Building a brain with a supercomputer - Henry Markram

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  • TED-Talks  status
    (40%) (1 Vote)
    Views: (3479)   Date: (11-11-09)   Time: (00:16:48)
  • Description: Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved -- soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they're made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain's 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.

    Henry Markram is director of Blue Brain, a supercomputing project that can model components of the mammalian brain to precise cellular detail -- and simulate their activity in 3D. Soon he'll simulate a whole rat brain in real time.

    Why you should listen to him:

    In the microscopic, yet-uncharted circuitry of the cortex, Henry Markram is perhaps the most ambitious -- and our most promising -- frontiersman. Backed by the extraordinary power of the IBM Blue Gene supercomputing architecture, which can perform hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, he's using complex models to precisely simulate the neocortical column (and its tens of millions of neural connections) in 3D.

    Though the aim of Blue Brain research is mainly biomedical, it has been edging up on some deep, contentious philosophical questions about the mind -- "Can a robot think?" and "Can consciousness be reduced to mechanical components?" -- the consequence of which Markram is well aware: Asked by Seed Magazine what a simulation of a full brain might do, he answered, "Everything. I mean everything" -- with a grin.

    Now, with a successful proof-of-concept for simulation in hand (the project's first phase was completed in 2007), Markram is looking toward a future where brains might be modeled even down to the molecular and genetic level. Computing power marching rightward and up along the graph of Moore's Law, Markram is sure to be at the forefront as answers to the mysteries of cognition emerge.

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socratus

The process of conscious and unconscious.

My layman’s opinion.

There is a possibility of the brain activity to have
the ability to switch between conscious and unconscious.
But this process is suppressed by contact with the
cerebral cortex neurons (! ) which work in Maxwell’s regime. ( !)
( Electroencephalography shows us the Maxwell’s electrical
activity of the brain)
#
To create 'awareness' having senses and thoughts is impossible.
The senses and thoughts increase the cerebral cortex neurons
impulses ( Maxwell’s EM energy ) and doesn’t give the ability
( of something ) to switch between conscious and unconscious.
#
Maxwell’s electrical activity of the brain shows the
‘normal – not normal logical ‘ process in the brain.
To create 'awareness/ unconscious ' needs another
process – Quantum (!). 'Awareness' is Quantum process.
Very often it is only Quantum moment (!) but at this moment,
at this second the structure of cerebral cortex neurons is changes
and it means that the thought and behaviour of person changes too.
And then again the Maxwell’s electrical activity of the brain takes place.
#
" . . . the discovery is not the matter of logical thought,
even if the final product is connected with the logical form".
/ Einstein /
===========================.
P.S.
Is an 'awareness/ unconscious ' equal to a ‘discovery / enlightenment ‘?
============.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik Socratus.
============================================.

 
socratus

What is the material basis of Quantum Consciousness ?

Will Physics explain Consciousness?
===.
Our brain works on dualistic basis:
usually consciousness (logically) and rarely unconsciousness
( at first it seems illogically but at last it shows as very wise act)
In his last autobiographic article, Einstein wrote:
" . . . the discovery is not the matter of logical thought,
even if the final product is connected with the logical form".
In book ‘ The Holographic Universe’ Michael Talbot
on page 160 explained this situation in such way:
‘ Contrary to what everyone knows it is so, it may not be
the brain that produce consciousness, but rather consciousness
that creates the appearance of the brain ’
#
In our terrestrial world the Information ( some basis of Consciousness)
can be transfer to you only by Electromagnetic waves.
Lorentz proved: there aren’t Electromagnetic waves without Electron.
Therefore I say,
only Electron can be the Quantum of Information/ Consciousness.
We don’t have any other theory of Information’s transfers.
#
We know the Electron is very important particle in our live.
It acts in Maxwell’s electrodynamics.
It acts in the atom.
But how Electron acts in cell and in Outer space we don’t know.
We need time to understand this fact.
And when we understand the Vacuum and Electron
we will know the Ultimate Nature of Reality, it means we
will know the material basis of Quantum Consciousness too.
==========.
Planck and Einstein found the energy of electron: E=h*f.
Sommerfeld found the formula of electron : e^2=ah*c,
it means: e= ah*c and e= -ah*c.
Dirac found two more formulas of electron’s energy:
E=Mc^2 and -E=Mc^2.
Question.
Why does electron heed five ( 5 ) formulas?
====.
#
Now nobody knows what the Vacuum and Electron are.
1
" The problem of the exact description of vacuum, in my opinion,
is the basic problem now before physics. Really, if you can’t correctly
describe the vacuum, how it is possible to expect a correct description
of something more complex? "
/ Paul Dirac /
2
You know, it would be sufficient to really understand the electron.
/ Albert Einstein /
3
Tell me what an electron is and I'll then tell you everything.
/ Somebody /
=====================.
More details.

"... indeed an understanding of psi phenomena and of
consciousness must provide the basis of an improved
understanding of quantum mechanics."
/Evan Walker /
In my opinion it means that to answer to the question
‘ where the consciousness come from?’
we must understand not only the brain but electron too.
Once again.
Human brain works on two levels:
consciousness and subconsciousness. The neurons of brain
create these two levels. So, that it means consciousness and
subconsciousness from physical point of view ( interaction
between billions and billions neurons ). It can only mean
that the state of neurons in these two situations is different.
How can we understand these different states of neurons?
How does the brain generate consciousness?
We can understand this situation only on the quantum level,
only using Quantum theory. But there isn’t QT without
Quantum of Light and Electron. So, what is interaction between
Quantum of Light, Electron and brain ?
Therefore I say: we must understand not only the brain but electron too.
=================.
According to Pauli Exclusion Principle
only one single electron can be in the atom.
If the atom contains more than one electron
(for example - two), this atom represents " Siamese twins".
Save us, the Great God, of having such atoms, such cells.
And therefore the human brain has only one Electron.
Each of us has an Electron, but we do not know it.
As the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ says:
Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form.
They do not know My transcendental nature and
My supreme dominion over all that be.
/ Chapter 9. Text 11./
================== .
Best wishes
Israel Sadovnik Socratus
================== .

 
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