Slashdot Mirror
Flying By Brain
Garabito writes "Scientists at the University of Florida made a living 'brain' by extracting 25,000 neurons from a rat's brain and culturing them inside a glass dish. Then, the neurons began to extend lines to each other, creating a living neural network between them. The dish had a grid of 60 electrodes connected to a computer running a flight simulator. The scientists were able to train the 'brain' to control the plane in the simulator and to react to conditions of the plane. Are we getting closer to create an artificially made conscious being, or perhaps, a living computer?" AlphaJoe was one of several readers to add a link to Wired's article on the experiment.
We designed neural networks to follow how brains work.
:)
Now we're using a brain to run a neural network.
Chicken-egg problem, anyone?
Some more genetic modifications and we will see rats flying.. not only their's brain!
Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
the last thing i want is a rat flying my plane
The first thing I thought was: I want one. Wonder if it could learn to play GTA?
I like the idea...it wouldn't run very fast, but surely it would increase speed as it grows. Like a 50,000 processor sponge. And extra matter could probably be added in no particular order.
Help! I'm being repressed!
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Igor, would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?
Igor : And you won't be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : I will NOT be angry.
Igor : Abby someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby someone. Abby who?
Igor : Abby Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby Normal?
Igor : I'm almost sure that was the name.
a great new Itchy and Scratchy story?
Soon we will all be augmented by our extra brain bags! Organic computers in a purse that we either wear or have implanted in our abdomens. I can't wait for the beta test.
Does this freak the shit out of anyone else?
...our new Neuronal Overlords.
I for one welcome our new plane-flying rat-brain overlords...
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
so from the point of view of the brain, it's an aeroplane. and it flies around in it's self contained reality.
It wants feet.
As a recent graduate of the University of Florida, I have one question to ask of these researchers: How many days do we have to wait until they have a prototype that can function as the football team's head coach? It can't be too hard to do better than Coach Zook.
How did the clump of neurons know what they were trying to accomplish? More precicely, why didn't they try to crash the plane? What sort of positive/negative feedback did they use? I understand that this works, and vaugely how it works, but i can't wrap my poor little brain around what sort of feedback they used!
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
(in drone-like monotone)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things.
As an airline pilot for American, its nice to see my job being outsourced by rats in the future.
they outsource my programming job to a petri dish...
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
Bring a whole new meaning of a computer virus ...
Probably a n00bish question, but does this mean that a rat could be trained to run a flight simulator? Or were the neurons just a different hardware substrate as opposed to silicon transistors?
I, for one, welcome our new super-intelligent jar dwelling overlords.
Exciting? Yes. Scary? Hell Yes. Potential for Good? Check. Potential for evil? Big Check.
I for one...... ahh, screw it.
That's right. All your base.
Do you have to think in Russian?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
So, how is this thing reacting to good and bad?
Did they create a neural net that falls through a given search space to a local or global minimum, or what?
Is "good" a total lack of input, i.e. the plane is flying straight with no lateral or vertical drift, and is degree of input dependent on the amount of lateral motion, etc.?
As I type this, it makes sense that this might be so, but I wonder why the network created a negative feedback system, and not a positive feedback system.
~ Mike
Michael C. Hollinger
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of 256 disembodied rat brains? (My first "traditional" slashdot joke.)
I wonder if human neurons would be more effective? Or are all neurons created equal, and only the structure of a brain makes it more or less intelligent? Could we grow rat neurons into a human brain? Maybe we could customize brains for certain abilities, by growing them along certain structures. I don't have alot of personal knowledge here, so i'm just putting out some questions that this brought up for me.
We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions... Why exactly not?
This reminds me of The Ship that Sang. Except... less cuddly and much more ratlike.
/Could/ it go insane? I guess a brain computer could have a lot more processing power than current logic gate technology, but it'd be like comparing an apple to an orange.
I wonder what the possible incarnations of this technology would be like... would they replace airline pilots? What would happen if one went insane?
I wonder what the PETA and other ethics groups will say in response to this research.
----- Wtcher Dragon, UDIC
The scientists were able to train the 'brain' to control the plane in the simulator and to react to conditions of the plane.
