Benjamin Goertzel wrote:
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.
Yes, I thought I had heard of people trying more ambitious techniques,
but in the cases I heard of (can't remember where now) the tradeoffs
always left the approach hanging on one of the issues: for example, was
he talking about scanning microchondrial activity in vivo, in real time,
across the whole brain?!! The mind boggles. [Uh, and it probably
would, if you were the subject]. Some people think they can do very
thin slices, but they are in defuncto, not in vivo.
Couldn't see any good references to this. Every time I chase up a
reference that someone does suggest, it turns out to be oversold, or one
end of the tradeoff is hopeless.
Richard Loosemore
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