Mind's Eye Re: Brain Transfers

I don't know about this case Vam - but generally in such cases there
is a brain squashed to lower regions than expected.

On 3 Nov, 04:15, Vam <atewari2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "...human brains and the minds that emerge from them have
> allowed us to create culture and civilisation..."
>
> Do you know of anencephaly - a condition when a baby is born with only a
> brain stem, but without a brain !
>
> Read up this story about Nickolas Coke of Colorado who lived without a
> brain for 3 years and died recently. The boy survived without special
> medical equipment and his grandmother recalls him *laughing *as he *played*among pumpkins.
>
> http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=...
>
> Is this consistent with the primacy you hold the brain in ?
>
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> On Saturday, November 3, 2012 6:53:03 AM UTC+5:30, archytas wrote:
>
> > The world around us is now full of knowledge (at least if we can
> > operate disinformation filters).  Potentially, we could see in 16
> > colours with some gene-splicing from a prawn and even 'see' dark
> > matter with something similar with an alien life-form evolved to
> > detect thermodynamic radiation rather than light.  There are sharks
> > off Greenland that live blind (due to an infection) that have
> > developed other perception.
>
> > Scientists are working on transferring brains to non-brain
> > substrates.  human brains and the minds that emerge from them have
> > allowed us to create culture and civilisation. We humans have always
> > augmented ourselves in the face of challenges, creating artefacts from
> > clothing to cellphones to cochlear implants. As ever, human survival
> > will depend on us being ever more adaptable.
>
> > Fortunately, we may be on the brink of fundamentally surpassing our
> > limits: there is no reason why the complex information processing at
> > the core of human experience should continue to be unique to one
> > biological implementation. Moving the functions of minds from brains
> > to other types of materials, other substrates, to become substrate-
> > independent minds (SIMs), would be an extraordinary adaptation.
>
> > At a survival level, a SIM could be embodied in a variety of ways, and
> > so would perhaps be better able to survive potential societal
> > collapse. At a human level, the goal would be continued existence of
> > personality, individual characteristics, a manner of experiencing and
> > a personal way of processing experiences. Continuity of self could be
> > assured, despite minds having novel embodiments.  This could even be
> > 'life after death'.
>
> > Most SIM work is based on "whole brain emulation".  Researchers are
> > trying to create a synthetic brain by reverse-engineering the
> > mammalian brain down to the molecular level, drawing on statistical
> > data from many animals.  Such a vast undertaking has to be broken down
> > into much smaller pieces: there are many things we need to know. For
> > example, can we get good enough resolution of neurons - individual
> > electrically spiking neurons, morphologically detailed neurons, or the
> > molecular processes going on in synapses - to make emulation truly
> > feasible.  We aretrying to build artificial neural cells, initially to
> > act as an implanted prosthesis for people who have lost brain cells to
> > diseases such as Alzheimer's.
>
> > If we tried to fine-tune and correct the parameters of the billions of
> > neurons in the human brain without a high-resolution map of the
> > "shape" of how they fire, we would probably be computing until the end
> > of time. Instead, we must break the problem down, which is why our map
> > combines both brain structure and function measurements at large scale
> > and high resolution. In this field, millimetres of tissue or anything
> > beyond a few hundred neurons is considered large.  Quite amazingly, a
> > programme to achieve whole brain emulation is emerging.
>
> > I doubt I can interest the group with the science - most is being done
> > on nematode worms - but what would a brain made by humans be?  After
> > all, we usually lay claim that what makes us 'human' comes from the
> > brain.

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