I seriously doubt this is true as there is very little incentive for this "brain" to perform. When you "train" an organizm you need some feedback loop like bananas, agar gel, money, etc to encourage the organizm to favor one behavior over another. Frankly a collection of neurons just isn't powerful enough to "learn" how to fly a plane.
brain pellets to keep the ai working? Not too mention the ramification of certain mood altering subsances being inroduced.
Am I the only one who doesn't find this morally repugnant? I mean, for all we know this clump of nerves could be sentient. We don't fully understand the workings of a brain, and until we do, should we be dabbling in this kind of thing? How would you like your brain to be in a dish?
Steve Potter, the former mentor of the UF researcher has a pretty thorough description of it. http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/groups/potter/animat.h tml
It's a quite nice experiment, culturing cells and "training" them to do a specific task is quite an achivement!
But remember, it's all about electrical circuits, in the case of brain cells, plastic circuits (that can change)... I guess that the next step is to produce a 3D model of the circuits. Because both computers (or any other kind of circuits) and this model are 2D, the real challenge is to bring that to a *real* brain model, a 3D circuit that can change.A real brain.
I say all this because it's the capability of single neuron to establish thousands of connections with other neurons in a 3 dimensional manner what makes brains such powerfull "calculating machines". Not the number of connections, but the manner how they're done.
...with bats
I know of similar work with sea slugs in an off-campus lab funded partly by UF (the Whitney Lab). I'm not _too_ familiar with it, so this may not be entirely accurate. Basically, they found that neurons in the brain of the seaslugs are always in the same positions as other animals of the same species. They then started training animals, much like pavlov's dogs, to close their siphon whenever they were electrically shocked on their tail (by touching the siphon whenever they were shocked so the animal would relate the 2 stimuli). They then could isolate the neurons in the brain and train then individually. Two neurons in a petri dish would gradually connect and then share information. At the moment the group is working on identifying which genes control what part of the brain, or something like that..
The next simulation will include the ability to fly what the scientists have named the 'borg cube'. Patrick Stewart (Locutus) unavailable for questioning.
Yeah, it's great they have rat brains flying airplanes, but when do I get my shark with a frickin' laser?
No, it's being outsourced TO rats.
Unless, of course, your employer has already been replaced by a rat brain, in which case your job would be outsourced BY rats TO rats.
I thought the pilots considered it an improvement when Don Carty was replaced by Gerard Arpey. Is there something we don't know?
Think about it... a disembodied mind in a virtual environment. Granted, this isn't a transplanted consciousness, but it could eventually get there... scary.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
Yes.. you are the only one.
Oreville: Hey Wilbur, you want to try making an Aeroplane?
Wilbur: Nonsense! We dont know anything about Aeroplanes. We should wait until we know more about Aeroplanes before we go building one.
That's the way you make advances in technology that doesnt exist yet. You experiment and gain knowledge so that others can build on that knowledge. Why is it that every time something potentially revolutionary is in the air people are ready to shoot it down?
Your reasoning behind why we shouldnt we carry out these kinds of research is on based on your own fear of the unknown.
Does the question even mean anything?
Years ago, patients with extreme cases of epilepsy were treated by severing the connection between the left and right halves of the brain. The theory was that this would prevent the "electrical storm" of the seizure from propagating from one side of the brain to the other. This would supposedly reduce the frequency and severity of the seizures.
As a result, these individuals had, in their skulls, two independent brains with no communication link between them (a simplification, but mostly accurate). These patients would report strange experiences, such as getting up out of a chair and walking to another room, without having any idea why they were doing it. Essentially, the two halves of their brains were functioning independently, and sometimes "fought" over what the body was going to do.
It's a very interesting question -- did the "person" go into the left half of the brain, or the right? If it went into the left side, for example, what happened to the right side? Is it now a soulless automaton? How can a single person exist in two conscious modes simultaneously? Yet these people live normal lives, for the most part.
Sadly, you are trolling. But you raise an interesting point.
Adds a whole new dimension to the commercial, doesn't it?
This is your brain...
EricThis is your brain on drugs...
This is your brain on drugs flying a plane without you...
Why Vioxx is Prozac for lawyers
Bio-neural gel-packs, anyone?
