Check it out: IBM is starting a project to simulate a column of the neocortex, and, ultimately, extend this to create a working digital model of the ENTIRE human brain. A simulation running at the molecular/cellular level, the neurons, the chemical reactions, everything.
Questions to ponder:
1) They're going to be running this model to learn about not just the brain per se, but also thought and consiousness itself. If these are fundamentally informational events, then at what point does a simulation of a thing become a thing? Could the simulation itself become 'conscious' in some sense? Could we unwittingly give birth to a disembodied human mind trapped in a digital world?
2) If a thing can be simulated, then it can, in principle, be built. Given that the task of physical completion is not as simple as asking a supercomputer to run a simulation, once it is correctly modeled how long would it be before we likely literally build a mechanical brain?
3) What if it decides to get smarter and starts writing all sorts of expansion packs for itself, adding hardware upgrades and evolving into some sort of hyper-intelligent being? Will we be out-evolved, out-moded? Or would it revere humanity as its 'creator'?
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/news.20050606_CognitiveIntelligence.html
Questions to ponder:
1) They're going to be running this model to learn about not just the brain per se, but also thought and consiousness itself. If these are fundamentally informational events, then at what point does a simulation of a thing become a thing? Could the simulation itself become 'conscious' in some sense? Could we unwittingly give birth to a disembodied human mind trapped in a digital world?
2) If a thing can be simulated, then it can, in principle, be built. Given that the task of physical completion is not as simple as asking a supercomputer to run a simulation, once it is correctly modeled how long would it be before we likely literally build a mechanical brain?
3) What if it decides to get smarter and starts writing all sorts of expansion packs for itself, adding hardware upgrades and evolving into some sort of hyper-intelligent being? Will we be out-evolved, out-moded? Or would it revere humanity as its 'creator'?
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/news.20050606_CognitiveIntelligence.html
