One of the favorite tropes of both science fiction and extropian speculations about the future is the idea of uploading human consciousness into a computer. Uploading will require two things:
1. An appropriate storage medium for holding not only the data that a brain contains, but the metadata that defines relationships between the data, as well as the “application logic” that knows what to do with this data and the “operating system” on which the whole thing runs.
2. Sufficiently robust processing power to emulate the hardware functions of the brain.
Of the two requirements, the second seems the more daunting. Surely we have enough storage that we could back a brain up (should we figure out a way of doing that.) But reading a brain and playing it back…? That’s going to take some doing.
Of course, these requirements overlay the “computer” paradigm onto brain function, which defines relationships between hardware, software, operating system, and database that are very different from what you would find somewhere behind the screen you’re now looking at. But ultimately, that’s what we have to do, unless we’re prepared to create a machine that operates less like a computer and more like a brain…
…which leads to this highly interesting development:
Yorktown Heights, NY and Lausanne, Switzerland, June 6, 2005 – IBM and The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are today announcing a major joint research initiative – nicknamed the Blue Brain Project – to take brain research to a new level.
Over the next two years scientists from both organizations will work together using the huge computational capacity of IBM’s eServer Blue Gene supercomputer to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain. By expanding the project to model other areas of the brain, scientists hope to eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain.
By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, the neocortex is that special core brain part that only mammals have. That’s how you can tell a mammal brain from a reptile brain. Look for the neocortex. From this site, I learned that the neocortical column (NCC) is a handy building block for higher brain function, and that a human brain is really nothing more than a robust collection of specilaized NCCs working together in harmony.
So in other words, once IBM gets a single NCC emulation running, they are well on their way to emulating an entire neocortex and, eventually, an entire brain. The question, then, is this: will a computer emulation of a brain produce a computer emulated mind? (For an interesting discussion on that point, go here, via Kurzweil AI.)
