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Comment by alexandros | Hacker News Reader

The understatement of the applications by the scientists makes me suspect that (a) they are being politically wise keeping it on the down low or (b) that the article's claims are exaggerated. If (a) is the case though, the potential consequences just blow my mind.. I mean, Robin Hanson has been talking about emulated minds on chips for a while, but I didn't think we were so close to real results. What this would do to arguments about religion, bioethics, irreducibles will make for very interesting discussion.

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"Mind-blowing" is the word indeed.

As I read through this article, my first thought was, what if they do create a full, human-like brain. Would it be immoral to then shut it down?

From a morality standpoint, what is the difference between shutting it down and an indefinite state of stasis? The brain wouldn't know any different, it would just cease to process for a period of time, and then resume processing later. It would be just like a blackout. Except since the brain only receives stimulus from a simulated environment, the environment could be frozen as well.

So, if everything freezes and restarts at a later time, the brain would not perceive any missing time.

You're assuming isolation. No feedback. It wouldn't perceive any missing time if it had no contact with the outer world. I think that's treating the brain as if it was just a computer.

Ahh, that's an excellent point; for any of my argument to stand, it would definitely require full isolation (akin to what the current Blue Brain has right now).

If they simulate my brain molecule by molecule, and consciousness emerges, which one is really me? If my physical self is then killed, do I in fact still exist inside the simulation? In which case, is it OK to kill off my superfluous physical presence in order to use my organs to help others? What rights does the simulated me have?

This will be a huge can of worms one day.

Okay, these guys aren't anywhere near simulating an entire brain molecule by molecule. There's a big difference between this and being able to simulate the storage of a memory.

Also, the estimates of the total complexity of the brain may have all been greatly underestimated. We now have strong evidence from evolutionary Proteomics that each synapse has considerable complexity and is itself involved in computation. This makes perfect sense: the synapse must have evolved from the molecular sensing and navigation mechanisms of single celled Eukaryotes, and these are clearly capable of some computation.

(See the Brain Science Podcast episode 51)

I'm just extrapolating. Given exponential increases in computational power, it's a pretty small jump, I think, to imagine full brain simulation from what they're doing.

I guess that would depend on where (or from who) your morals come from.

I'm surprised that you thought the researchers were making understated claims:

When asked when the simulation would come up with something artistic or an invention, Professor Markram said it was simply a matter of money. "[...T]he technology is there today."

Boy does that sound like a lot of software projects I know.

I think we're getting closer to AI, but I'm not as optimistic as the Blue Brain lead quote in the article.

They are criticized for taking a reductionistic approach, and I actually agree with the critics. Metaphorically, they are now able to build puzzle pieces, but haven't yet figured how to make them fit, let alone how to assemble the big picture.

Embryogenesis and development are very complicated processes, and, even though we also have a good idea of the macroscopic function of the cortex (primary, secondary areas for different tasks, associative areas ), some structure are still very mysterious and entangled. The brainstem is still a maze, for example, as is the so-called "mesoscopic" achitecture of the cortex.

And very interesting science.

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