What Is So Special About The Human Brain? by Suzana Herculano Houzel
Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 5 months ago to Science
The human brain is puzzling -- it is curiously large given the size of our bodies, uses a tremendous amount of energy for its weight and has a bizarrely dense cerebral cortex. But: why? Neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel puts on her detective's cap and leads us through this mystery. By making "brain soup," she arrives at a startling conclusion.
I suspect that in future years engineers will be able to create an artificial brain as they uncover the operational secrets of the human brain. Then the task will be to match the brain power we have in the size of our biological brains. It’s a shame I think that we die eventually and lose the history contained in our brains. Maybe we should spend more time on anti-aging than duplicating whats already operational
That's not exactly my premise. My premise is that someone transplanted a brain--and eyes, ears (inner ears at least), the olfactory nerve and its chemoceptor array, and the brain stem (or maybe the whole central nervous system) into a robot body. Then someone else transplanted a central nervous system into an enclosure that would serve solely as an interface to a mainframe. The first "patient" was someone who had been in a ground-transport accident (or was it an accident?); the second had died in the line of duty on a deep-space mission. The first person--after his transplant--knew the second when she was an ordinary "organic" woman. Finding her personality embedded in the central mainframe and having the task of running him to earth would be a shock to both.
I liked the movie. I think called ex machina as I remember.
I suggest that it is not necessarily the number of neurons or the weight of their communal mass, but what is fed into them from experience and acquired rules of existence. The neurons are just the hardware. Let's put on the detective's cap and explore the mystery of the software.
But I am working on a science-fiction story about a "man" who actually is a human brain/eyes/ears/nasal tract/spinal cord transplanted into a mechanical body, discovering that an "organic" woman with whom he had a one-night stand now exists as a disembodied brain within a mainframe, whose builders intended that she run the computer system for an Orwellian surveillance state! When she "runs him to ground," he reaches out to her through his electronic interfaces--and convinces her that she's been had, in a viciously ugly form. Then let the surveillance state watch out!
Another recently discovered error in the thinking about the brain is the idea that all brains are mapped the same way. Corvids (crow and raven family) carry out reasoning processes in a much more efficient manner than humans, given the size of their brains and number of neurons, so that presents another conundrum to be resolved.
Recently, some neurologists have determined that there may be extra-material elements to human consciousness, in the form of a low energy electromagnetic field that allows communication among brain components more rapidly than theoretically possible given the limitations of a 250 mph chemical reaction-driven neurological network. Some have misinterpreted this to mean they may have discovered a human "aura" or even the soul, but the energy level of this field makes it very difficult to detect outside of the human skull. It may even briefly survive the brain death point, but is highly unlikely to represent a non-corporeal element that can survive beyond the end of a physical body's existence.
But a truly self-aware machine would be no robot. It would go beyond programming and would not be content.
Using your "Picture Mind" is a good thing.
Think of it this way- a biological brain as in a human is a "physical object", so it is possible to duplicate it. If it was made once, it can be made again is how I would put it. It is not some ethereal spiritual or mystical thing. It seems to be self contained so it doesnt derive its power from some mystical source deep in the galaxy.
Assuming that one could duplicate the connections and "operating system" (read that as "instincts"), the real key to its operation would be in the learning that it absorbed from the sensors that were available to it.
Obviously, that means that one could put in erroneous data and warp it and turn it into a hitler brain. Connect it to some way of actually performing some actions, and LOOK OUT.
Personally I dont have a problem with "racism" so long as it accurately reflects the differences in the the entity being identified. Its way too overused today. A white dude eating vanilla ice cream could be called a racist.
A humanoid with a perfectly crafted super brain that was "spock-like" might actually BE a super race. Fortunately, we are a LONG way from developing such a brain. There are bigger fish to fry at present.
I would say that it possible for humans to develop robots to the point where they are actually better at dealing with things than WE are and leaving humans in an interesting position. We would have to up our game to compete in the world I suppose, just as we need to now relative to the chinese (who are kicking our asses currently)
What would a machine have in common with a flesh-and-blood human being--i.e., an organic?
If--a mighty big "if"--we figured out how a human brain works and duplicated it, it would then have knowledge poured into it as an operating system, a database, and various programs to access that database. Trial-and-error learning would be a supplement at best. It would "grow up" knowing it was different.
I don't know which would be worse--a machine brain in and as a mainframe, or a machine brain in a humanoid body. The latter would be different, and to be different is to be damned. The former would have no sense of identification whatsoever with other rational beings. It would not even have any inherent reason to accept human beings as rational.
The disembodied brain might, like SkyNet, make war against all of humanity. Or it might, like Colossus, decide it cannot let us run around loose, and would thus establish a dictatorship of the machine brain.
And the brain in the humanoid body might, Cylon-like, consider itself a slave, and revolt. And a slave race in revolt would settle for nothing less than the total extinction of the master race. As we see today with the movement now calling itself "Black Lives Matter."
We have enough trouble with human beings playing the group-identity game. We ought not build for ourselves a mountain of trouble we never can climb, by creating a machine brain, or a company of machine brains, who, conscious of their differences with us, would be inclined more toward war than peace.
All the above assumes a machine brain is even possible. I maintain it is _im_possible. And rejoice therefore.
I live in las vegas, and the drivers here are crazy- instant changes in lanes, last minute decisions to go right instead of left, and other stupid things that a rational person would not do. No wonder Nevada went for Hillary...
Studies of the brain show us chemicals associated with sound and light, so it's not to far fetched to derive the source of voices and pictures being created in the brain. In animals, sounds of other animals and pictures of strong events are used to learn, adapt and survive.
I read somewhere that the inventor of the microphone used this chemical or mineral to transmit and amplify sound. The process in the brain is most probably electrochemical...did a quick search and could not find the source of that article...it was a very long time ago.
Actually I left out one other television show that would be relevant to this debate: Battlestar Galactica. Your rational machine would be a Cylon. And if you recall, the Cylons began a war of extermination against the "organics" that made them.
Self driving car that decides I am less important than the people in the car that is about to crash into me, no, never. Not going to trust my life to a programmer with a bias against the individual in that situation. That is exactly what the insurance companies (and federal government looking to reduce their retirement cost) will get the car makers to do. Your identity will be known, your medical condition, the fact that you are receiving social security and the younger person in the other vehicle is paying taxes for another 20 years. Doesn't matter that you paid taxes for 50 years and paid to put that other driver through college with your tax payments.
It’s exciting to think how our lives could be improved by carefully substituting AI for human intelligence in a lot of areas. People do a lot of stupid things because they don’t think. At least the robot kiosk would listen to me the first time when I tell it what i want at Burger King. A self driving car won’t drink and drive, or get distracted by screaming children or a cell phone call. Food for thought. I go for the fast food kiosks NOW- a no brained.
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