Mr.Samsa wrote:

For a computer to match the processes of a brain (even a simple one like an insect or mouse brain), it requires radically new technology and architecture. Computers currently operate using hardware and software, whereas brains use "wetware" - the finding that the software constantly changes the hardware as it runs, as well as the hardware changing the software.

The brain has 'software'? What sentient entity is responsible?

jamest wrote:

LucidFlight wrote:Limited and naïve computer-brain analogies are just that. I was actually thinking much further ahead. As I said... one day.

Hold on! You're claiming that my conclusions are drawn from analogy, when in actual fact they are drawn from the truth. Computers don't have an imagination and their output cannot exceed their input. Our imaginations have transcended the world to the realms of God and Harry Potter. If a computer's input is about 'the world', then so too will be its output.

Except that our imaginations are a result of our "input" too. Concepts like 'god' just require an understanding of an aspect of the world (e.g. a builder is the creator of a house), an abstract rule (e.g. a creation needs a creator), and an application of the rule to where it is inapplicable (e.g. the universe was created). This gives us a basic concept of 'god' (a creator of the universe), without any need to transcend our inputs or world.

So I agree that computers currently can't display such feats of imagination, and the future 'computers' that could do so would be more brain than computer, but I disagree that being 'limited' to input from the world would prevent the generation of concepts like god or Harry Potter. We know how these concepts are formed (i.e. the process of concept formation comes about through stimulus equivalence), and so a sufficiently advanced computer that could process, store and access such information should, at least theoretically, be able to form such concepts.

jamest wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:

For a computer to match the processes of a brain (even a simple one like an insect or mouse brain), it requires radically new technology and architecture. Computers currently operate using hardware and software, whereas brains use "wetware" - the finding that the software constantly changes the hardware as it runs, as well as the hardware changing the software.

The brain has 'software'? What sentient entity is responsible?

Well technically my point above is that the brain doesn't have software

But what is usually referred to as 'software' in the brain is the information transferred across the physical structures.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

jamest wrote:

LucidFlight wrote:Limited and naïve computer-brain analogies are just that. I was actually thinking much further ahead. As I said... one day.

Hold on! You're claiming that my conclusions are drawn from analogy, when in actual fact they are drawn from the truth. Computers don't have an imagination and their output cannot exceed their input. Our imaginations have transcended the world to the realms of God and Harry Potter. If a computer's input is about 'the world', then so too will be its output.

Except that our imaginations are a result of our "input" too. Concepts like 'god' just require an understanding of an aspect of the world (e.g. a builder is the creator of a house),

That's reasoning (calculation), not imagination. Are you saying that 'God' is an inevitable conclusion to a misinformed or constrained rational/calculative enquiry? What about the 'concepts' of pixies and elves? Are they too inevitable conclusions to a misinformed/constrained rational/calculative enquiry?

jamest wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Except that our imaginations are a result of our "input" too. Concepts like 'god' just require an understanding of an aspect of the world (e.g. a builder is the creator of a house),

That's reasoning (calculation), not imagination.

I suppose it can be considered a form of reasoning, but it obviously doesn't need to be conscious. Imagination is just the creation of new ideas, which can come about through explicit forms of reasoning.

jamest wrote:Are you saying that 'God' is an inevitable conclusion to a misinformed or constrained rational/calculative enquiry? What about the 'concepts' of pixies and elves? Are they too inevitable conclusions to a misinformed/constrained rational/calculative enquiry?

I don't think the concepts of god (or pixies and elves) are "inevitable", no. But they're possible, given fairly simple observations and abstract relationships.

They are on the cusp of getting the equipment needed to image at as fine a detail as needed to completely map the brain, they have right now simulated chunks of the brain at enough detail to mimic everything that piece of brain is doing. You guys are seriously lacking in vision here, it is a matter of time, and not much time. All this IT is advancing at an exponential rate, much of it doubling in just 1 to 2 years, I don't think you appreciate what that means. Every doubling means that in the last period, you have done more than all previous combined. And of course the brain does computations, you have nerve impulses in and a decision to fire or not. That is a computation. That is what the nerve cells in brains do, it's figuring out all the connections and the weighting, and the molecular/chemical interactions going on, but it is cataloging, it ain't that difficult, we just haven't had the tools available that can adequately do the job. They had telescopes for what, 3 centuries without going very far, it wasn't until Hubble got his 100 incher that the galaxies could be made out, that was a turning point, stuff really started getting figured out quickly after that. We're about to resolve the brain adequately, hold on, it's gonna get real interesting real soon.

