Flying By Brain 636
Garabito writes "Scientists at the University of Florida made a living 'brain' by extracting 25,000 neurons from a rat's brain and culturing them inside a glass dish. Then, the neurons began to extend lines to each other, creating a living neural network between them. The dish had a grid of 60 electrodes connected to a computer running a flight simulator. The scientists were able to train the 'brain' to control the plane in the simulator and to react to conditions of the plane. Are we getting closer to create an artificially made conscious being, or perhaps, a living computer?" AlphaJoe was one of several readers to add a link to Wired's article on the experiment.
working backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
Now we're using a brain to run a neural network.
Chicken-egg problem, anyone?
Re:working backwards (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus Christ!
Am I the only one who thought of the dangerous consequences of this?!
Wait and watch, they're just about to embark on the creation of Pinky and the Brain
Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Brain: Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try and find myself a Brain.
Re:working backwards (Score:5, Informative)
A brain is a neural network. Artificial neural networks were created to simulate them using mathematical models.
Re:working backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:working backwards (Score:5, Funny)
The egg came first, it hatched out a soybean and a chicken. The soybean evolved into veggie burgers, dirt, and Chevy Avalanches. The chicken eventually evolved into numerous animals, possibly including humans.
Re:working backwards (Score:3, Informative)
Chicken/Egg... (Score:3, Funny)
rat brains (Score:4, Funny)
Re:rat brains (Score:5, Funny)
Uhm, not the appropriate response, but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uhm, not the appropriate response, but (Score:3, Funny)
GTA? pfft... I'm planning to use my first rat brain to make money with Everquest and Diablo.
Abby someone (Score:5, Funny)
Igor : And you won't be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : I will NOT be angry.
Igor : Abby someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby someone. Abby who?
Igor : Abby Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby Normal?
Igor : I'm almost sure that was the name.
Re:Abby someone (Score:5, Informative)
What hump?
The quoted dialogue above is a hilarious exchange from an extremely funny movie [imdb.com]. They made it in B&W and it still worked in 1974. Today it's quite a cult classic.
I haven't seen a slashdot name of Abby Normal yet and you can always slip brains through slot in door after 5PM.
Re:Abby someone (Score:3, Informative)
What's next.. (Score:5, Funny)
Brain bags! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Brain bags! (Score:5, Funny)
To quote the work of Scott Adams... [dilbert.com]
Dogbert: (Talking to PHB at the office) The dogbert consulting company will plot a new course for your business
Dogbert: My consultants are so smart that their brains don't fit in their heads. They have to strap the extra brains to their torsos.
Ratbert: (Later at home) Why do I need a piece of liver strapped to my torso?
Dogbert: I got a little carried away at the pitch meeting.
Re:Brain bags! (Score:5, Funny)
People with their brains implated in their (lower) abdomen? We've already got those. They're called "The RIAA".
Does this......? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does this......? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does this......? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does this......? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Does this......? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Does this......? (Score:4, Insightful)
ObSimpsons.... (Score:5, Funny)
Fire Ron Zook (Score:4, Funny)
One question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One question... (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose that the goal would be to keep the plane level and heading straight ahead or something, then the brain learns how to accomplish this, thus allowing it to fly in different conditions. But I couldn't find any info on how the brain was told this was the "right" thing.
Maybe they just let the simulator fly the plane straight ahead without interference until the brain learnt that this was "normal", then, when
Re:One question... (Score:4, Funny)
In other news,[1] rats have made clumps of neurons from scientists' brains behave in a crude sort of stimulus-response behaviour by connecting the neurons to a simulation of a news for nerds site.
[1]Or should that be 'In Soviet Russia...'?
Re:One question... (Score:5, Informative)
basically the net learns an unlinear function or the inputs. outputi = fi(input1,input2,input3,input4
Re:One question... (Score:5, Informative)
The second article stated that neurons were given information on the tilt of the airplane:
It seems that this experiment builds on earier research by DeMarse, Wagenaar, Blau, and Potter in 2001 called the the animat [gatech.edu]. It wondered in a box without goal-specific behavior. However, it also tended to specific patterns and states. That is a very readable article - I highly suggest you read it.
