Comments on: How to Build a Brain Wrong http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/ The Official Web Site of Science Writer and Editor John Rennie Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:20:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Neurdon » Brain emulation road map … or not http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-277 Wed, 24 Nov 2010 01:08:58 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-277 [...] …. somebody has that free time. This post is an example of a collection of links to various pieces of the puzzle “road map to build a brain”. it has to be said that most of the assumptions of what is is actually needed to achieve such a gargantuan task are misplaced, or totally wrong, both from the perspective of what are the computational needs to emulate a brain (how to translate neuron’s operations in machine-compatible computations), and (may be less) from the perspective of where machines will be able to do in the next few decades. A nice critique to some of these wild assumptions can be found here. [...]

]]> By: Wednesday Round Up #117 « Neuroanthropology http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-213 Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:40:27 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-213 [...] Last week I featured PZ Myers taking down Ray Kurzweil, and the technologist’s claim that we’ll reverse engineer the human brain within 20 years (which John Rennie nicely summarizes in his How to Build a Brain Wrong). [...]

]]> By: Rimero de enlaces http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-203 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:13:53 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-203 [...] palabra “exponencial” justifica hacer cualquier predicción, por absurda que sea (más aquí, aquí y [...]

]]> By: Me http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-202 Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:51:23 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-202 The brain-as-computer metaphor makes this kind of thinking inevitable and seductive. But haven’t serious thinkers/researchers already consigned that metaphor to the dustbin?

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2007/03/why_the_brain_is_not_like_a_co.php

Sure, except when they haven’t:

http://www.science20.com/mark_changizi/why_meanings_must_be_fuzzy

This just seems incoherent and it just makes it that much easier for Kurzweilian magical thinking to persist. Turing machines can model other Turing machines. So is the brain a Turing machine, or not? The answer can’t be, “yes when it’s convenient, and also no when it’s convenient.” Scientists either need to stick a fork in this for good, or allow that it still has utility as a framework for making discoveries about the properties of the brain (and that Kurzweil-type talk may *not* be complete nonsense).

The true workings of the brain have stymied every “high tech” metaphor humans have ever had, from Greek humors to Victorian clockwork to 21st-century digital computers. Sure, those imperfect metaphors have all had their uses in moving the bar of understanding upward before eventually failing. But how much further upward can the digital computation metaphor take us? Or have we already reached its upper bounds, and now are just skewing off laterally into la-la land because no newer/better technology has asserted itself to take over the metaphorical mantle of explaining the most complex object in the known universe?

]]> By: Finance Geek » Kurzweil predicts we will create software that emulates the human mind by reverse engineering the human brain http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-189 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:49:01 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-189 [...] How to Build a Brain Wrong (johnrennie.net) [...]

]]> By: Kurzweil predicts we will create software that emulates the human mind by reverse engineering the human brain | The Equity Kicker http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-188 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:47:44 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-188 [...] How to Build a Brain Wrong (johnrennie.net) [...]

]]> By: What Ray Kurzweil and geoengineering have in common « A Fistful of Science http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-186 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:06:08 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-186 [...] Ray Kurzweil and geoengineering have in common August 17, 2010 John Rennie points me to the most eye rollingest article of the week, in which we’re told that brilliant [...]

]]> By: Quick Links | A Blog Around The Clock http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-184 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:00:56 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-184 [...] Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain and How to Build a Brain Wrong [...]

]]> By: Twitted by deborahblum http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-181 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:51:25 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-181 [...] This post was Twitted by deborahblum [...]

]]> By: NetlabLoligo http://johnrennie.net/2010/08/17/how-to-build-a-brain-wrong/#comment-180 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:33:40 +0000 http://johnrennie.net/?p=452#comment-180 Great post, thanks.

I have noticed that the singularity movement has really taken off lately, but have always had a strangely uneasy feeling about it. This even though I recognize that there are some grains of truth buried inside the concepts.

Your piece helps to clarify some of the realities underlying that wariness. And thank goodness it’s not just me… (this time). :)

-s

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