Brain Switch

Is it possible to put a robotic brain in place of a human brain? If it is possible would the robotic brain be able to deal with everyday life and be able to show human emotions?

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Certainly not at our level of scientifical advancement. The problem is tht our present processors/computers work different thn a human brain. Many think tht when quantum computers are made (not some experimental models we have now), we will be able to simulate/dublicate our brain. The problem would still remain though, because we are not 100% sure how the human brain works. We do not know how memory and personality are stored. We still need a lot of recearch in bioelectrics, human brain structuire, quantum computers and neurology. The most likely thing we could make , would be a biocomputer brain. I meant tht we could make some sort of symbiosis of a computer and brain. Give our brain more power and memory space, but leave all the undiscovered functions to the biological one. Because we have had geniuses in our history, we have had people who can calculate data and numbers in unimaginable speeds, scientists have vitnessed telekinesis and telephaty (it's proven in several experiments).
How can we make a brain if we are not sure how it works and have many undiscovered regions/possibilities of it. It would be like making a car if we had just seen it from the outside and looked in through a window, but had no idea how the engine worked or what gas was in the tyres.

 

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I would too say that the brain is too advanced to just be replaced.
Not to forget established in it's use at controlling a body.

Admittedly the current rate of nano-technology might start providing computers that are actually many clusters of smaller ones, that could possibly take the same area up, but I really don't think that swapping someones brain with a machine is on anyones research agenda's.

Currently the more likely technique is what avatar touched upon with Telepathy, using nano-technology as a cybernetic implant to create a link between a person and a room of machine back at a lab through radiological telepathy.

Such systems have already been developed but not so cybernetic, for instance it's possible for a man and small camera with ear piece can do a job that a professional on a laptop the otherside of the world explains to him.

(The implanted version though would allow to control exact movements of the individual at key points)

 

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Hi,
i think we are not as advanced as yet,but when Nano Tech advances to a higher degree then perhaps we will be ready for the swapping that you are talking about.as i mentioned earlier in some of the threads the current technology simply doesnt provide us with the necessary things for the purpose...


may be some other day!




bye!

 

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hey everyone...

i just want to contradict what stryder said about the human brain being too complex to be able to switch it with that of a machine. I mean after all ellectrical pulses are what cause our bodies to function, nothing more. Know your thinking, what about our memories? right? Simple just record our memories to the machine brain by ellectrical pulses as well, sure it'd be hard to perfect a technique to do that, and i'm not trying to say that it would be easy. All i'm trying to say is that it can be done. As for the emotins sophisticated programs installed into the machine or cybernetic brain, that can moniter the heart rate, outside and core temperature, muscle structure, and the amount of time it takes for the ellectrical pulse to respond, if it responds quicker than normal than it could tell wether your upset, stressed, or etc. Maybe it would be for the best if we all could do this because it would make it possible for cybernetic limbs to be fully functional, so that people who have lost limbs wont be able to tell the difference. This is all i have to post for now.

Chrono

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Well yeah electrical impulses are basicaly all that control our bodies but there is more to it than just that. what about all the chemicals in our brains, the synapses, neuron arrangement. unless you're going to drain someone elses spinal fluid or whatever to make a robotic brain you're going to have to artificially create these chemicals.

Im sure we'll eventually reach a point where Science can do all this, but until then i'm happy with my brain.

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gonj and all,

I find it curious that when I created this forum it was my intent that the thought of this thread would be the dominant topic of the forum. Perhaps it is time to reintroduce those ideas and start again.

Here is the original first thread that began this forum - http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=2585

The forum had a different title originally and there was a second forum dedicated to robotics - we merged the two some years ago to create this forum that you see now.

The issue you are discussing here is known as mind-uploading and there are many people actively working towards making it a reality. I see it as the next major step in the evolution of the human race. In terms of computing power we will have adequate power to exceed the human brain within the enxt 10 years - creating appropriate software is the real issue. However, I hope that AI based on learning seeds might shorten the development cycle by signifcant margins.

Enjoy.

 

The situation is such that no one understands the brain. It has been stated in this thread that we don't understand the brain 100%. We don't even understand the brain 50% or 25%. We know next to nothing about it.

With the advent of MRI and other technologies that allow active observation of a brain in motion (so to speak) much of our old 'knowledge' of the workings of the brain (derived from study of epileptic and/or damaged brains and from animal testing) is being discovered to be erroneous and misleading. It's like we're practically starting from scratch.

We know so much, but so little.

Glial cells, for instance, are they just maintence workers or are they a network beneath the network that acts in a controller fashion? Einstein's brain was unimpressive in many ways. One of the main differences in his brain and a normal brain was the incredible amount of glial cells in his associative cortex.

We may very have missed half the brain.

As to creating an artificial brain, how are we to go about it? The mind, consciousness, is an emergent property of a system which we hardly understand. We don't know what it is in the brain leads to consciousness. We don't even know what consciousness is. We have a very difficult time expressing these basic qualities of our very existence. They are so basic to our very nature that they are inexplicable.

How are we to emulate the brain? The mind?
An exact copy using next generation transistors and circuits? How would the change in processing speed affect our consciousness? Much of what we are as consciousness is postulated to be a result of the need for an integration of the delays caused by our large brain. We don't see the now. We see an extrapolation of what is likely to be now. We have up to date information 'consciously' only about things about half a second in the past. Would transcribing our minds into a new medium alter this need?

Would a machine mind require consciousness?

Perhaps if we evolve this new brain the mind would become obsolete.

When one learns a task well it becomes sublimated. Internalized. Consciousness is messy and expensive. All our actions are on the road to sublimation. Automatic handling. If the brain becomes such that consciousness is no longer required to explain and predict the differences between half a second ago and now, mightn't our mind itself become internalized and lost?

We'd need to create a brain with flaws preinstalled. An exact duplication of the flaws inherent in biological processes. And if the flaws must be present then why even bother with the expensive circuitry?

Nanotech maintaining healthy connections would be more useful.
As would an integration of technology as a sort of storage medium and new input modality.

Perhaps with a machine mind we would enter a new level of consciousness. As fast as the electronics would be, there would still be some small delay between the now and the perceived. maybe a tenth of a second. Or a hundredth. Or thousandth. Perhaps consciousness would tend towards a state similar to the limit in calculus. Always drawing closer and closer to some perfect ideal but never reaching.

I suppose if we made the artificial brain large enough we could duplicate the same level of delay.
Hmm.

Anyway, the aspect of sensory delay and prediction is theoretical but interesting.

 

Yes

 

Cris, I never realised that you created this forum; I thought Dave W did it. Anyway, I clicked on your link and I was suddenly transported back 4 years; 'twas a bit like the snapshots in time that Boris was talking about. The civility in that thread (in those days) was certainly refreshing to see.

Take Care

 

Even if the fundamental workings of the brain remained a mystery forever, would that necessarily prevent us from building a robotic simulation? I read about a recent study which looked into the inputs entering, and the outputs leaving a rat's hippocampus. With enough observations, it might be possible to predict the output statisically from the inputs, even though the intervening processes occurring within the hippocampus remain unknown.

If such a simulation could be conducted for every sub-unit of a brain, their interactions could be modelled and their outputs relayed to the rest of the body. Although you would know the architecture of the computer programme performing this feat, you could still be ignorant of that of the brain... it all sounds so simple - Ha.

People would argue that was has been accomplished is a mere duplication of the outward appearances of consciousness. This, of course, would be true, but it would be just as much evidence for an underlying consciousness entity as is available from talking with you lot, or even face to face with friends and family.