Scientists Threaten to Boycott €1.2bn Human Brain Project

Heated debate over a high-profile project of the European Commission to simulate the entire brain on a supercomputer – a long needed “paradigm-shift” in neuroscience, or an over-hyped, over-funded boondoggle destined to fail, at the expense of other smaller, cheaper, less sexy researches?

Researchers say European commission-funded initiative to simulate human brain suffers from ‘substantial failures’

From The Guardian 

Many researchers refused to join on the grounds that it was too premature to attempt a simulation of the entire human brain. Photograph: Sebastian Kaulitzki /Alamy

The world’s largest project to unravel the mysteries of the human brain has been thrown into crisis with more than 100 leading researchers threatening to boycott the effort amid accusations of mismanagement and fears that it is doomed to failure.

What Makes a Mind?

By Dr Llewellyn Cox, Principal, LieuLabs

ASK a person to describe themself, and they will probably recite a list of their physical features — their height, weight, the color of their skin, hair, and eyes. If they’re more a more externalized type, they might mention their job, sexuality, religion, or a major life achievement. Some might feel a desire to be precise and catalog their external features: their eyes, face, arms, hands, legs, feet, fingers, and toes for you.

Few will ever mention their brain.

The Non-Science of Transcendence

By Dr Llewellyn Cox, Principal, LieuLabs

Why Your Mind Will Never Be Uploadable.

The rise of computing and the exponential rate of increase in processing speed pose an intriguing questions for scientists; what happens when computers become smarter than their human masters — the so-called “Technological Singularity”. Will machines take over? Would they turn on humans and destroy us? Will we increasingly integrate computing modules into our bodies to cure disease or enhance our natural abilities? What effect does all of this technology have on issues of equality and power among the various members of the human race?

One of the popular philosophies attached to this futurist realm is the idea of transcendence (now a major motion picture!). That is, the concept that a person’s mind could be digitally uploaded to a computer, thus “transcending” the limitations of the biological body to acquire immortality. It’s a relatively widespread idea that has been written about extensively in popular science literature, even making a cameo in an episode of “The Big Bang Theory”. It is also a major theme for followers of Transhumanist philosophy. As the world focuses more and more on the implications of our technological development, transcendence is becoming one of those concepts in popular science that are so widely-known that they become accepted as inevitable, regardless of the state of current scientific knowledge regarding their actual feasibility. Fortunately, no one reading this in the early 21st Century will achieve immortality by uploading their mind to Amazon.

Futuristic Opera “Death and the Powers” Asks Life’s Oldest Questions, with New Dimensions

Since the emergence of human consciousness,  mankind has been grappling with two eternal questions:

• What is life and where did life come from?
• What is death and what happens after death?

These questions gave rise to religion.  They also endure in works of art.

Paul Gaugain inscribed this on one of his masterpieces:

D’où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous

(Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?)

“Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” by Paul Gauguin

E.B. White asked in “Charlotte’s Web”:

“After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.”

Photo by: Nathan Hunsinger

For fellow humans living in the 21st century, composer Tod Machover asks these existential questions again in a futuristic opera “Death and the Powers“, a production of the MIT Media Lab where he teaches Music and Media.

Two Neuroscientists & A Question: Will We Ever Understand The Brain?

Rhonda Shrader, published originally on Essinova Blog, December 6th, 2011

With more than ten billion neurons, each connected thousands of times, the brain has been described as the ultimate social networking tool.

Two of the world’s top neuroscientists took center stage at the Bay Area Science Festival to discuss this complex topic, co-sponsored by Swissnex SF.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine. He’s also a popular author whose most recent book is Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain.

Henry Markram is director of the Blue Brain Project at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as well as a coordinator of the Human Brain Project.