Richard, I recently saw a talk by Todd Huffman at the Foresight Unconference on the topic of mind uploading technology, and he was specifically showing off techniques for imaging slices of brain, that *do* give the level of biological detail you're thinking of. Topics of discussions were, for example, inferring synaptic strength indirectly from mitochondrial activity.
So, the Connectome people may not be taking a sufficiently fine-grained approach to support mind-uploading, but others are trying... Obviously, a detailed map of the brain at the level Todd is thinking of, would be of more than peripheral interest to cognitive scientists. It would not resolve cognitive questions in itself, but would be a wonderful trove of data to use to help validate or refute cognitive theories. -- Ben G On Nov 13, 2007 10:11 AM, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Bryan Bishop wrote: > > On Monday 12 November 2007 22:16, Richard Loosemore wrote: > >> If anyone were to throw that quantity of resources at the AGI problem > >> (recruiting all of the planet), heck, I could get it done in about 3 > >> years. ;-) > > > > I have done some research on this topic in the last hour and have found > > that a "Connectome Project" is in fact in the very early stages out > > there on the internet: > > > > http://iic.harvard.edu/projects/connectome.html > > http://acenetica.blogspot.com/2005/11/human-connectome.html > > > http://acenetica.blogspot.com/2005/10/mission-to-build-simulated-brain.html > > http://www.indiana.edu/~cortex/connectome_plos.pdf<http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ecortex/connectome_plos.pdf> > > This is the whole brain emulation approach, I guess (my previous > comments were about evolution of brains rather than neural level > duplication). > > But (switching topics to whole brain emulation) there are serious > problems with this. > > It seems quite possible that what we need is a detailed map of every > synapse, exact layout of dendritic tree structures, detailed knowledge > of the dynamics of these things (they change rapidly) AND wiring between > every single neuron. > > When I say "it seems possible" I mean that the chance of this > information being absolutely necessary in order to understand what the > neural system is doing, is so high that we would not want to gamble on > them NOT being necessary. > > So are the researchers working at that level of detail? > > Egads, no! Here's a quote from the PLOS Computational Biology paper you > referenced (above): > > "Attempting to assemble the human connectome at the level > of single neurons is unrealistic and will remain infeasible at > least in the near future." > > They are not even going to do it at the resolution needed to see > individual neurons?! > > I think that if they did the whole project at that level of detail it > would amount to a possibly interesting hint at some of the wiring, of > peripheral interest to people doing work at the cognitive system level. > But that is all. > > I think it would be roughly equivalent to the following: You say to me > "I want to understand how computers work, in enough detail to build my > own" and I reply with "I can get a you a photo of a motherboard and a > 500 by 500 pixel image of the inside of an Intel chip..." > > > > Richard Loosemore > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=64558273-86797b
