[Carlhole]

Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')enry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved -- soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they're made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain's 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.

Henry Markram is director of Blue Brain, a supercomputing project that can model components of the mammalian brain to precise cellular detail -- and simulate their activity in 3D. Soon he'll simulate a whole rat brain in real time.

In the microscopic, yet-uncharted circuitry of the cortex, Henry Markram is perhaps the most ambitious -- and our most promising -- frontiersman. Backed by the extraordinary power of the IBM Blue Gene supercomputing architecture, which can perform hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, he's using complex models to precisely simulate the neocortical column (and its tens of millions of neural connections) in 3D.

Though the aim of Blue Brain research is mainly biomedical, it has been edging up on some deep, contentious philosophical questions about the mind -- "Can a robot think?" and "Can consciousness be reduced to mechanical components?" -- the consequence of which Markram is well aware: Asked by Seed Magazine what a simulation of a full brain might do, he answered, "Everything. I mean everything" -- with a grin.

Now, with a successful proof-of-concept for simulation in hand (the project's first phase was completed in 2007), Markram is looking toward a future where brains might be modeled even down to the molecular and genetic level. Computing power marching rightward and up along the graph of Moore's Law, Markram is sure to be at the forefront as answers to the mysteries of cognition emerge.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Thanks Carhole. Interesting and valid topic, since scientific progress and energy use certainly are relevant to the core of this site.

I've been following Kurzweil a bit since about 1990 when he wrote "The Age of Spiritual Machines" which is when his strong predictions of technology completely remaking our reality and the singularity became almost a messianic passion for him, IMO.

The holy grail, is for people to become truly immortal - running around in healthy bodies built/repaired by nanotechnology -- THAT's what the uploading the brain could eventually lead to, for some of the detractors on this thread.

I think your point (as a scientist in IT) about scientific advancement being absolutely incredible is valid. Moore's law cannot be ignored, and despite all the doomsaying about its demise, it seems to keep finding ways to hang in there.

I think where you and Kurzweil and folks like James Halperin (author of "The First Immortal" which gives a very interesting layman's peek into the whole idea of the path to potential immortality via nanotechnology via a very readable SCIENCE BASED novel) are right, is you rightly point out the awesome potential and progress of the science and math.

HOWEVER, you folks seem to blithely ignore some HUGE problems presented in the real world. For example, software doesn't follow anything close to a Moore's law in quality or productivity. I don't see how it can until (if) we get to the OTHER SIDE of the singularity. Humans tend to massively screw up complex projects in the short run, as well.

I also think that energy/wealth issues mentioned on this forum are valid. Just because the potential for some of this stuff could happen exists, that's FAR from expecting it to for the masses. After all, we'll be struggling to provide enough energy and enough viable clean planet for the masses by the time this stuff has any real chance of becoming practical.

So, if we survive long enough and can solve some problems, it may well happen. We may well have the chips and the memory devices by 2040. But I'll bet we can't do this to Bill Gates for at least 100 years. To do it for everyone, it could be much longer than that. And all that assumes we survive to the singularity.