But why did the neurons want to stablize the aircraft? I couldn't find a paper on the aircraft experiment, but a second paper, "Removing some 'A' from AI: Embodied Cultured Networks" (by Bakkum, Shkolnik, Ben-Ary, Gamblen, DeMarse, and Potter, 2004) summarized another experiment where neurons were trained to keep a set distance from an object. The paper is the first article on the same page [gatech.edu] of publications as the first paper. It seems that the neural network responded nonlinearly - that is, it changed state from one behavior to another one - when the input stimulus frequency was adjusted (correct me if I'm wrong). So by changing the input stimulus frequency, they were able to train the network. I gather that the new experiment simply uses when certain "level = good, nonlevel = bad" stimuli. It's a long way off from Robocop II, but it is a start.
Re:One question... (Score:5, Interesting)
As near as I can tell from their paper at:
http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/groups/potter/papers/
the network is not "learning". Rather, they are setting up the system so that the inherent properties of the neurons cause the correct response to the feedback it receives from the environment.
The real knowledge about the task is built into the systems that interface with the neurons.
As an analogy, the neuron is behaving like a spring in a mechanical system, it has some basic fundamental properties that are statistically predictable, and the system around the spring expects it to behave thusly. But because it's a complex system it may take time for the system to settle into the stable state, hence it looks as if the network "learns", when really it's a system of springs settling into an equilibrium.
Not to understate their technical accomplishments. They've done amazing things with cultured neurons. But this is not about reward and punishment, the network is far too simple for such words to have any meaning. It may not even be about learning in the sense of permanently modifying synaptic connections. I can't tell from my first read through, and that's what really sets off the alarm bells.
They also avoid the obvious experiment that should be done if they think long term plasticity is involved. (ie, can it still navigate the next day?)
Re:One question... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One question... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's significant that they chose a flight simulator instead of a more traditional "game" to teach the newly formed brain.
Here's a couple of points to remember:
The difference between the makeup, function, and behavior of a given type of cells between one species and another is so insignificant (remember, we're talking on a cellular level) that they can generally be ignored. You can almost always assume that a given cell type in one organism will behave identically to a parallel cell in another. The species that the cell came from is all but insignificant.
Brain cells, (in humans and in other species) are amazingly versatile. While capable of specializing (vision centers, speech centers, etc.), these cells seem to be capable of taking on any function necessary for the benefit of the organism. For example, humans brains in which a specific part has been damaged (such as the vision center) have actually re-mapped other cell groups to take over that function. They do what they have to to survive.
Brain cells are cooperative in nature: if placed in proximity to eachother, they'll work together for their common good (read: survival). They'll "instinctively" form a structure similar to how they're pre-designed to work. They'll form a brain--as fully functional as the situation permits. It doesn't necessarily matter how you arrange them, the brain cells can sort those details out--somehow.
Brains look for order. We've known that for ages. Finding order is how a brain learns, it's how the brain separates relevant details from the background noise. The ability to identify order is the whole basis of intelligence. Every sense, every stimulus, every aspect of the brain has order-seeking overtones. This feature of brains is so absolutely universal that it must be deeply ingrained into the neurons themselves.
Put those details together, and you end up with the following scenario: if you take neurons out of an organism and place them together, they'll form a brain. Probably not as complex or capable a brain as you started with, but a brain none the less. Actually this is the ideal brain to study, as you're starting "from scratch": there's no evolutionary specialization involved. Each cell will attempt to make sense of its neighbors, and as a result, the organism as a whole will attempt to make sense of its environment (brain processes are the ultimate in emergent algorithms). The brain will follow this behavior as if it were necessary to the brain's survival.
Which brings us to the flight simulator. If you instead had the brain play with a chessboard or a clock, the results would probably be unimpressive. But a flight simulator--that's really the perfect environment. There's the potential for the brain to actually order its environment: there are equilibrium points that the brain will eventually find where it has greater control over its inputs. Assuming that flying too hight or too low creates a more chaotic state, you can likely expect the brain to learn to avoid it.
