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Saying that we will never be able to simulate a piece of hardware/wetware is a pretty strong statement. (Unless you think there is some kind of magic inside it.)

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the obstacle is that systems composed of many simple elements quickly become so complicated that we can't simulate them anymore, even if we would completely understand the individual elements.

But we have working examples of that machine.

The problem is in completely understanding it. If we completely understand it, then it shouldn't be hard to simulate.

i'd argue against that. Somewhere else in this thread someone brought up weather predictions; even though we completely understand the physics of weather, we can't simulate worldwide climate precisely for various reasons (not enough information, not enough computational resources, chaotic behavior). I think it's the same thing with our brain.

I may be wrong, but weather cannot be simulated because real version is running over the complete globe. Brain, while hard to simulate with present technology, still is a 3 pound thing. Computational resources obstacle will be overcome.

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