Oh yeah, anyone that thinks computers can't have an imagination are dualists, you think there's a force out there too? Plus, what is going to happen is a major melding of wet-ware and hard-ware at first, then we'll completely redesign the wet-ware to whatever we want it to be, and then ditch it all. What becomes of us, how we handle the ability to do these things, that ain't an answerable question, it's not going to be pretty in a lot of ways, but then neither is the utter doing away with most manual labor, that's just around the corner too, what happens to most people then? Talk about a welfare state, but the robots will make everything for cheap, real cheap, including themselves. I think you need to open your eyes, really try to imagine where this is going, it's already happening, don't you see? And it's accelerating, you really need to open your eyes.

crank wrote:They are on the cusp of getting the equipment needed to image at as fine a detail as needed to completely map the brain, they have right now simulated chunks of the brain at enough detail to mimic everything that piece of brain is doing. You guys are seriously lacking in vision here, it is a matter of time, and not much time.

You're seriously exaggerating the work that has been done. The greatest achievement in this area is an incredibly slow and primitive processing of the simplest aspect of the equivalent of a mouse brain, that requires massive amounts of computational power.

crank wrote:All this IT is advancing at an exponential rate, much of it doubling in just 1 to 2 years, I don't think you appreciate what that means. Every doubling means that in the last period, you have done more than all previous combined.

No, I'm pretty sure we all appreciate what that means. But the point is that we're still a long way off even being able to accurately model even just part of an insect brain. If significant breakthroughs in computing is done, and breakthroughs in architecture occur, then in around 50 years or so we might be able to create a computer model of an insect brain.

crank wrote:And of course the brain does computations, you have nerve impulses in and a decision to fire or not. That is a computation.

Not quite, the processes within the brain are analogue, not digital like that. It's not a case of being "on" or "off". This is one of the major flaws with the computational theory of mind.

crank wrote:That is what the nerve cells in brains do, it's figuring out all the connections and the weighting, and the molecular/chemical interactions going on, but it is cataloging, it ain't that difficult, we just haven't had the tools available that can adequately do the job. They had telescopes for what, 3 centuries without going very far, it wasn't until Hubble got his 100 incher that the galaxies could be made out, that was a turning point, stuff really started getting figured out quickly after that. We're about to resolve the brain adequately, hold on, it's gonna get real interesting real soon.

Keep in mind that this claim has been made practically every year for the past few decades. According to the transhumanists, we were supposed to be minds within eternal robot bodies by now.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

crank wrote:They are on the cusp of getting the equipment needed to image at as fine a detail as needed to completely map the brain, they have right now simulated chunks of the brain at enough detail to mimic everything that piece of brain is doing. You guys are seriously lacking in vision here, it is a matter of time, and not much time.

You're seriously exaggerating the work that has been done. The greatest achievement in this area is an incredibly slow and primitive processing of the simplest aspect of the equivalent of a mouse brain, that requires massive amounts of computational power.

Of course it does, and that massive amount of computation will be available in your toaster in a few years, 20 years ago my phone would have made cray folk drool.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

crank wrote:All this IT is advancing at an exponential rate, much of it doubling in just 1 to 2 years, I don't think you appreciate what that means. Every doubling means that in the last period, you have done more than all previous combined.

No, I'm pretty sure we all appreciate what that means. But the point is that we're still a long way off even being able to accurately model even just part of an insect brain. If significant breakthroughs in computing is done, and breakthroughs in architecture occur, then in around 50 years or so we might be able to create a computer model of an insect brain.

No, this really proves you haven't a clue. We're easily 109 times as fast as 50 years ago, what do you think a billion times faster than today will get us? I think we're well past the insect brain level now, once we figure out what to do. And like I said, the tools to really get at this stuff are just starting to arrive. Remember how long the genome project was going to take? Then they got a bigger boat--they got equipment that didn't exist before, and we had the map. And the cost of mapping is coming down at an exponential rate, now maybe $200 isn't it? What do you think is going to happen when they can start watching the brain function in real time at the cellular level? This is close. Look at all the amazing discoveries that have come out just in the last few years with MRI, fMRI, PET, etc, getting as good as it has gotten? No, I'm afraid you don't have a clue what exponential growth means.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

crank wrote:And of course the brain does computations, you have nerve impulses in and a decision to fire or not. That is a computation.