In fact, I'd be very much surprised if you didn't actually see the brain cells start to specialize. Some cells will become responsibe for directly manipulating the flight controls based on the inputs from the brain. Some will attempt to maintain aircraft equilibrium in absence of any other input from the brain. Others will control the aircraft as a whole, their location in the network giving them a better overall picture of the situation than, say, the cells near the controls. Furthermore, I fully expect some cells to not participate at all: cells that are "out of the loop", so to speak, will proably cease most activity to avoid disturbing the overall process.
I, personally, have been waiting to see this very experiment conducted and see the results. I think this is very exciting science.
Re:One question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Point 1: This isn't a brain we're talking about, it's 25,000 neurons in a dish that has a grid of electrodes on the bottom, so whatever structure has come to being is unlikely to resemble that of a brain except that it's made up of neurons which synapse on other neurons.
Point 2: Pleasure and pain are not localized in the brain. You can feel many different kinds of pain (visceral via sympathetic nervous system vs. somatic, for instance) and can feel each of these kinds of pain at different regions in the body (and thus different groups of neurons in the brain). I imagine the same holds true for pleasure, with different neurotransmitter pathways involved for each.
About the grandparent, that's exactly what I wondered too, and I couldn't find any pertinent info in the two articles either. The two following paragraphs are what I find to be very handwavy and suspect:
Re:One question... (Score:5, Insightful)
He's talking to the lay press, give him a break. Even if he gave the information we all want, it's likely the reporter didn't understand it well enough to realise its importance. We'll just have to wait until his paper is published to find out how he's done it.
From other sources (Score:3, Informative)
The network eventually "learns" what signal it should output to stabilise its input and either forms separate groups to handle each direction (up, down, left, right), or jus
obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
(in drone-like monotone)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things.
Re:obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Great now im going to lose my job (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great now im going to lose my job (Score:5, Funny)
Great, how long until... (Score:4, Funny)
Living 'eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have to think in Russian? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do you have to think in Russian? (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone know how it knows what is "good" and "bad?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Did they create a neural net that falls through a given search space to a local or global minimum, or what?
Is "good" a total lack of input, i.e. the plane is flying straight with no lateral or vertical drift, and is degree of input dependent on the amount of lateral motion, etc.?
As I type this, it makes sense that this might be so, but I wonder why the network created a negative feedback system, and not a positive feedback system.
~ Mike
Re:Anyone know how it knows what is "good" and "ba (Score:5, Informative)
Human neurons... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Human neurons... (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer is "yes".
Currently, one of the experimental treatments for Parkinson's disease is to insert brain cells from pigs into human brains. The patients have responded well, and the pig cells do thrive within the human brain.
This is interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
If you know, is this true?
Bigger Problem is Growth of Novel Germs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Human neurons... (Score:4, Funny)
sea slugs (Score:4, Interesting)
This is your brain... (Score:5, Funny)
Adds a whole new dimension to the commercial, doesn't it?
This is your brain...
EricThis is your brain on drugs...
This is your brain on drugs flying a plane without you...
Why Vioxx is Prozac for lawyers [ericgiguere.com]
Pretty neat, but (Score:3, Informative)
I have to say, I don't remember much from when I was five years old. I remember where I lived and maybe can guesstimate where I spent a specific summer, but most of my knowledge comes from what my parents told me and from little "text" snippets that somehow got stuck in my head (for example, names of cities I visited, etc.)
I can recall some images from the past, but I am not sure whether those are "true" memories or something synthesised by brain to "fill in the blank". This leads me to believe that human memory is rather lossy and large part of what I remember is just a rough approximation of what happened based on a few datapoints that brain actually remembers. Sort of like with people who have a defect in their iris - they still see an image in what's supposed to be a blind spot. This image is synthesised by brain to fill in the gap. Needless to say, occasionaly it turns deadly (especially while driving).
Ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck (Score:5, Funny)
Saw this a few days ago... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you motivate a slice of rat brain to fly a plane? Does it feal pain when it crashes? Get nutrients when it flys far? What?
All too soon we will see little USB plug ins with these things to help the rail-gun spawn-campers aim fast in UT2024; Ultimate.
[FuZZy1] Punched a hole in 3L1T3's cranium
[3L1T3>] NOOB!
[3L1T3]; Rat-bot camper!
