CYBORG HUMANITY

I was struck that of the “important ethical issues” Henry Markram refers to regarding building a completely simulated human brain in “The Human Brain Project,” the only one he raises is that of a superintelligent nemesis being created. He does not appear to consider the ethical obligations we would have toward the mind we had created. I worry about the precarious humanity of the minds we would create and about the humanity of the researchers who could, with the touch of a button, give a being with memories and an expectation of the future—if this all works as Markram hopes it will—autism, schizophrenia or a progressively degenerative disease. Who will turn off the simulation when the virtual mind begs them not to?

Robert A. Rushing
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign

Markram glosses over the key potential benefit of the project: understanding the human brain may allow us to augment intelligence and eventually create superintelligent nonbiological humans.

It also raises a key metaphysical question: If the simulation of the human brain is deterministic, how can it have free will? Or is it impossible to fully simulate human cognition on a deterministic machine?

Dmytro Taranovsky
Woburn, Mass.

SUPERNOVA MYSTERY

Avishay Gal-Yam's “Super Supernovae” discusses how stars once thought to be too massive to explode have resulted in supernovae more powerful and longer lasting than any previously observed.

Gal-Yam describes how the production of electrons and positrons removed such stars' supporting pressure of gamma rays, leading to their sudden collapse. But he didn't say what happens to the positrons. Wouldn't they collide with the electrons, be converted back to gamma rays and thus restore support for the star?

Also, do gamma rays from a positron-electron reaction have a characteristic wavelength that can be observed?

David Smithvia
via e-mail

GAL-YAM REPLIES: Indeed, positrons produced in the hot core of the star will eventually annihilate with electrons and produce pairs of gamma rays with a particular energy equal approximately to the rest mass of the electrons. This process takes time, however, which means that at any given point, the energy (that was previously completely carried by photons) will now be distributed between photons (which provide pressure) and electrons and positrons with energy dominated by rest mass (which do not). Thus, the overall pressure drops, the core contracts, and so on.

The gamma rays produced by electron-positron annihilation do have a characteristic energy (511,000 electron volts, or 511 KeV), but they are unobservable because the envelope of the expanding star is not transparent; the gamma rays interact with electrons and ions in the outer layers of the expanding, exploding star and are converted to lower-energy photons, which we eventually can observe as light.

PUBLISH AND PERISH?

“Waiting to Explode,” by Fred Guterl, addresses the controversy over publishing two recent studies on the development of H5N1 flu strains that are transmissible among mammals (both studies have since been released). As a scientist, I initially felt it was necessary for all the H5N1 bird flu results to be released: publications allow other scientists to continue projects, and researchers have a responsibility to communicate their data to other scientists. After careful consideration, however, I now feel that submitting all the data was a mistake. The results from this project could help terrorists perfect an airborne delivery system to infect humans.

The solution to this problem would have been to publish some of the scientific findings but restrict the key elements—namely, precisely how to make changes to the viruses that would create an airborne entity. These undisclosed methods could have been shared on a case-by-case basis among researchers, which would have allowed for the continued examination of data among responsible parties trying to enhance public health.

3 Comments

1. 1. tharter 11:48 AM 9/22/12

   @Dmytro Taranovsky
   
   Who says the human mind is non-deterministic?

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2. 2. RSchmidt in reply to tharter 12:04 AM 9/23/12

   Exactly. All evidence suggests the brain is deterministic while also being highly stochastic and that there is no such thing as free will; defined as non-caused behaviour. Deterministic and stochastic? Biological processes make the brain very noisy but neural networks have the unique feature that finds patterns in noise. It is these patterns that give rise to behaviour. What the brain does not seem to have is a way to create behaviour that is not derived from sensory stimuli and stored patterns. So there is no evidence for free will. Ultimately an android/gynoid will have just as much free will as you and I. It will be a product of its substrate and programming. Though I imagine that it will be far less stochastic and therefore more predictable.
   
   The way I see it there are two parallel paths that are slowly converging. The one path has biology being augmented and later enhanced by machinery. Pacemakers are one of the early examples of this. Prosthetics are another. Eventually the prosthetics will be better than the real thing and laws will be implemented to prevent people from discarding healthy tissue in favour of machined parts.
   
   The second path is making machines that behave more like biology. Creating machines that think like people and other animals but that can do things too dangerous or boring for people to do. Our need to interface with them and their need to function in a world made for people will drive them to be more and more like us. But humans did not evolve in the modern world and so civilization can be somewhat difficult for us. The machines though will be custom built to live in our world. It will be a perfect fit. So what happens when you have two species sharing an environment and one is better adapted than the other? At the convergence of these two paths we loose the ability to distinguish between biology and technology. Perhaps that is when humanity builds his/her true legacy. Humans value their ideas and visions above their biology. I am not my bad back and body type. I am my personality and values. Yet if I were to have a child I would likely pass on my bad back and spend decades trying to pass on my values. Machines would be the other way around. We could give them what is best about us and leave behind the biology that makes us jealeous, greedy, lazy and spiteful.

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3. 3. vinodkumarsehgal 01:02 PM 9/23/12

   A simple thing : Simulation of brain does not amounts to simulation of Mind. It is not possible to even map all the depths and mysteries of Mind in a single Human individual. Human mind does not follow the strict mechanistic model where its functions and behavour could be predicted. Any person can not predict with certainty regarding nature of thoughts arising in his/her mind even after 24 hours. Intelligent is not the only aspect of Mind. There are many many other aspects of mind -- memories, imagination, emotions, hopes/expectations, personality traits, intuition power and so on so on. which can not be even mapped completely in human mind.
   
   Neuro science follows a very simplistic approach when it traces the origin, evolution and history of Mind in Brain
   It is difficult to conclude if Mind follows deterministic or free will path. I think whenever any thought is created, that could be the product of either free will or deterministic factors or both. We do not have any subjective or objective methodology to determine this.
   
   In view of above, it appears that even if Human brain is simulated sometimes in future, this simulation shall be limited to some mechanistic functions only. But Mind apart from mechanistic functions is a deep respository of non-mechanistic functions. Leave aside simulations of Mind, it is not possible to manipulate Mind even thru neuro interventions. Had it been possible, all the hate, enmity, selfishness, distrust could be eliminated from World and many of its problems over

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