Not quite, the processes within the brain are analogue, not digital like that. It's not a case of being "on" or "off". This is one of the major flaws with the computational theory of mind.

crank wrote:That is what the nerve cells in brains do, it's figuring out all the connections and the weighting, and the molecular/chemical interactions going on, but it is cataloging, it ain't that difficult, we just haven't had the tools available that can adequately do the job. They had telescopes for what, 3 centuries without going very far, it wasn't until Hubble got his 100 incher that the galaxies could be made out, that was a turning point, stuff really started getting figured out quickly after that. We're about to resolve the brain adequately, hold on, it's gonna get real interesting real soon.

Keep in mind that this claim has been made practically every year for the past few decades. According to the transhumanists, we were supposed to be minds within eternal robot bodies by now.

The brain is not analog, it's a mix, but guess what, we can do analog computing too, in fact the first computers were analog, I remember having to program one in lab my freshman year. There are guys doing this for brain simulation now. There are a lot of whackos out there predicted all kinds of stuff, but there is plenty of data to show that we've been on a steady exponential growth curve for a long time, and at least for a few decades, the path is already visible of ways for this to continue. Just recently Intel came out with their first 3-d chip commercial processors, that has a long way to go to max out. Universities only about 20 years ago drooled over the chance to buy a supercomputer that would worship your phone as a god. [/hyperbole]

Federico wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:

Federico wrote:Have you ever thought about the paradox that Brain and Brawn are the only body organs which can bring prices and honors to their posessor such as the Nobel Prizeto a person with an exceptional brain, or an Olympic medal to an exceptional athlete.

Only one of those is actually an organ.

And how can there be anything like a paradox when you are encompassing the entirety of human achievement. It is pretty much all either mental (brain) or physical (brawn).

Federico wrote:On the other hand, who ever heard of the liver, or the kidneys, or the testes, or the adrenal gland being responsible for the exceptional performances of an individual.

Those are a few of the organs that support and enhance "brawn". Without organs like the liver and the kidneys breaking down toxic metabolic byproducts, the muscles can no longer function. Hormones produced by organs like the testes directly affect muscle development. Adrenaline helps the muscles accomplish more.
So, you are already completely wrong.

I'm sorry, MrFungus, but I'll have to contradict you on several points.
First of all, Brawn or Body Musculature is an Organ since, according to Wictionary, "it is made of cells which all perform the same function."

I don't care what Wictionary says. I am talking about biological definitions of biological terms, not some online source that can be edited by just about anyone.

Each individual muscle is an organ.

Federico wrote:The paradox is in the fact two completely different body organs have so many things in common including -- as I will describe later on -- their source of energy and many diseases.

There is nothing contradictory about it, therefore it is not a paradox.

And the source of energy for everything in the body is metabolism. Every part of the body has the same source of energy. It is something that is "in common" between all parts of the body.

Many diseases have common sources no matter what part of the body they affect.

You are wrong about there being a paradox. You are wrong about "brawn" being an organ. You are wrong about any significance you may attribute to the commonality of the energy source for "brain and brawn", and you are similarly wrong about any significance to the commonality of the sources of diseases.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

LucidFlight wrote:Exactly, in your opinion.

To be fair, his opinion is also shared by cognitive scientists - at least in regards to how we currently think of computers. The issue is that the brain (and thus mind) is obviously not a computer. Thinking of the brain as performing "computations", or "storing" memories, is a huge misunderstanding of how the brain works, and this is why few cognitive scientists still hold to the idea of the computational theory of mind. Some people accept it as a metaphor, believing that it can be useful to simplify the processes of the brain to computer analogies, but most reject it as a metaphor as well, finding it to be (at best) misleading.

For a computer to match the processes of a brain (even a simple one like an insect or mouse brain), it requires radically new technology and architecture. Computers currently operate using hardware and software, whereas brains use "wetware" - the finding that the software constantly changes the hardware as it runs, as well as the hardware changing the software.