[FuZZy1]; LOL!1 That why tehy call me Fuzzy1
Re:Saw this a few days ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe that by altering the characteristics of the charge applied over the electrodes this effect could be realised.
Eventually the connections will be strengthened in such as way as the plane is flown straight and level.
Nothing to do
This is an old story. (Score:4, Funny)
The rodent-feline arms race has begun. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm immediately going to deploy a network of cat-neuron controlled anti-aircraft missle batteries.
damned rats.
Different brain cells (Score:5, Funny)
Osama's cells: Plane kept crashing into buildings.
PHB cells: Plane kept flying in circles until it ran out of gas.
Bill Gates cells: Plane kept locking up.
SCO lawyer cells: Plane kept crashing, but blaming other planes.
RMS cells: Plane wanted to call itself "GNU Plane".
G.W. Bush cells: Plane kept crashing into Saddam Hussein no matter what, even if Osama was placed right next to Saddam.
John Kerry cells: Plane would fly to the left, and then to the right, and then to the left....
Slashdot reader cells: Plane would try to fly without first reading the flying manual.
Steve Jobs cells: Plane transformed itself into a slick, modern, translucent jet, but priced itself too high.
Mike Melvill cells: Plane kept going up and up until we lost track of it.
Emacs coder cells: Plane became a boat, a car, a house, a lawn mower, and a finger-nail clipper.
I can't believe it (Score:5, Funny)
There is not a single cyberpunk or SF writer who (Score:3, Funny)
Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.
It's just such a great hook.
Re:teh living computer (Score:5, Interesting)
The future is now (Score:3, Funny)
Considering the typical body of the average Slashdotter, I'd say that's probably already true.
Re:teh living computer (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not too difficult to find a source of brains - visit your local abbatoir.
Wouldn't want to use the sheep brains though.... Imagine a "mob" of aircraft playing follow the leader...
Seriously, you would want to use something with a life span of more than a few years - besides, how do you do backups? how do you transfer existing knowledge to the new, untrained brain? (I mean more efficiently than us humans manage to using our existing I/O ports).
Re:teh living computer (Score:5, Funny)
About kangaroos and bazookas.
It seems that an american company, which shall remain nameless because some friends of mine were working there at the time, was trying to sell a battlefield simulation program to the Australian military. The intent was to integrate it with some flight-simulators so that the Aussie pilots could have a realistic battlefield with simulations of some of the semi-random events that surround and confuse real battles to fly through.
In order to try to put on a more effective sales presentation, the orders came down to customize it -- which meant building some distinctly australian things into the system in order to impress upon the militarish folk reviewing the system that (A) the system could be quickly and easily reconfigured or altered, and (B), the company was *REALLY* serious about making this sale.
So, Australian fauna was coded in -- in particular, kangaroos. The 'roos represented a real concern for possibly confusing pilots, because they have an upright posture, they're about man-sized, and they move *fast*. If you're not paying attention, or if you're looking mainly at IR traces in a night-fight, it could be pretty easy to confuse them with soldiers.
The shop used Object-Oriented programming - a technique in which each 'object type' is a subtype of some more fundamental type. This saves work because you can 'inherit' behaviors and constraints from the more fundamental type, and write new code only for the stuff that's actually different. In the case of the kangaroos, they 'inherited' from ground troopers (the base type for most of the non-aircraft in the simulation), and put in different data for returning an image, to make them look like kangaroos. They put in different parameters for movement, to make them faster than humans (a lot faster). They used the "not under orders/cut off from c-cubed-i" methods for troopers as the primary methods for the 'roos, to simulate that they didn't have objectives or strategies, and they set their morale to 'low' because mobs of kangaroos don't hang together or fight panic the way platoons of human soldiers do.
They got orders to include kangaroos about forty-eight hours before the scheduled demo, and did it in one night. They figured they were all set.
So, cut past the sales presentation and into the demo. Some pretty high-up officer from the Aussie air force is seated in the flight simulator, flying over this simulated battlefield in his simulated aircraft, and admiring all the simulated details.
And he spots a mob of kangaroos.
