Reverse-Engineered Human-Brain Simulation

[INRM]

Since this is done by computers, I figured it should be put here although I would not object if moderators moved it to Science,Math,Medicine, and Technology.

I've been reading about an idea about a Swiss concept which has already used super-computers to completely and in every detail simulate a rat's brain. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/20/research.it

There's a real moral issue here as they are planning to reverse engineer a human-brain in every detail. If you produce an exact reverse engineered computer simulated human-brain, you produce a sentient being.

Sentient beings (*Especially* Humans -- it's a human brain simulation, no?), should have certain rights whether meat 'n blood or electronic simulations of them. I think there's a serious problem if you essentially produced something that was as intelligent and sentient as a human, gave it life essentially (by activating it), and then when you were done simply turned it off (killing it effectively)

Plus what if this technology (being able to perfectly map a human brain) could be used by governments to help refine various measures of being able to artificially manipulate the human brain (I'm reluctant to the word "mind-control", but essentially it could ammount to such)


INRM
BTW: How exactly detailed is this simulation -- down to every last molecule?

[Lensman]

Plus what if this technology (being able to perfectly map a human brain) could be used by governments to help refine various measures of being able to artificially manipulate the human brain (I'm reluctant to the word "mind-control", but essentially it could ammount to such)

Just how could it do that?

[Gurdur]

.... If you produce an exact reverse engineered computer simulated human-brain, you produce a sentient being. ...


If. If. But that's at least a hundred years off, and possibly forever; to be able to simulate a human brain properly, you have to understand it pretty darned well. To understand it well, you need to inject markers into growing neurons and then dissect. You're allowed to do that with rats, but not with humans, so good simulation of a human brain is at least 100 years off, conservatively speaking.

Marvin Minsky promised us genuine Artficial Intelligence within 15 years. He promised that more than 30 years ago. Still nowhere in sight.

Plus what if this technology (being able to perfectly map a human brain) could be used by governments to help refine various measures of being able to artificially manipulate the human brain (I'm reluctant to the word "mind-control", but essentially it could ammount to such)


Agreed, but it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future, so we're safe for the time being, thankfully.

[INRM]

Gurdur,

In the past technology was not advancing at the rate of speed it is now. Technology is now advancing at an unprecedented rate.

[Gurdur]

Gurdur,

In the past technology was not advancing at the rate of speed it is now. Technology is now advancing at an unprecedented rate.


It's still not advancing fast enough to genuinely simulate well a human brain.

[Wowbagger]

A lot of evo-devo (evolutionary development) and embryological studies are indicating that it is not enough to know how a brain seems to work, in its present state, but how it evolved and how it develops over time, in order to understand how it truly works. There is no "one way" to simulate. The brain is an ever-changing organ, (though sometimes it seems to change relatively slowly).

Only once we can accurately simulate the evolutionary development of the brain, can we simulate how it truly works. And, that is many, many years off.

It is not a simple matter of technological innovation, it is a matter of continuous biological study.

[Earthborn]

If it's such an accurate simulation of a rat brain, let's make it control a robot and see if it can solve real world problems as well as a rat can. I'm very skeptical that it will; compared to the present level of Artificial Intelligence, rats are amazingly incredibly smart. Most of the dreams we have about what we might do with genuine artificial intelligence could be solved with less than a rat brain.

[Roboramma]

S
I've been reading about an idea about a Swiss concept which has already used super-computers to completely and in every detail simulate a rat's brain. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/20/research.it
[/i]
Not quite:
Two years on, he has already developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column - the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains - of a two-week-old rat, and it behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. It's something quite beautiful when you watch it pulse on the giant 3D screens the researchers have constructed.

Very cool, but that's not quite "completely and in every detail".

Still, it sounds like they should be able to do a lot of good science with this.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

There's a real moral issue here as they are planning to reverse engineer a human-brain in every detail. If you produce an exact reverse engineered computer simulated human-brain, you produce a sentient being.
Assuming that the brain is self-contained and does not rely on external mechanisms for its operation.

~~ Paul

[INRM]

Uh yeah the Brain relies on other things for it's function, your heart, lungs etc... I don't think that will be a problem for the stimulation.

They will of course be able to monitor it to tell how it would behave during a certain disease or something.


INRM