system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How can our brains be so energy efficient when compared to computers, and why do they not overheat?
gpt
The premise of this question is flawed. Your brain is not more efficient than a computer in general, but it is also wrong to say a computer is more efficient. As of now, there are calculations that a computer performs better than the brain and calculations that the brain performs better than a computer.

The average human brain uses about 20 Watts. The average laptop uses about 20 watts for the CPU only. But a cellphone uses less than 10 Watts and a solar calculator uses less than 1.

As you can see, a solar calculator can perform millions of algebraic calculations per second on less than a watt, which is orders of magnitude more efficient than the human brain. However, the human brain understands the English language (for example) while computers do not, so the human brain is infinitely more efficient at literary criticism.

As for heat, most of the heat from computers is actually due to the power converters and batteries. For a standard desktop, a simple fan is sufficient to regulate temperature. By comparison, your brain is suspended in a complex fluid that also regulates temperature, among many other things. If you have experience with high performance gaming computers, you are probably aware that suspending the computer in a fluid helps significantly with temperature issues.

In summary, the question of efficiency is not well defined, as the human brain and the computer excel at different things. In terms of temperature regulation, the human brain is always submerged in a fluid that regulates heat very well.