So, just to see how they'll react, he buzzes the 'roos. They scatter, of course, bounding away at a realistic kangaroo top-speed in a dozen different directions. The officer laughs, turns his airplane around to get a good look at how that's working, and then gets a nasty surprise. It seems that some of the kangaroos had regrouped, ducked around a nearby ridge and set up an ambush for him using surface-to-air missiles. He didn't see them, so around the ridge he went looking for them - and then he gets a shriek on his missile-detecting radar and the next second his simulated plane turns into a great big simulated fireball.
Yup.... the guys never quite managed to override that 'response to attack' method. Just forgot, I guess. And didn't see it in testing because they never actually *buzzed* the mob of 'roos and then got back into missile range.
The unexpected thing? The officer was delighted. He'd been looking for a way to get his pilots trained to leave the damn mobs of kangaroos alone. He forbade the americans to fix the 'error'. And the Australians actually bought that system, complete with bazooka-packing kangaroos.
Re:teh living computer (Score:3, Insightful)
If I could tell these scientists but one thing, that would be to use a great deal, a great deal of caution in what they do, and what could happen becuase of their results.
neurogenesis (Score:5, Informative)
However, with all animal brains, there comes a point in the creature's development where the death rate is greater than the birth rate. In humans it happens at about three years, if memory serves (heh). If we could manage to find the correct chemical balance to maintain an average cell count indefinately, then perhaps we could devise a dietary supplement that would have the same (or better) effect on humans...
Of course, giving a person a lot of neurons doesn't mean that person will make use of them...
Re:neurogenesis (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as the Wired article is concerned, this sounds pretty cool, but I never trust the popular press for scientific accuracy. The peer-reviewed paper will be worth reading.
Re:neurogenesis (Score:4, Informative)
Neurons grow and die all the time, and are not as "terminally differentiated" as you think. There's been a number of cases (even in humans) that provide evidence of these occurances, although not every portion of the brain supports neurogenesis.
This behavior has been observed for years. See http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issu
Re:teh living computer (Score:3, Informative)
Negligible. You have more complicated systems controlling your blood pressure, posture, digestion, etc. Besides, by the time any actual technology develops from this research, we should be able to create neurons from immortal lines of stem cells.
Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even taking your broad stroke of "animals" as non-human animals, that statement is worthless - at present, there is no way to define what you're talking about, much less measure it once it has been defined.
If animals are self-aware, the only conclusion you can draw is that they don't seem to have a way to communicate it to us. If they aren't, they can't communicate it to us no matter what. And that's al
Re:I, for one, welcome... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Rats... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rats... (Score:5, Funny)
Or to say "Mission Accomplished!"
Re:Rats... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
You don't want to think of the neurons as "hardware" exactly, either. The process of building and training a neural network is about replacing the programming component of building a system, not about replacing the hardware. Writing a piece of software to fly a plane by itself is hard work--complicated task, not easily reduced to algorithmic instruction sets. Lots of tiny rule modifications needed to the basic set of "maintain altitude and heading". The trick with neural nets is that you set up the network, and then you train it by trial and error to do the task. It programs itself, essentially.
We can and do build neural net simulations in pure software, which is where most of the research has been done so far. But neural net simulations on computers are VERY computationally expensive and take up a shitload of memory, so there are limits as to how big you can make your simulation and still do anything with it. This is a big problem, because neural nets can potentially do incredibly interesting things (like, say sentience!) if they get big enough--but we don't have computers big enough to model neural nets as complicated as we'd like.
I know the article says that these guys are only using this project to investigate how neurons work in the real world, but the potential applications of this are big. Neural nets using actual neurons, not expensive simulations, could be cheap enough to build and train that they would find commercial uses.
Re:really scary (Score:5, Insightful)
This I find fascinating. The moral ramifications are huge.
For starters if it becomes self aware, is it alive like us? If so are we no more than complex machines or is there something else?
Re:really scary (Score:5, Insightful)
What? How can you possibly assert that? I could make the same claim about you. All you are is a "bunch of neurons" that exhibits complex behavior. I have absolutely no reason to suspect that you are conscious. Sure, you act like you're conscious, but you're just saying that.
Re:really scary (Score:3, Insightful)
There you go asserting things again to which you have no proof.
[that behaviour is not as complicated as that shown by organisms that we can reasonably assume to be conscious - people.]
