Outside the Box (in which most think)

Many of you may already be familar with this subject, but for those who
aren't - and are interested - here ya go!

Pulling this link from my personal archives from 2001 ~ Janice

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

Excerpts:

"...The
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Singularity')>Singularity
is technological change so rapid and so profound that it represents a
rupture in the fabric of
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Human')>human
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('History')>history.
Some would say that we cannot comprehend the
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Singularity')>Singularity,
at least with our current level of understanding, and that it is
impossible, therefore, to look past its
"<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Event
Horizon')>event horizon" and make
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Sense')>sense of
what lies beyond. ..."

"...when the
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Human')>human
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Genome')>genome
scan started fourteen years ago, critics pointed out that given the speed
with which the
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Genome')>genome
could then be scanned, it would take thousands of years to finish the
project. Yet the fifteen year project was nonetheless completed slightly
ahead of schedule. .."

Reverse Engineering the Human Brain

The most compelling scenario for mastering the
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Software')>software
of
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Intelligence')>intelligence
is to tap into the blueprint of the best example we can get our hands on of
an intelligent process. There is no
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Reason')>reason
why we cannot reverse
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Engine')>engineer
the <http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Human')>human
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Brain')>brain,
and essentially copy its design. Although it took its original designer
several billion years to develop, it's readily available to us, and not
(yet)
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Copyright')>copyrighted.
Although there's a skull around the
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Brain')>brain, it
is not hidden from our view.

The most immediately
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Access')>accessible
way to accomplish this is through destructive scanning: we take a frozen
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Brain')>brain,
preferably one frozen just slightly before rather than slightly after it
was going to die anyway, and examine one
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Brain')>brain
layer--one very thin slice--at a
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Time')>time. We
can readily see every
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Neuron')>neuron
and every connection and every
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Neurotransmitter')>neurotransmitter
concentration represented in each
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Synapse')>synapse-thin
layer.

<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Human')>Human
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Brain
Scan')>brain scanning has already started. A condemned killer allowed his
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Brain')>brain and
body to be scanned and you can
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Access')>access
all 10 billion bytes of him on the
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/javascript:loadBrain('Internet')>Internet
...". Access that link here:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

[snip]
Received on Tue Oct 25 12:42:25 2005