So by the time we have a computer which performs like a brain, it will be totally unlike the kinds of computers we currently have. It will be, most likely, biological (at least in part) and will almost literally be a 'brain', rather than a computer analogue of a brain.

Once again you and james only appear to be saying the same thing. Seems to be going around in the past few days. You haven't made any large deposits in your banks accounts recently have you?

My point is very simple and I'm not pretending to have invented the wheel.
The issue of this thread is whether there is a limit to the natural increase in human brain cognitive capacity, and, if the answer is yes, try and find out the cause.
Since the brain is an extremely complex and very difficult to study organ, I thought it might help -- given the many similarities with body musculature, or Brawn, functionality, including an apparent limit to record-establishing performances, a
Mitochodria-based source of energy as well as Mitochondria-linked degenerative disorders -- if a parallel would be established comparing the two organs.

As first example I may cite Aging and its resulting slowing of cognitive and physical activities.
What causes the ravages of natural aging, and what can be done to slow dawn aging. Through learning that it might become possible to treat Alzheimer, Parkinson, and other neuro-degenerative disorders.

In support of such strategy comes an article in the Montreal's Newspaper The Gazette which reports that an international team of researchers led by scientists from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University, and from Hopital Sainte-Justine, U. de Montréal have discovered the origins of a rare neurological disease known as ARSACS which first appears in children and exists almost excluively in Quebec.
Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay is so named because it was diagnosed among descendants of roughly 10,000 French settlers who emigrated to that region of New France. It was first recognized as a separate neurological disease in 1979. Victims show symptoms between the ages of 2 and 6 years old that include trouble walking and clumsiness. By their early 40s, sufferers must use wheelchairs and have trouble speaking. Most die in their 50s. The disease affects about 300 people in Quebec, and another 100 worldwide.
But more later.

Federico wrote:
"....Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay is so named because it was diagnosed among descendants of roughly 10,000 French settlers who emigrated to that region of New France. It was first recognized as a separate neurological disease in 1979. Victims show symptoms between the ages of 2 and 6 years old that include spasticity, ataxia, polyneuropathy, retinal changes and in some cases late cognitive decline. trouble walking and clumsiness. By their early 40s, sufferers must use wheelchairs and have trouble speaking. Most die in their 50s. The disease affects about 300 people in Quebec, and another 100 worldwide

"....ARSACS is caused by mutations in the SACS gene, with the first two mutations identified in Québec patients in 2000....."

"......An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University and from the Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine, Département de Pédiatrie, Université de Montréal, has dscovered that the disease is linked to a defect in the function of mitochondria, the energy-producing power plants of cells, which gives it a link to more common neurological diseases, and has published the results in PNAS...."

"...We think that by studying this disease we will not only bring treatment to those patients, but may also help to better understand how other neuro-degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s – and to a lesser degree, Alzheimer’s – function,” said Dr. Bernard Brais of the Neurological Institute....."




Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Mon ... z1krMis3aJ

The IBM 5 in 5: Our Forecast of Five Innovations That Will Alter the Tech Landscape Within Five Years




· People power will come to life
· You will never need a password again
· Mind reading is no longer science fiction
· The digital divide will cease to exist
· Junk mail will become priority mail

Their track record isn't too shabby.

The nature of humanity.What’s a man?
Studies of brain genetics are starting to reveal what makes humans human
Maybe we will never find out whether our brain has finished growing but, according to an article published in The Economist, scientists are finding when and how it began to differentiate from that of primates.
I cite some paragraphs of the article which is a commentary on the scientific work reported in the latest issue of Genome Research.

"...In collaboration with a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig and his colleague Philipp Khaitovich have compared genetic activity over the course of a lifetime in the brains of humans, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys. They have then matched what they found with what is known of Neanderthals, and think they have thus discovered at least part of the genetic difference between Homo sapiens and the others that creates human uniqueness...."

"....Dr Paabo and his colleagues focused their examination on two parts of the brain. One was the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of abstract reasoning and social behaviour—things that humans are particularly good at. The other was the lateral cerebellar cortex, which is more to do with manual abilities....."

"....Using RNA-coated chips, Dr Khaitovich and Dr Paabo were able to find out when, during the course of life, particular genes were active, by working out how much RNA from each gene cells from particular parts of the brains of individuals of different ages contained..."