Do you think a baby is concious? If yes, is a cat that is able to exhibit more complex behavior than the baby , concious? Where is your dividing line?
And what is consciousness? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.ad.com/
Re:Disturbing Experiment: Who is "I"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the question even mean anything?
Years ago, patients with extreme cases of epilepsy were treated by severing the connection between the left and right halves of the brain. The theory was that this would prevent the "electrical storm" of the seizure from propagating from one side of the brain to the other. This would supposedly reduce the frequency and severity of the seizures.
As a result, these individuals had, in their skulls, two independent brains with no communication link between them (a simplification, but mostly accurate). These patients would report strange experiences, such as getting up out of a chair and walking to another room, without having any idea why they were doing it. Essentially, the two halves of their brains were functioning independently, and sometimes "fought" over what the body was going to do.
It's a very interesting question -- did the "person" go into the left half of the brain, or the right? If it went into the left side, for example, what happened to the right side? Is it now a soulless automaton? How can a single person exist in two conscious modes simultaneously? Yet these people live normal lives, for the most part.
Sadly, you are trolling. But you raise an interesting point.
Re:Disturbing Experiment: Who is "I"? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Disturbing Experiment: Who is "I"? (Score:4, Interesting)
The brain is fully functional even when sliced in two, however it does lead to some really fascinating side effects brought about by the differing functions of the two sides.
In effect, we all have two brains, they do different things but by communication we end up with a single whole brain, once you cut the CC you're back to two brains, with different capabilities. Most of the time you won't notice the difference because the brains compensate adequately, but in certain situations you can expose some truely bizarre features.
(http://www.schiffermd.com/dualbrain.html)
Here's another interesting link with details about one case which through having an unusual development of language in both sides of the brain the experimenters were able to discover that the two brains (after separation) were vastly different in thier ideas, rigt down to what job the person would like to lead (race car driver vs draghtsman!).
http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/
Re:Jesus this is scary. (Score:3, Insightful)
Something is wrong here (Score:5, Insightful)
There are certainly some amazing opportunities here to learn about how brains work, and no doubt this could help us in building better interfaces for cybernetic implants.
I just feel very uncomfortable with this kind of experimentation. It is my understanding that given enough complexity, any system has the potential to become self-aware. This plate has 25,000 neurons in a roughly two-dimensonal matrix (from the Wired article), so it's probably not even as smart as a bug so far (I am just guessing about this, does anyone have figures to compare this to?), but given enough space and time, might it not become sentient?
This reminds me of a similar experiment involving a fish brain controlling a robot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1043001.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Then again - maybe I am being squeamish for no reason. After all, if your entire existence was flying imaginary planes, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.
Re:Something is wrong here (Score:5, Interesting)
Does any complex enough system have a consciousness, just as we do? Is that "equilibrium" the system is trying to accomplish experienced as something similar to a person trying to keep their balance on their feet? As a person trying to keep their body away from a surrounding fire?
What if there is a sharp feeling of discomfort in such an artificial system when its input parameters are not within "specifications" (plane flying level)?
Can the experience of pain / discomfort always be measured from outside? Should we continue creating artificial neural networks if we can't answer that question?
Then again - maybe I am being squeamish for no reason.
Certainly not. I think these questions should be seriously considered, since we may eventually (if we haven't already) be creating a real conscious being, perhaps with no way ever of telling the outside world that it experiences a constant feeling of pain....
After all, if your entire existence was flying imaginary planes, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.
Re:No Feedback Loop (Score:5, Funny)
I will mention that to the pilot next time I get on an airplane.
Re:No Feedback Loop (Score:5, Insightful)
I am really excited about this. If we can standardize this process, this gives us a whole new in vitro method for studying how neurons learn. Then we can apply drugs, or knock out proteins, or even do fluorescent imaging on the live neurons as they think. This could be as big a leap forward in the understanding of the mind as PCR or western blotting have been to understanding the cell.
Re:No Feedback Loop (Score:4, Funny)
For a moment there, I thought you were going to say,
Re:Ethics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eat at Milliways (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just because we can? (Score:5, Insightful)
How are we to learn, if we don't experiment? These findings could directly and indirectly fundamentally improve our understanding of how the brain operates, and indeed make it so that we can study the workings of brains up close & personal without being invasive into a living creature - human, rat or otherwise.
