lumpenprol said:

which gets girls wetter, quantum mechanics or general relativity?

 

Quantum mechanics - because when they are observed they act differently.

 

 

Azatoth: why would you conflate Deepak Chopra with any reasonable scientist?

I just mentioned him as an example for a proponent to this quantum mysticism. His thoughts are rubbish with little or no basis in reality or what we could possibly know at this stage.

the universe, because of our lack of understanding of : dark energy/matter, time, gravity

but of course the main problem with "understanding" the human brain is conciousness. there is nothing in nature that acts with intent like humans (and other brain-equipped earth things) and is able to understand complex phenomena and choose what to do.

ie, it will be easier to understand the brain physically than the entire universe, but i think it's pretty clear that the brain is quite bigger than the sum of its parts.

This is all getting rather confused as people interpret their own misunderstanding of either system as 'mysteriousness'