Posted on 10/13/2012 1:19:43 PM PDT by Dallas59
(CNN) -- There's no escaping the fact that the Human Brain Project, with its billion-dollar plan to recreate the human mind inside a supercomputer, sounds like a science fiction nightmare.
But those involved hope their ambitious goal of simulating the tangle of neurons and synapses that power our thought processes could offer solutions to tackling conditions such as depression, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's.
The Human Brain venture is the next step in a long-running program that has already succeeded in using computers to create a virtual replica of part of a rat's neocortex -- a section of the brain believed to control higher functions such as conscious thought, movement and reasoning.
Scientists at its forerunner, the Switzerland-based Blue Brain Project, have been working since 2005 to feed a computer with vast quantities of data and algorithms produced from studying tiny slivers of rodent gray matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
There's no doubt in my mind that in the future man will be able to create machines that can mimick human behavior --to what degree is an open question.
But ones and zeros can never be more than ones and zeros, without an actual intelligence to interpret them.
“Hey, let me out of this !:$+@ machine!”
2009
“a cell-by-cell simulation of the human visual cortex: 1.6 billion virtual neurons connected by 9 trillion synapses. This computer simulation, as large as a cat’s brain”
“1.6 billion neurons at only one-six-hundredth the speed of a living brain. A second simulation, with 1 billion neurons, ran a little faster—but still only at one-eighty-third of normal brain speed.”
The computer took 1 million watts of power - the human brain uses 20.
“simulating the entire human cortex, about 25 billion neurons, at full speed. To do that, he’ll need to find 1000 times more computing power. “
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/extreme-machines/4337190
The liberal human brain simulator has been done for a while now, it’s called the magic 8 ball.
They might well succeed simulating a conservative brain because it operates on logic. There are not enough logic gates in the universe to simulate a Commie Democrat brain. Democrat Commie brains can’t even understand reality; how in the world would you simulate that?
The operative word here is simulate in the sense of "approximate". Actual quantum mechanics is fraught with infinities which are gotten around via mathematical slight-of-hand designed to provide workable approximations to the hypothesized actual phenomena.
And even with these simplifications actual simulation of even the simplest quantum mechanical systems takes gargantuan amounts of computer resources. We are far, far away from being able to simulate anything as large as a single neuron at a quantum level, much less an actual brain.
But beyond that the science is backwards because it presumes that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter when quantum mechanics itself has told us repeatedly over the past century that matter is an emergent phenomenon of consciousness.
It's been well noted that AI has been the "next big thing" for 60 years and counting. These sort of projects make for great press, but don't hold your breath.
The brain most likely is a quantum computer. Cant be simulated with current tech. Not even close. JMHO of course...
Yeah. How about Robo-cop? A least that would be more useful than just playing chess.
Until they can flood it with human hormones, they’ll never make human brain.
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