Blue Brain lead: Stop calling it a brain simulation!

[superluser]

[I don't want to necro the old thread because it's been two weeks, but I thought this was interesting]

Henry Markram, the lead on the EPFL Blue Brain project, took umbrage at the publicity IBM's project received last week:

[IBM CTO Bernard Meyerson] told me you would string this guy up by the toes the last time Mohda made his stupid statement about simulating the mouse's brain.

I thought that having gone through Blue Brain so carefully, journalists would be able to recognize that what IBM reported is a scam - no where near a cat-scale brain simulation, but somehow they are totally deceived by these incredible statements.

So while I don't work in this area, it seems like the analyses made by futurist wonks are (predictably) inaccurate.

[Alondro]

Calling anything a proper brain simulation is nonsense.  Neurologists still don't understand how the hell the brain stores information in the first place.  It certainly doesn't operate on 1's and 0's. 

A quantum computer might come closer.  It seems the brain may operate on quantum principles, because once you get down to synapse-level, your getting close to molecule-size information processing and quantum principles begin to affect the system.  Ion channels sponataneously open, ions pass back and forth through the membranes, random electrical potentials jot around.  A computer can barely manage to simulate a few neurons working together, and that requires a huge program to cover enough of the variables.

Something the size of a cat brain, with hundreds of billions of synapses and virtually innumerable proteins and genetic pathways in action throughout the system, would surpass the capability of even the most advanced computer with the largest memory in history.

And let's not forget that to simulate the brain, you must also simulate those system tied directly to the brain.  The eyes and ears and nose have very short paths directly to the brain.  The signals and feedback from those sensory neurons are intertwined in the brain's function.  Plus, there are the complex arrays of hormones and peptides, which have been demonstrated in many cases to act as neurotransmitters and powerful regualtory molecules in the brain. 

And then there is the support cell network, the astrocytes and oligodendrocytes and other glial cells, which also add their own signals and functions to the mix.  And they VASTLY outnumber the neurons!

A true brain simulation must account for ALL these interrelated systems, otherwise it falls far short.

[MT Hazard]

Perhaps they just need something that sounded good and 'brain simulator' was the closest to what they were actually doing. The majority of the public don't understand a lot of what this sort of thing is about anyway, that or they want it broken down into simple terms. People constantly reinterpreted thing that are said to them anyway.

For example if you stop some one doing something because it is dangerous and if they got hurt they'd sue you, they will often interpret this as 'health and safety gone mad'. It doesn't help that 'health and safety' is often used as an excuse when the real reason is 'laziness and tightfistedness'

Also
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."

- Bertrand Russell

I appear to have gone off track...

[Alondro]

For example if you stop some one doing something because it is dangerous and if they got hurt they'd sue you, they will often interpret this as 'health and safety gone mad'. It doesn't help that 'health and safety' is often used as an excuse when the real reason is 'laziness and tightfistedness'

This kinda applies to Darwinian ideas and my other post.  But this is my sort of Darwinism:  keeping anything legal that allows stupid people to sterilize themselves.

For instance, fireworks.  If you are dumb enough to shove an M80 down your pants, you don't deserve to have children.