-Simon
Simon Laub
www.simonlaub.net
The instrument (simulation) will not require that all mysteries of the brain be unravelled first. Instead it will furnish a framework to accommodate what we do know, while enabling us to make predictions about what we do not.Markram continues:
The knowledge we generate will be integrated with existing knowledge, and the ''holes'' in the framework will be filled in with increasingly realistic detail until, eventually, we will have a unified working model of the brain - one that reproduces it accurately from the whole brain down to the level of molecules.
Our effort will depend heavily on a discipline called neuroinformatics. Vast quantities of brain-related data from all over the world need to be brought together in a coherent way, then mined for patterns or rules that describe how the brain is organized.
The predictions of how the brain operates offered up by neuroinformatics - and refined by new data - will accelerate our understanding of brain function without measuring every aspect of it. We can make predictions based on the rules we are uncovering, and then test those predictions against reality.
With the in silico brain researchers will be able to knock out a virtual gene, and see the results in ''human'' brains that are different ages and that function in distinctive ways.
Brainlike computer chips will be used to build so-called neuromorphic computers. The HBP (Human Brain Project) will print brain circuits on silicon chips, building on technology developed in the European Union project BrainscaleS and SpiNNaker.
The litmus test of the virtual brain will come when we connect it up to a virtual software representation of a body and place it in a realistic virtual environment.Exciting times ahead ! :-)
Then the in silico brain will be capable of receiving information from its environment and act on it. Only after this achievement will we be able to teach it skills and judge if it is truly intelligent.
-Simon
Simon Laub
www.simonlaub.net
-Simon
Simon Laub
www.simonlaub.net
If you don't have time to make posts on Facebook - Now, here is a solution for you:
Rep.licants.org can take over your Facebook and Twitter accounts and post on your behalf....
You just prime it with such information as your location, age, and topics that interest you. It then analyses what you have already posted on your various social networks. Armed with this knowledge it then posts on your behalf.
Along with a bot, from e.g. Cyber Twin, you should be able to gain a lot of free time for important work. Time you would otherwise have spent on social networks such as Facebook .... :-)
The bot attempts to simulate the activity of the user...I primed it with keywords (TV, News, Aarhus, Justin Bieber, Danish PM and more), logged off and asked my friend Jan to tell me what my new enhanced virtual self was up to...
The bot can be seen as a virtual prothesis added to an user's account, with the aim to build him a greater social reputation.
Psychology should concern itself with the observable behavior of people and animals, not with unobservable events that take place in their minds.Luckily (?), not many believe in behaviorism these days.
And, behaviour can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness...
-Simon
Simon Laub
www.simonlaub.net
SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has been going on for 50 years. What fraction of the universe has been searched so far?She answers:
I think a pretty accurate comparison is to consider the searchable space as being like the oceans of the Earth. We have scooped one 8-ounce glass out of the ocean, starred at it and said, is there a fish here? Well, gee, no fish?On the CBS site she hints at things to come:
Does this mean there are no fish in the ocean, or does that mean we haven't sampled it very well yet? I certainly think it is the latter.
The ATA, for example, has been listening for signals from the many alien planet candidates discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope. To date, Kepler has flagged more than 2,300 such potential planets. While only a small fraction have been confirmed so far, the Kepler team estimates that at least 80 percent of them will end up being the real deal [2].And btw: In the film version of Contact the protagonist Ellie Arroway is played by Jodie Foster. Tarter conversed with the actress for months before and during filming, and Arroway was ''largely based'' on Tarter's work...[3].
-Simon
Simon Laub
www.simonlaub.net
