"A person is alive as long as the memory of him lives," said the ancients. Or as long as his own memory is alive, scientists decided. Today, when all attempts to prolong the life of the body, be it cloning or cryogenic freezing, have not been crowned with success, the world scientific community has finally found the "right direction of thought", turning to the human brain and the phenomenon of memory.
In October 2010, Raymond Kurzweil, a renowned American nanotechnology specialist, futurologist and author of voice recognition technology, said that the possibility of creating an artificial human brain already exists. And in 20 years, people will begin to preserve their knowledge and memories by creating copies of their brains.
Kurzweil's bold statement was supported by a number of successful experiments by researchers at the California Institute of Technology: they managed to discover a way to electronically record a person's thoughts.
Based on the theory that the activity of brain neurons is associated with specific objects or images, they conducted a series of experiments: volunteers were shown pictures that activated these cells.
By showing the participants in the experiment a variety of drawings, the scientists were able to isolate the neurons responsible for certain images and concepts, summarizing the indicators for each participant in the experiment into an individual database. By observing how and in what sequence specific neurons are activated, scientists were able to “read the minds” of volunteers.
However, Kurzweil's declared possibility of "copying" consciousness remained only a bold statement. Scientists faced a problem: the human brain, which is not a stationary storage of information, but a mobile and developing mechanism, reacted differently to the same phenomena depending on the situation. As a result of numerous studies, in order to copy memory, scientists did not need a medium, but a computer processor identical in functioning to the brain, which would first help to understand the purpose of each neuron and provide a model that explains how cells interacting with each other generate human thoughts and feelings. The work has begun.
The computer brain comes to life …
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It is known for certain that neurons in different areas of the brain perform their functions. The researchers focused on the visual cortex, which processes visual information. Using digital images, scientists have figured out which neuron responds to a particular visual stimulus, be it an inverted image or an overly bright image.
Studying the same area, the specialists acted on small sets of neurons in turn to see how and in what sequence hundreds of cells in the visual cortex interact with each other. As a result, a general scheme was discovered according to which nerve cells are connected, and the sequence in which they interact with each other. This method was used by scientists to recreate the basic functions of the human brain responsible for interaction with the external environment (vision, hearing, smell, touch, speech) and mental activity (memory, learning, thinking).
Using the obtained method, neuroscientists from the University of Waterloo in Canada, using the SPAUN supercomputer, have created the most complex and large-scale model of the human brain, taking into account its various functional departments. The researchers were able to simulate the work of 2.5 million neurons by recreating the prefrontal cortex (several areas of the frontal lobes), the thalamus (the area responsible for redistributing information from the senses, with the exception of smell, to the cerebral cortex), subcortical nuclei (a complex of neural nodes in the hemispheres) etc.
Information was entered through the electronic eye, visual signals entered the visual zone, and then into the thalamus, which distributed information to different parts of the cerebral cortex. The imitation of the brain also contained limitations inherent in humans, such as the inability to save long sequences of numbers and letters and quickly "switch" from one action to another.
Size Matters
As a result of the research, an absolute identity was achieved in the methods and rates of information processing between the human brain and the new computer intelligence. However, the artificial brain cannot yet “record” memories and reproduce them, and also logically comprehend the sequence of actions.
Scientists attribute this to an insufficient number of neurons, which require a lot of computers to create.
So, for example, American colleagues from the IBM laboratory managed to simulate the work of the cerebral cortex of an average cat. In order to recreate the processes occurring between 1 billion neurons in the cat's brain and 10 trillion of its synapses, scientists needed a machine consisting of 147,450 processors and 144 terabytes of RAM, which is equal to approximately 100 thousand personal computers.
How many neurons it will take to make this "brain" "intelligent", scientists themselves do not know. Indeed, in many animals, unlike humans, there are thousands of times less nerve cells in the brain, but this is quite enough for normal functioning. And what about the man? Time will tell.
"Eternal memory" and other perspectives
The creation of a computer brain identical to a human one is one of the priority tasks of modern science. The model will provide a cure for brain diseases and will reveal some of the secrets of human consciousness. Other hopes are pinned on the military project: the creation of an autonomous system of the human brain and its relationship with a twin robot will save lives in the chaos of battle or the epicenter of disasters.
After the success of neuroscientists at the University of Waterloo, Raymond Kurzweil's idea of preserving human memory gained a second wind. According to a number of scientists, the transfer of the mind to a more durable carrier is possible after expanding the functional potential of the existing model. The method of "reverse engineering" used in programming will "translate" the brain of a particular person - and with it consciousness, taking into account individual biological and chemical processes - into an independent information system.
The success of the project will make it possible not only to fully duplicate a person's memory, but also to create an exact copy of consciousness while preserving all habits, habits, way of thinking and other purely individual personality traits.
Moreover, such copies may not be one or two! And with the death of the “owner's” brain, his own “I” will continue life on an electronic carrier, and possibly in virtual reality.
Sergey ALEXEEV