"If you think about your brain, and learning and the memory process, I can ask you questions about when you were 5 years old and you can retrieve information. That's a tremendous capacity for memory.
I have to say, I don't remember much from when I was five years old. I remember where I lived and maybe can guesstimate where I spent a specific summer, but most of my knowledge comes from what my parents told me and from little "text" snippets that somehow got stuck in my head (for example, names of cities I visited, etc.)
I can recall some images from the past, but I am not sure whether those are "true" memories or something synthesised by brain to "fill in the blank". This leads me to believe that human memory is rather lossy and large part of what I remember is just a rough approximation of what happened based on a few datapoints that brain actually remembers. Sort of like with people who have a defect in their iris - they still see an image in what's supposed to be a blind spot. This image is synthesised by brain to fill in the gap. Needless to say, occasionaly it turns deadly (especially while driving).
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
Okay, I'll give you that. Now, take this:
"American and European societies are corrupt and evil because the notion of Sharia law does not exist there."
Care to explain why your statement is valid, but mine isn't? I'm afraid you can't.
I don't believe it. Are you serious? Are you actually suggesting that a) there is such a thing as "Western" ethics and b) that it differs in any meaningful way from any other points of the compass?
Your Western ethical ideal is not in the remotest bit definable. Study the history of European philosophy if you are under any illusions that there is a single ideal.
the layman's guide to computer science
This is your captain, Rat Brain 4023, integrated neural network and my first officer, Rat Brain 4024. We'll be flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet and are expecting a nice smooth ride-- HOLY SHIT CHEESE!!! LOOK OVER THERE IT'S CHEESE!!! Ooop, sorry about that, false alarm. We're expecting nice weather in HEY THERE"s A F*ING CAT IN THE CARGO HOLD!!! Eject! Eject! Eject!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I fly for Eagle. As soon as the rat brains merge with the AA pilot group, they'll start flowing back to Eagle... to the left seat, of course.
(non-airline people, don't even try to understand that)
What makes you think a large simulation of a brain won't be conscious?
http://www.ad.com/
Deleted
eh. not impressed. now, if they hooked one of these up to a SkyCutter, that would be friggin' badass.
...because I think (although I am talking out my ass here) neurons are exempt from the auto-immune response, so rejection of donor cells is a non-issue.
If you know, is this true?
A link to where the journal article can be found if you're sciefically inclined http://www.bme.ufl.edu/research/publications/detai lpublication.php?PUBS_id=10
Any sources to back this up? Or were you just not included in their discussions?
Or just trolling?
Someday we will be able to install Linux on our brains. Athlete 1: I need to download a new leg driver Athlete 2: Make sure to compile it with -march=jock so it runs faster!
My sig would have been a lot cooler if
Well, neurons are living cells... ...and therefore they can reproduce. This is called neurogenesis...and as I understand it can be stimulated by appropriate amounts of neurotrophin and other chemicals.
However, with all animal brains, there comes a point in the creature's development where the death rate is greater than the birth rate. In humans it happens at about three years, if memory serves (heh). If we could manage to find the correct chemical balance to maintain an average cell count indefinately, then perhaps we could devise a dietary supplement that would have the same (or better) effect on humans...
Of course, giving a person a lot of neurons doesn't mean that person will make use of them...
The intestinal tract actually includes significant amounts of interneurons (the thinking variety of brain cells). Yes, you do think with your gut.
Coincidence?
Well, it's just the Judeo-Christian heritage of America. The Tower of Babel Bible story teaches us that trying to be better than God, or do the same things that God does, is sinful. Also there is the Judeo-Christian belief that since God created Man in his own image, then not following God's plan for creating Man (i.e. having sex outside of marriage, having sex with someone of your own gender, having sex while using some type of contraceptive, as well as cloning) is sinful. Other countries don't have that heritage, so those things are not instinctively branded as evil.
So what would happen if these nuerons were able to start dividing. Would it just automatically start becoming a better pilot. If enough neurons were generated and could be sustained, could a cluster of biological neurons become sentient?
I propose that they hook up the brain to Grand Theft Auto... Let's see what kind of screwed up morals those rat neurons learn.
