The Computer and the Brain

What Hacker News says

1. jan_m_savageOct 2026
   for a chance to experience his mind, I recommend his book: "The computer and the brain".
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2. drcwplNov 2024
   This is a great read. von Neumann was pivotal in the design of architecture, I think his contribution is way under appreciated - did you know he also wrote a terrific book The Computer and the Brain and coined the term the Singularity? https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/the-architect-of-tomor...
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3. tomxorSep 2021
   I started reading "the computer and the brain", derived from the unperformed silliman lectures by John von Neumann.

   The foreword of this small book is almost as large as the main content and does an excellent job of contextualising it in terms of more recognisable modern technology; but also in terms of the contributions, the cyclical relationship between contributors to the field (Chruch, Turing, von Neumann) and how they inspired and fed off each other. Admittedly the writer has bias towards von Neumanns contributions, yet it is still clear that although he was clearly an incredibly smart, inventive and forward thinking individual ahead of his time - the parts that happened to landed on his lap were a product of collaboration between many brilliant people.

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4. kaba0Aug 2021
   John von Neumann wrote an essay on the topic titled The computer and the brain, which is quite a good comparison between the two types of systems, even though knowledge of the two was pretty primitive at the time. The basic idea is that computers are multiple orders of magnitude faster at serial calculations, but brains offset this difference by the sheer number of “dumb” processing units, with insane number of interconnections. Also, I don’t think that comparing the training of a neural network to the brain is fair from an energy usage point of view - compare the usage of the final NN with it.

   As for how optimized is the human brain, well good question. I think not even a single biological cell is close to efficient, at most it is at a local minima. The reason is perhaps that “worse is better” in terms of novel functionality. But I don’t think there was a big evolutionary pressure on sufficient intelligence once it emerged - it is sort of a first past the post wins all.

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5. Minor49erMar 2020
   "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates is an interesting look into what Bill envisioned for the Internet. It came with a CD-ROM full of videos of how devices would be used in schools and workplaces (I thonk law enforcement too if I remember correctly). The videos are much better than the book.

   "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" was eye opening for me regarding the life of Jobs, his family life, and his business involvements.

   "Masters of Doom" by David Kushner chronicles the history of id Software and its creators. It's an entertaining book for sure, especially the part where id has Gwar show up at Microsoft.

   "Close to the Machine" by Ellen Ullman is the memoir of a software developer in the 80s. I need to read this one again, but it was enjoyable. I think about one part in particular from time to time where the author recounts being offered a job to work on an aging mainframe. The man pitching the job is probably the last person around who's dedicated to maintaining it. She would have made a lot of money doing it, but the work itself looked to be soul draining, so she skipped it fpr pther opportunities

   "The Fugitive Game" by Jonathan Littman documents the story of Kevin Mitnick, the so-called most wanted hacker alive. Certainly has some surprises and is a fun read.

   Pretty much anything by Norbert Wiener regarding cybernetics is interesting from a historical perspective. I've read several but the one that comes to mind immediately is "God and Golem, Inc". While unfinished, it goes into cybernetics, which was a practice or idea that technology could interface with biological life in a complementary way and those ways should be pursued. I think he was ultimately successful since we take a lot of those ideas for granted today.

   "The Computer and The Brain" by John von Neumann is a great and short read. It mostly talks about how binary signals can be fired by synapses in the brain.

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6. clickokNov 2019
   Supposedly, yes-- during his final stay in the hospital, his brother read to him from a book they'd enjoyed during their childhood, Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. When his brother had to turn the page, John would continue the narration from memory while his brother found his place on the subsequent page.

   Given that he could be occasionally absent minded, I suspect that it had to be something that piqued his interest, but his sense of what was interesting was extremely broad.

   He did in fact speculate on the workings of the brain in The Computer and the Brain, which is based on a lecture series he had planned out but did not deliver. It was more in the context of automata theory, but as someone with an interest in AI, automata, and neuroscience, it was frankly rather dank[0]. A lot of the pioneering work was, and is enjoyable in part because it's original and speculative, so you don't have to master the literature to make sense of it, you can just pick a paper and go. I'd recommend reading Pitts and McCullogh, plus also Lettvin, but others might have some equally lit[1] recommendations.

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   0. In the contemporary sense, c.f. "cool", "dope", or "excellent"; not dank like a root cellar.

   1. vide supra

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