Thank you Stephen for raising this point, I very rarely see it discussed, despite how obvious it is in retrospect. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to inhabit a construction based on a static brain scan... one that could not evolve. I think it would be very much like a stuck record. And yet, the one would not realize it!
Clearly, scanning a brain down to the synapse would be an incredible achievement. FWIW I don't think specific firing patterns are all that important, as these get reset every night during sleep, at least in the neocortex. But how the topological model evolves in response to experiencing/imagining/learning/dreaming etc is probably crucial for reconstructing believable personae. Another aspect of the replication idea that is usually overlooked or minimized is the importance of situatedness or embodiment and how difficult (or shocking, from the perspective of the one who inhabits) it would be to be suddenly switched to a simulated/robotic body and environment... and the resulting effects this would have on the replicated/simulated person. Terren On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Stephen P. King <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > Recently a link was referenced that discussed how serial sectioning of > brains is being automated: > http://www.mcb.harvard.edu/lichtman/ATLUM/ATLUM_web.htm I have a question > about this. Will this technology yield a model of the dynamics of brain > activity or will it be another taxonomy of brain structures? It seems that > dynamics are completely missing from the narrative about scanning and > uploading our brains into Turing Machines. How exactly is a topological map > of the structure of the brain contain any information about the specifics of > brain activity? > At best it might allow us to toss out models of dynamics that have > implications that would contradict the topology structure, but nothing at > all about how the topologies evolve. > > Onward! > > Stephen > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