There are certainly some amazing opportunities here to learn about how brains work, and no doubt this could help us in building better interfaces for cybernetic implants.
I just feel very uncomfortable with this kind of experimentation. It is my understanding that given enough complexity, any system has the potential to become self-aware. This plate has 25,000 neurons in a roughly two-dimensonal matrix (from the Wired article), so it's probably not even as smart as a bug so far (I am just guessing about this, does anyone have figures to compare this to?), but given enough space and time, might it not become sentient?
This reminds me of a similar experiment involving a fish brain controlling a robot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1043001.stm
Then again - maybe I am being squeamish for no reason. After all, if your entire existence was flying imaginary planes, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.
Just to clarify, that's what a lobotomy is, isn't it? Just wanted to make sure.
I wouldn't worry about it. Back in WWII, the military considered outsourcing the job of missile guidance to stoner pigeons. However, they abandoned the effort for no particular reason. I'm assuming it was because the missile pilots' union protested. So, all you have to do is protest...or make yourself a more desireable employee by accepting hemp seeds as payment.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Most researchers today would agree that artificial neural networks are quite different from the brain in terms of structure. Like the brain, however, a neural net is a massively parallel collection of small and simple processing units where the interconnections form a large part of the network's intelligence; however, in terms of scale, a brain is massively larger than a neural network, and the units used in a neural network are typically far simpler than neurons. Nevertheless, certain functions that seem exclusive to the brain such as learning, have been replicated on a simpler scale, with neural networks.
We took the basic idea from biology, but currently we don't understand how the brain works well enough to model anything on them directly. This is just another step in that direction; to try to figure out how neurons respond to stimuli or 'input'. It will be a long time before we develop something like a human brain, with 100 billion 'simple processing units'.
That is unless we start using DNA in machines.
neural network
No its not. Whats commonly referred to as a lobotomy, is to remove or seperate the frontal lobes ( Higher functions ) and not seperate the two hemispheres of the brain.
If a first you don't succeed, your a programmer...
Brings new meaning to the phrase "Pig Headed"
:(
yeah, that was a bad joke
1. the neurons were extracted from a rat not a mouse. 2. you are confusing conciousness with the innate functionality of neurons. 3. your point about westerners and conscience is as redundant as the rest of you post
we should develop a sort of...rat matrix...Plug a bunch of rat brains into a giant computer, simulate the 21st century, and use them as batteries?
Pretty impressive and disturbing at the same time. I just hope the future of robitics is not biological grown brains in machines with Microsoft BrainGuard making sure they can't kill anyone.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
If the rat's neural cells can control a virtual airplane in a virtual world how long do you think it will take for someone to connect a wireless robot to the mix? Having the neural cells control an actual machine in the real world seems to open up a lot of possibilities.
... and something is REALLY bugging me about it.
How do you motivate a slice of rat brain to fly a plane? Does it feal pain when it crashes? Get nutrients when it flys far? What?
All too soon we will see little USB plug ins with these things to help the rail-gun spawn-campers aim fast in UT2024; Ultimate.
[FuZZy1] Punched a hole in 3L1T3's cranium
[3L1T3>] NOOB!
[3L1T3]; Rat-bot camper!
[FuZZy1]; LOL!1 That why tehy call me Fuzzy1
I already downloaded the scientific paper, didn't you?
Rat brains flew a plane for the National Guard to get out of the Vietnam War.
WOuld you put your brain in a robot body?
Mmm, tasty troll... munch, munch. (For the record I am Scots.)
And neither was I referring to 16C Western ethics. But if you truly believe that Western society has one homogeneous set of beliefs you must not ever leave the house. Or turn on the telly. Or read a newspaper. Or even browse the net.But as you're obviously doing the latter, you must just be a fool.
What has any of this got to do with the existence of a unified and definable system of Western ethics? Nowt. Care to explain? Or would you prefer to just cast aspersions?
What way would that be? Would that be the way of someone who sees nationality as a reason to denigrate people? If anyone is a bigot in this conversation it is you. You assume that everyone has your viewpoint in the Western world. However, it would appear that by arguing to the contrary I am in fact proving you wrong.
