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I highly doubt we know enough about the Brain to begin running realistic simulations of one. I am not even sure if scientist/mathematicians have identified a ri
by jostmey 14y ago
I highly doubt we know enough about the Brain to begin running realistic simulations of one. I am not even sure if scientist/mathematicians have identified a rigorous, mathematical definition of exactly what is intelligence. And yet we feel like we can correctly simulate a miniaturized version of Brain?
- daeken 14y agoWhile I agree that this won't necessarily be accurate, I think this could very well lead us to a better and deeper knowledge of the brain regardless. Being able to do experiments here and see how they differ from the real world is quite awesome.
- exit 14y agowhy would understanding intelligence be a prerequisite to running low level simulations of the brain? we can simulate computers without understanding the software that runs on them.
- goolulusaurs 14y agoBecause in the brain, the hardware and the software are the same thing. To understand what processes the brain carries out would be to understand intelligence.
- exit 14y agounderstanding what processes the brain carries out goes beyond being aware of its structure and localised functionalities. i don't see why this high level understand would be a prerequisite to running a simulation of the brain. by the way, hardware and software is always the same thing. my simulation of a laptop will include a pattern of high and low magnetic charges on its simulated hard disc, without my understanding the software which those patterns ultimately actualise.
- ekianjo 14y agoWell you do not need to understand the low level of physics (quantum physics) to make very accurate predictions about ballistics with traditional, high level physics rules. You could as well understand the overall principles of the brain and have a high level model for it instead of trying to understand its smallest parts. This approach is also very valid, it all depends on what your expectations are.
- carbocation 14y agoIndeed, simulating the brain using a level of abstraction we think to be correct may be a reasonable way to try to understand which level is actually the relevant one for the brain's most important functions.
- rm999 14y agoBut we don't understand the high-level 'physical rules' of the brain. While gravity could be explained by simple equations, the high-level operation of the brain has escaped us despite a lot of effort. This goes back to the top-down vs bottom-up debate in studying the brain. What you are discussing is a top-down approach, where we understand what the brain does and then figure out how it works from there. A lot of people believe the 'correct' path is more similar to a bottom-up approach, where we understand the lowest levels of the brain and work up from there. This may be more feasible because we may actually have a chance at comprehending what a single neuron does. But amazingly our understanding of a single neuron's behavior is still limited. Some scientists believe we would need an entire computer to properly simulate what a neuron does (and others believe a standard computer can't physically do it). There's a third group of very pragmatic people who believe the best approach will be a compromise between top-down and bottom-up - meaning we may not need to perfectly simulate a neuron nor completely emulate the brain's higher level function to make progress in understanding how the brain works.
- ekianjo 14y agoSorry, but gravity is not "explained" by any equation. It is merely observed and described. Currently there is no clear explanation as what is causing gravity to exist. So, we do not "understand" gravity better than the brain, in a sense. It is still a mystery. I am not saying we should treat the brain as a black box and not try to understand its inner workings, but as another commenter mentioned, it is about finding the RIGHT level to understand its workings.
- randomdata 14y agoBased on the process outlined in the article, it is akin to taking an existing electronics product and then duplicating it. You don't really need to understand Ohms law or how transistors work in order to produce something that works like the original. The article claims that the simulation behaves in many ways like a real brain, so even if they made some mistakes along the way, it is still incredibly fascinating.