Based on evidence of the effects of dissociative drugs, psychedelic drugs, and general anaesthetics, it seems likely that our 'singular, waking awareness' is primarily an effect of the information transfer between various brain regions through the posterior cingulate cortex.

Of course, knowing that doesn't make it any less of a head-fuck to contemplate how strange it is to be anything at all.

While you're not wrong, I do think that from the perspective of the article, it's also not really so relevant.

Basically from my understanding, he's saying here that if we handle the sub-systems in a more traditional manner - as in, existing edge detection and motion detection algorithms in standard computing systems - that with ~50 parallel threads, we could have something brain-like.

It's also worth considering though that this is far less cool than it sounds at first blush simply by fact that the sub-systems would not be brain-like in the slightest.

While it may seem analogue, I'd definitely call the brain digital from a functional perspective.

The amount of neurotransmitters, strength of electrical activity, and so on are definitely analogue inputs; but due to the way that action potentials fire in cells, you're either "firing them" or "not firing them" (analogy: magnetic data on a disc is also analogue, but we only really care about the on/off state of it). Most information appears to be transferred based on the rate of firing them, and is not encoded in any special aspect of the spikes themselves. Furthermore, you might then assume that the rate timing of the spikes may be considered analogue data - again though, it's not really. There is a refractory period that limits the maximal firing rate of a single neuron, and downstream effects of this basically mean that the firing rates themselves could also in theory be quantised in a digital manner (although it'd be a massively complex problem to actually figure that all out).

While the whole system is quite fundamentally different from our current digital computers, it is nevertheless something that could also be a digital system.

Statistics, probably not. But to confirm they're not just all made up, I checked a few of the ones that were obviously a password for another site (one of the '+' addresses) and after 4 tries, found one that worked (on the 'other site', not on gmail). So they're definitely not just 'made up' passwords; they just aren't necessarily a password that was ever actually used for the email address they're associated to.

The list with passwords was easily available for a while (and still is if you hunt around a bit - I found it without too much trouble).

I'm pretty sure that's right. Actually, I'd say I'm around 5 nines certain.

According to the list, the password is a 7 character string, lowercase, moderately common first name starting with c.

I was with you until:

I don't think that's something that's particularly easy to measure. I agree that pretty much every country has a large number of stupid people and a large number of intelligent folk. To suggest however that the ratio of intelligent to stupid is better is in the US than everywhere else however is pushing it a bit.

Then clearly the world would be a better place.

Not the person you're replying to, but I felt I should step in here...

My wife always paid her fair share when we dated. I honestly felt a little uncomfortable about it at first, but she insisted.

She loves it when I buy her flowers and jewellery, but she'll buy me stuff I like too; so that seems even to me.

I'll hold doors open for her, and she is happy that I do. But she'll hold doors open for me too, and I'm happy that she does.

She most certainly would expect me to defend her in a fight; but equally, I'd expect her to defend me in one. (neither of us is particularly physically inclined, but we're also not really the types to get in to fights; so thus far it hasn't been a situation that has arisen)

Basically my point is that just because a woman expects some things from the guy, it doesn't mean she's asking for unequal treatment... she may be willing to do all those same things too.

Hey that is not fair, for years Kissenger systematically carpet bombed civilians in countries that were not a threat to the US at all (Laos, Cambodia)... and then he stopped.

That means he single handedly stopped a horrific, unjust and criminal war. If that doesn't deserve a peace prize, it certainly deserves some kind of prize.

That argument could be used to discourage all fiction, from books to films, and also vast swathes of philosphy including all of metaphysics and a good part of all the other disciplines. You have no imagination. Not only is it a lot of fun to think about interesting questions and go over potential answers in one's mind, it has also been long established that this is a healthy and useful activity that leads to a better understanding of the world.

How can you even live without occasionally considering some questions where a definite answer is impossible to establish? This in itself is an unanswerable question and one I find myself considering very often while reading comments like yours.

I believe it's cultural/dialectal. In Australian and New Zealand English (at least), men can also be cunts - in fact, in southern New Zealand 15 to 20 years ago (I can't speak for today), it would have sounded very strange to call a woman "cunt" whereas greeting your male friend with, "hey you old cunt, what's up?" wouldn't be unexpected in some social circles.
I'm well aware this doesn't really make much sense, but language often doesn't.

The same almost certainly applies for "douche", "asshole", "whore" and so on. Sometimes male, sometimes female, sometime both.

I was basing that statement on the commonly held definitions as summed up in this wikipedia article. To better understand why you are confused about this from living in the US, the section 'Contemporary usage in the United States' describes the usage you are used to in context.

It is also recommended that you read the rest of the article, which describes what the terms actually mean to the majority of the world. These are subjective terms however so you are not categorically wrong, just informationally challenged.