

Virtual Neurons Acting Like the Real Thing - The Blue Brain Project - kkleiner
http://singularityhub.com/2009/04/30/virtual-neurons-acting-like-the-real-thing-the-blue-brain-project/

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jng
As far as I remember, they were recreating the network based on pure
statistical properties. It's completely possible, if not likely, that the
network they are simulating lacks the actual properties that give our brain
its capabilities.

I see a cargo cult and a lot of hype.

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biohacker42
It doesn't matter exactly how the are simulating it. They can test it and the
real thing and if exhaustive testing shows that they behave identically, then
they are functionally identical.

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clevercode
I agree with you in principle, however, their simulations are approximations,
not identical.

From their website FAQ:

 _Q: Do you believe a computer can ever be an exact simulation of the human
brain?_

 _A: This is neither likely nor necessary. It will be very difficult because,
in the brain, every molecule is a powerful computer and we would need to
simulate the structure and function of trillions upon trillions of molecules
as well as all the rules that govern how they interact. You would literally
need computers that are trillions of times bigger and faster than anything
existing today._

Because this will only be an approximation, it means that certain hard-to-
define grammatical properties of spike-trains (e.g. "neural codes" as opposed
to "rate codes") may be completely lacking in the simulation. Do these "neural
codes" exist? At this point we do not know.

If it turns out that the brain does utilize complex neural codes, and that
they are not being accounted for in the simulation, then the simulation can be
no more than gibberish which happens to share many low-order statistical
features with the real thing.

To illustrate this point, here are some examples of pseudo-English sentences
automatically generated by a purely statistical model (n-gram model where
n=2):

 _Richard Beesemyers, formerly raised sagging candidate to the Friday
officially forecast at the project._

 _A hearing appeals._

 _That bank handles most notable exceptions to buy time for reconsideration
Wednesday in decades, is the B & Coopers, to discuss international theme for
the violin away as the wages of the power plant near classic chemise._

 _It could have been observing the 65 to back Tuesday._

 _And fourth, there is a full report, Wagner said._

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clwyatt
What I have always wondered about this project is how they expect to deal with
the huge number of parameters associated with the model. Each neuron has
several parameters that control its response, and the neurons can be connected
in a huge number of ways, even if restricted to small-world networks.

This is related to the bias-variance dilemma in machine learning; the larger
the number of parameters the larger the variance in the models that fit the
behavior. A nice recent article on the limitations of reverse engineering and
the brain is
[http://frontiersin.org/computationalneuroscience/paper/10.33...](http://frontiersin.org/computationalneuroscience/paper/10.3389/neuro.10/005.2009/)

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messel
Without question, that's incredible. Little steps forward and we may just have
complete technological simulacrums of life, would these not also be considered
life as well?

~~~
Femur
>would these not also be considered life as well?

Is a simulation of life considered life? Good question.

~~~
biohacker42
There's not fast and hard definition of life, like there is with many
mathematical concepts.

The line between crystals and viruses and bacteria and higher order life is
very blurry.

Because it's so blurry it will be hard to draw a sharp crisp line between old
life and any new man created life.

~~~
Femur
This is a great explanation. Perhaps new 'forms' of life or life-like
processes such as this might end up helping to narrow down what life is truly
defined as.

Isn't it generally true that the more variety there is of something, the
easier classification becomes?

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biohacker42
I think so. The blurry definitions of life tend to involve self organization,
propagation, increase of complexity/local reduction of entropy, the problem is
a lot of crystals meet that definition. Remove the constraint of mass and a
lot of memes meet the definition of life, religion is a virus and all that.

Perhaps digital life will help us come up with better definitions and greater
understanding.

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biohacker42
I think a digital reproduction of biological functionality is more likely and
will probably arrive sooner then the long term extension of biological life.

Which presents the interesting possibility that some day you may have the
chance to download your brain into a virtual one. But your biological self,
flesh and bones and brains and identity and all, don't go anywhere, so in a
way you're still going to die... but also live on.

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jimbokun
"you're still going to die... but also live on."

No, you are still going to die, full stop. Some other thing, that shares
certain characteristics with you, will live on.

This is no different than saying that you "live on" through your kids, or
through your art or writing. This "thing" might share more in common with you
than your kids or artifacts that you leave behind, but you are still dead.

~~~
biohacker42
Think about it this way. The potassium from the potato chips you had last week
is now the memory of your 10th birthday party in your brain.

Quite literally none of the matter that was you 10 years ago is still part of
you. Even the human skeleton is replaced on average every 9 years, faster in
children slower in older people.

Are you still you? If so what makes you you? Is it the sum total of mass +
thoughts? What if you change your mind, are you different person? What if you
piss out the water was you yesterday? In 10 years?

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jimbokun
Your doppelganger walks in the door just now. By asking probing questions, you
establish he has a perfect copy of your memories and experiences, in every
detail. He laughs at the same jokes, and cries at the same point of sappy
movies you do (even though you never told anyone this). You can not discern
any difference. Furthermore, he (apologies if you are female, just global
replace the pronoun) has been engineered in a way that he will not age, or
forget, or degrade in any way over time the way you will. Given the
awkwardness of there being two people with one identity, he carefully explains
that it only makes sense that he goes on as the "real you." To facilitate the
process, he hands you a loaded gun, and tells you that you know what needs to
be done and leaves the room.

Do you put the gun up to your head and pull the trigger? If not, why not?
Surely, the fact of your memories going on is enough to assure you that you
are not really "dying," just making it easier to resolve this complex
situation?

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anigbrowl
Well, insofar as the doppelganger and I have sepata experiences, our
personalities have already begun to diverge. Now, if the doppelganger whipped
out a pair of EEG helmets and demonstrated that we could sync our experiences
- eg, I take a sleeping pill and let my doppelganger go out on the town for a
night, but I can easily 'catch up' the following morning - then i'd think
about it.

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Allocator2008
It should be easy to fund this.

Have a "sponsor a synapse" program.

At $1 / synapse / year you can be listed as the benefactor of a synapse!!
Cool!! Since there are approx 10^14 synapses (or something like that), that
should be plenty of money.

Hell it could be $1 / synapse / century.

So if My_Estate sponsors synapse _S, then I pay $1 for the maintenance and
upkeep of synapse _S for a 100 years. That is 1 cent per year.With 100
trillion synapses, that is 100 trillion per century, or 1 trillion per year.
Which comes to an average of $200 per person on the planet (with 5 billion
people on the planet). So some people and governments would sponsor more
synapses than other people and governments obviously.

But if we all came together like this, we could very well fund this, at 1
trillion per year (100 trillion per century) paying 1 cent per year per
synapse (1 dollar per century per synapse). Small price to pay to create a new
form of consciousness, and perhaps a new era of prosperity for humankind in my
opinion.