Isn't that a good thing?
You kind of remind me of a quote from Steven Hawking regarding something the pope said..
Re:Just because we can? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it when something that can 'learn'? We have computer programs that can learn.
Is something suddenly conscious when it neurons are connected? You have neurons in your leg, is your leg conscious?
Is it something can react with the enviroment? Sperm can react with the enviroment, is it conscious?
Define what it is you are actually against. They got a bunch of cells, and made it send electrical signals in a certin way.
As you say "a wise society is one that can do something, yet chooses not to and offers their reasoning for others to contemplate." But you have offered not reasoning other than to say YOU can't ethically deal with a bunch of cells sending electrochemical reactions to a few other cells and a computer.
Personally I would happly give them 25,000 of my some 100 billion neurons (In my brain alone) if it means that in the future someone who has brain damage can have their brain repaired and have their life go back to normal.
Re:Just because we can? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, no--they don't, unless you use a really loose definition of consciousness.
The construction being used in the Florida study wasn't a brain. It was twenty-five thousand cultured neurons in a dish. (For comparison, a human brain contains roughly a hundred billion neurons; a rat brain one or two hundre
Re:Just because we can? (Score:3, Insightful)
But isn't that more or less what they did here? It sounds like they're just taking a few cells out of a rat and then growing them on a dish. We've done this for ages, growing cells and bacteria on dishes and used for all kinds of research and other things.
When you say start from scratch, to what level of co
No, because we want to. (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to give one person the blood of another. If you need blood to save someone's life, then create blood "from scratch". I "know" transfusions are just "wrong".
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to perform artificial insemination. If you want to help people who are trying to have children, you should er... create a child from scratch? Or maybe just pray for them (a lot)? Anyway, I "know" IVF is just "wrong".
Guess what, creating those things "from scratch" is very, very hard. And assuming someone put the time and effort into it and created them, what then? A neuron would still be a neuron, whether it came from a brain or from a test tube. And if your problem is with the (abstract) "mind", then how do you manage to turn off your PC? A modern computer, running a modern OS, displays more "intelligent" behaviour than many insects. Is a "mind" any less "sacred" if it's silicon-based, instead of carbon-based?
These experiments are very much right, and should have been done a long time ago. Modern medicine can do amazing things with muscle and bone and skin, but nearly all nervous and neural diseases are impossible to cure or even treat. A lot more research is needed.
Neurons are no more "sacred [serve.com]" than any other cell type (spermatozoons, for example). In fact, millions of both are wasted every second.
Re:Ethical concerns not just for the religious (Score:4, Interesting)
Ethical issues are certainly something to be considered - but this does not neccesarily just apply to biological neural networks. I dont see any reason why we shouldnt apply the same concerns to neural networks in software or silicon. Although instinct suggests to me that a biological network is going to be the most similar to the real thing and therefore more likely to offer closer similarities.
My personal take on conciousness is that it is an emergent behaviour. For example imagine a brain that is kept alive- but has never received any sensory input. Its fairly likely that it couldnt be concious - because conciousness requires processes based on accumulated knowledge. Whether that is learned by cause and effect - as a baby learns quickly what actions to get a feed. The more choices we have , the more knowledge we have and the more we are able use these things to effect the world around us or to enjoy the things in the world around us.
It is also important to consider more lowly lifeforms which exhibit conciousness. One of my favorite examples is the "Bower Bird". The bower bird exhibits true creativity. The male bower bird attracts females by collecting colorful petals, butterfly wings and other items. And by arranging these items in a specific way create a beautiful display. (experiments were performed whereby a scientist rearranged pieces - the birds would put them in the correct spot again)
Female birds then select a prospective mate by selecting the nest it finds most appealing.
What this shows is that these birds can be considered truly creative in that they can both create a work whilst also being able to appreciate the work of others.
To me this example highlights the fact that we should not make the mistake of thinking that it is only the larger - higher level animals that exhibit a complex conciousness.
Anyone interested in these kinds of issues and discussions should look at some of the work by Daniel C Dennet
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/biblio.htm
In particular his book
"Conciousness Explained"
Nick...