".....To summarise, human beings have suites of genes that probably cause their brains to be “plastic” and thus receptive to change far longer (to the age of about five) than is true for chimps or monkeys (whose brains are plastic for less than a year after birth). Moreover, Dr Khaitovich was able to work out how the expression of these modules of genes was co-ordinated, by looking at the switches, known as transcription factors, that turn them on and off.

".....by comparing modern genomes with their discoveries about Neanderthals Dr Paabo’s group has found that the regulatory process for one of the modules came into existence after the modern human and Neanderthal lines separated from one another, about 300,000 years ago...."

Preview: Re: Has our brain reached full capacity?
It has already been mentioned in this thread it is quite plausible some day human brain cognitive capacity might be enhanced through genetic engineering.
Now we have in the newspapers announcements that:

"Scientists in Edinburgh, where Ian Wilmut created the world's first cloned mammal, working at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine, have created brain tissue from patients suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar depression and other mental illnesses...."

".... From a scrap of skin taken from a patient, they can make neurons genetically identical to those in that person's brain. These brain cells, grown in the laboratory, can then be studied to reveal the neurological secrets of their condition...."

"...Professor Charles ffrench-Constant, the centre's director, said<< We can take a skin sample, make stem cells from it and then direct these stem cells to grow into brain cells. Essentially, we are turning a person's skin cells into brain. We are making cells that were previously inaccessible. And we could do that in future for the liver, the heart and other organs on which it is very difficult to carry out biopsies>>""

"...The scientists are concentrating on a range of neurological conditions, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and motor neuron disease. In addition, work is being carried out on schizophrenia and bipolar depression, two debilitating ailments that are triggered by malfunctions in brain activity. This latter project is directed by Professor Andrew McIntosh of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, who is working in collaboration with the regenerative medicine centre..."

In addition to making easier to explore the causes and find new treatments for these diseases, cultured brain cells might be used to improve faltering brain cognitive capacity.

Federico wrote:Preview: Re: Has our brain reached full capacity?
It has already been mentioned in this thread it is quite plausible some day human brain cognitive capacity might be enhanced through genetic engineering.

I think the 'quite plausible' is hugely, grossly, mischaracterizing the likelihood, assuming no major hiccups/catastrophes, we will do so much more than 'enhance', it seems so painfully obvious, what is to stop us? Why would we not? The data flows in at an exponentially accelerating rate, we're still at a point where the data is too coarse, coarse grained. You've seen puzzles where you are trying to perceive a picture from a growing accumulation of info, for a long time there is just data, randomly scattered seemingly unconnected, with nothing to tie any of it together, but there comes a point where the density of the data points allows for connections to become resolved, suddenly the picture starts to come into view more and more rapidly and then it pops. We're getting to that point where the exponential curve begins turning to the vertical. More and more people are collecting exponentially increasing volumes of data with exponentially increasing detail, all of them with exponentially increasing inter-connectedness with exponentially increasingly powerful information processors with an exponentially decreasing cost. What will it mean when your phone can out-think you in many if not most ways? We have the best Jeopardy player is an AI, same for chess, that capability is just around the corner for your phone, real 'Android' phones.

A recent article which appeared in the New England J Medecine has greatly enhanced our hopes for finding ways to increment brain cognitive capacities either abnormally impaired, as in diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson's, or even of healthy brains.

The article, titled Memory Enhancement and Deep-Brain Stimulation of the Entorhinal Area, reports on the collaborative research work done by Dr. I. Fried at the Department of Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, and a large group of international collaborators.

He tested the hypothesis that deep-brain stimulation of the hippocampus or entorhinal cortex alters memory performance by
implanting intracranial depth electrodes in seven epileptic subjects who were scheduled for subsequent epilepsy surgery to identify seizure-onset zones.
The subjects then completed a spatial learning task during which they learned destinations within virtual environments.

The researchers found that entorhinal stimulation, applied while the subjects learned locations of landmarks, enhanced their subsequent memory of these locations. The subjects reached these landmarks more quickly and by shorter routes, as compared with locations learned without stimulation.

"The entorhinal cortex is the golden gate to the brain's memory mainframe," Dr. Fried said in a news release. "Every visual and sensory experience that we eventually commit to memory funnels through that doorway to the hippocampus."

The investigators said they hoped the work will one day lead to new methods for improving memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease.