On the other hand, somebody could just create a smartass email bot and
as far as we know it would be a perfect upload of John Clark. :-)
Brent
On 3/31/2018 1:17 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
You would have to replicate then not only the dynamics of neurons, but
every biomolecule in the neurons, and don't forget about the
oligoastrocytes and other glial cells. Many enzymes for instance to
multi-state systems, say in a simple case where a single amino acid
residue of phosphorylated or unphosphorylated, and in effect are
binary switching units. To then make this work you now need to have
the brain states mapped out down to the molecular level, and further
to have their combinatorial relationships mapped. Biomolecules also
behave in water, so you have to model all the water molecules. Given
the brain has around 10^{25} or a few moles of molecules the number of
possible combinations might be on the order of 10^{10^{25}} this is a
daunting task. Also your computer has to accurately encode the
dynamics of molecules -- down to the quantum mechanics of their bonds.
This is another way of saying that biological systems, even that of a
basic prokaryote, are beyond our current abilities to simulate. You
can't just hand wave away the enormous problems with just simulating a
bacillus, let alone something like the brain. Now of course one can do
some simulations to learn about the brain in a model system, but this
is far from mapping a brain and its conscious state into a computer.
LC
On Saturday, March 31, 2018 at 10:31:56 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 8:24 PM, Lawrence
Crowell <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote:
> /Yes, and if you replace the entire brain with technology
the peg leg is expanded into an entire Pinocchio. Would the
really be conscious? It is the case as well that so much of
our mental processing does involve hormone reception and a
range of other data inputs from other receptors and ligands./
I see nothing sacred in hormones, I don't see the slightest reason
why they or any neurotransmitter would be especially difficult to
simulate through computation, because chemical messengers are not
a sign of sophisticated design on nature's part, rather it's an
example of Evolution's bungling. If you need to inhibit a
nearby neuron there are better ways of sending that signal then
launching a GABA molecule like a message in a bottle thrown into
the sea and waiting ages for it to diffuse to its random target.
I'm not interested in chemicals only the information they contain,
I want the information to get transmitted from cell to cell by the
best method and so I would not send smoke signals if I had a fiber
optic cable. The information content in each molecular message
must be tiny, just a few bits because only about 60
neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine and GABA
are known, even if the true number is 100 times greater (or a
million times for that matter) the information content ofeach
signal must be tiny. Also, for the long range stuff, exactly which
neuron receives the signal can not be specified because it relies
on a random process, diffusion. The fact that it's slow as
molasses in February does not add to its charm.
If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very
small and your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as
it's on the correct continent and you have until the next ice age
to get the work done, then you don't have a very difficult
profession. I see no reason why simulating that anachronism would
present the slightest difficulty. Artificial neurons could be made
to release neurotransmitters as inefficiently as natural ones if
anybody really wanted to, but it would be pointless when there are
much faster ways.
Electronics is inherently fast because its electrical signals are
sent by fast light electrons. The brain also uses some electrical
signals, but it doesn't use electrons, it uses ions to send
signals, the most important are chlorine and potassium. A chlorine
ion is 65 thousand times as heavy as an electron, a potassium ion
is even heavier, if you want to talk about gap junctions, the ions
they use are millions of times more massive than electrons. There
is no way to get around it, according to the fundamental laws of
physics, something that has a large mass will be slow, very, very,
slow.
The great strength biology has over present day electronics is in
the ability of one neuron to make thousands of connections of
various strengths with other neurons. However, I see absolutely
nothing in the fundamental laws of physics that prevents nano
machines from doing the same thing, or better and MUCH faster.
John K Clark
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