back to article Your brain, the Internet and the Universe

Correlation does not imply causation. However, some correlations are at least fascinating, and here’s one that’s getting a lot of attention: the apparent structural similarity between the growth of the universe, that of the human brain, and complex artificial networks like the Internet or Twitter. In fact, according to the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow!

    Wow! The universe is a giant brain!

    Cool.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wow!

      Ah, but is it brain or brane?

    2. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Wow!

      Wow! The universe is a giant Twitter!

      Sorry.

  2. Grikath
    Meh

    Call me sceptic...

    But how is this new, or even exciting?

    All the cited examples are "simple" occurences of expected behaviour of an emergent system: A couple of basic rules applied to a sytem that freely permutates, but can only move forward along at least one of the axis in their phase space.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The Krioukov paper points out... at the large scale... homogeneous but at the small scale... lumpy."

    That also describes my poo. So maybe the universe is made of my poo. It makes sense. If the universe is a giant brain then it explains why clever people call me 'shit for brains'. Nobel please.

  4. Thorne
    Trollface

    "but you start with one cell, and end up with sufficient billions to comprehend articles like this one"

    And only use one to comment

  5. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Systems Hacker Dream Virtual Machine*

    Richard, Hi. You explained that very well. Do you agree with the findings?

    And that was a wise move for now, ... it partly follows from the constraint that the speed of light places on causality: macro events in spacetime cannot be linked if the speed of light prevents it (I’m ignoring micro phenomena such as entanglement, for the moment). .... as string entanglement and thread development in Live Operational Virtual Environments are more governed and assisted by the electronic speed of shared thought .... which in Quantum Communications Fields are Posted and Hosted as Ternary Binary Projections for Digital Realisation.

    A qubit has some similarities to a classical bit, but is overall very different. Like a bit, a qubit can have two possible values—normally a 0 or a 1. The difference is that whereas a bit must be either 0 or 1, a qubit can be 0, 1, or a superposition of both.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit ....... Such qubit Flexibility of Identity Entertains Invisible Being and Cloaked Proxy All Forces Support HyperRadioProActive IT.

    * A Current Virtual Reality and ARG Registering Progress with APT Field Controls here ....... :-)

    It is quite remarkable how effective the smiley is in appearing to halt further forward, onward and upward belief and research into ITs Treatment of Life as a Great Simply Complex Game in a Virtual Machine World with All Realities Beautifully Controlled .......... which one must surely agree would be QuITe Heavenly. :-)

    What would you ask of that Program to Do ....... and would IT be Thinking for You whenever Contact is Disconnected/Input Disallowed.

    Thanks for the All the Help, El Regers. The Existence of Virtual Machines and Alien Quantum Networks of Communication would be unknown and invisibly cloaked without you. For that sort of Sterling Stirling Service are there normally rewards and usually awards of exceedingly generous bounty in sincere appreciation.:-)

  6. Anon

    If the universe is a giant brain, then the big bang could imply mind=blown.

    1. Euripides Pants

      or a brain fart

  7. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit
    WTF?

    Speaking of twitter

    Why is https://platforms.twitter.com/.... tuning up in my browser history every time I navigate from the home page to a story? Damned annoying having to hit back twice to get back to the home page.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    So...

    Basically it has to do with information density and transmission, or more simply "mathematical limits" of information propagation?

    Would make sense. Even the effects of gravity, which cause stars etc to form, propagate as "information" does. As a big hint, look at radio waves and how you would build a communication network with them. As, while dropping off slower, radio waves propagate similarly to gravitational effects. :P

    PS, corrections to the above welcome.

  9. Luther Blissett

    My love is like a red red rose

    How can this be?

    [It's logic, Jim, but not as we know it]

  10. WalterAlter
    Boffin

    This all hinges metaphorically on the assumption that our current "big bang", "black hole", "dark matter" paradigm is based on something other than wasted taxpayer research funding for mathematical models designed at GIGO University that have as much to do with physical reality as Finnegan's Wake has to do with subject, object, predicate. I rest my case.

  11. All names Taken
    Paris Hilton

    Not a new concept

    If I recall correctly a Cambridge don published a book outlining the growing (as in living and growing) universe.

    I think the main themes were along lines of: any definition of life is satisfied by the universe as we know it.

    Shockingly colly-wobbly inducing in the 1990's

    Shame I cannot remember the prof's name

  12. Euripides Pants
    Terminator

    December 21, 2012...

    ...is the day Twitter becomes self aware.

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