Professor Brian Cox

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436 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 3 Aug

Professor Brian Cox’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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SmartLess · "Professor Brian Cox" · 3 Aug 2026 podcast

It is operating.

So the question really is, are we that, I guess, basically, are we one of those?

Have you heard of Alan Turing?

So Alan Turing had an idea called a Turing machine, a universal Turing machine.

And that was basically the idea that all computers –

that have some kind of basic sort of functionality are equivalent to each other.

so that they can all do the same thing.

So even this thing that he imagined with a little paper tape going through, sort of this 1930s kind of picture of what a computer might be, could, if given enough time, do everything that the computer on our desktops can do now, or everything that all the computers that are running all the AIs and chat GPT and everything in the world, they're all equivalent to each other.

And so the question just becomes, is our brain a universal Turing machine?

and many people think it is and a few people think it isn't i would say most people think it is so all you're saying really is that a sufficiently powerful computer um could do precisely what you were doing now in fact that's the idea but we are informed by and jb this kind of goes through it too part of what you at you know inspired you to ask a question for instance and as that as the example

Yes, but if you think about your brain, what is it?

then it's just a collection of atoms which is a remarkable thing to say actually going back to what we were talking about earlier the origin of the universe 13 billion years ago there's just hydrogen and helium and the generations of stars and they build carbon and oxygen and those atoms have come together in a pattern temporary pattern which is you and me so so but if

your brain is just that.

And I would say it is, right?

So it's just a collection of atoms, a very complex collection.

Then the idea is that I can't conceive of anything it could be other than a computer.

It's got a lot of data in it.

You're talking about your memories.

And it's processing them.

So I don't see... If anyone wants to say, well, there's a real fundamental difference, you have to say what it is.

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