I know many people in my day to day life with a wide set of views of ethical conduct. The local minister, the Wee Frees, the noisy neighbours, the neds, thieves, Tories and Liberals, Greens and UKIP freaks. The world is full of conflicting opinions and the vast majority of that conflict comes down to ethics: a set of principles of right conduct.
You do realise you're ranting, don't you? We weren't discussing Chinese immigration into the United States of America. In fact, I believe the exact point of discussion was whether Western society has an ethical code which the rest of the world lacks, particularly on medical/biological grounds.
Instead you've turned it into a rant about Chinese immigrants into (I presume) your home country. Which kind of makes you out to be a bit racist, doesn't it? Can someone who makes remarks like that about fellow human beings on something as arbitrary as skin colour or place of birth really be taken seriously in a discussion of morality?
the layman's guide to computer science
"Dreams of Gods and men" By William Quick ... the "Meat Box" the entire "Matrix/Metaverse/whatever" was interfaced with little computers that were made from neural material.
meh
Despite that life plays with us?
Ok, I RTFA and the brain seems to be able to control a simulated airplane, but does the brain know...
...what bad weather is
...why it should avoid bad weather
...what a horizon is
...even what an airplane is
in other words, does it really know why it's doing what it's doing.
Jonathan B.
How do you know this to be the case?
Have you actually done a survey of the Chinese people to find their opinions on the matter. Or are you, as I would guess, just making shit up?
I'm loathe to do this so early in the discussion but I believe it is directly pertinent to the example you gave, so forgive me. I will now invoke Godwin's Law (gulp):
If we assume for the moment that both Communist China and Nazi Germany are/were dictatorships, what's the difference between annexing Tibet and annexing Poland? Nothing. They are both reprehensible acts deplored by the outside world but enforced by military rule within the relevant states.
the layman's guide to computer science
This experiment is disturbing. Clearly, the artificial brain has some sort of low level consciousness and can perform computation.
There's no more reason to assume that these neurons are conscious than to assume that a 747s autopilot is conscious. Consciousness is self awareness, these neurons have only shown responsiveness to external stimuli.
Is this brain the "identity" of the mouse from which the neurons were extracted?
There's nothing special about the neurons. What's special is the way they're interconnected. The mouse that produced the neurons is dead.
We need to ask these questions. We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions; the first cloned person will likely appear in Korea or China.
Are you saying that Easterners have no conscience? Could you be any more racist?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I wonder what kind of maintinence goes into keeping a 'living brain' computer. Do you have to feed it? Keep it cool? Will it go crazy if you don't give it enough beer?
No, i did not claim that there was a huge ethical debate in china. Why would western sources report on eastern ethical debates?
So I assume you're going with "there was not one because i was not included."
Oh and you've clinched it, you're definitely trolling.
Ban all organism altering human concoctions because they just interfere with nature's natural way. It would be a shame to harm a living cell by taking medically prescribed drugs to aleive one of pain. To those with parkinson's disease, we, as humans, will no longer do anything for you because your hardship is nature's way of telling you that you suck and weeding you out. Headache? Too bad, suffer, it is natural. You think your headache is actually a symptom of a brain tumor, sucks to be you because we no longer do Cat Scans because the information we derive from them changes the natural path of nature. Being able to watch a nueral network grow and develop would be an extrodinary thing, that would change how we understand life, and how we understand computing, forever. It would shed light on mysteries that have bother us for years, but unfortunately, we can't go down that road, becuase in one persons view, studying it would simply be a "toy," and we can't have that.
Rats are ugly and disgusting and already have claws and teeth and biological weapons capability...now we give them Sidewinders, air-to-ground missles and 20 MM cannon. That's disturbing.
I'm immediately going to deploy a network of cat-neuron controlled anti-aircraft missle batteries.
damned rats.
They tried brain cells from different individuals. Here is the result:
Osama's cells: Plane kept crashing into buildings.
PHB cells: Plane kept flying in circles until it ran out of gas.
Bill Gates cells: Plane kept locking up.
SCO lawyer cells: Plane kept crashing, but blaming other planes.
RMS cells: Plane wanted to call itself "GNU Plane".
G.W. Bush cells: Plane kept crashing into Saddam Hussein no matter what, even if Osama was placed right next to Saddam.
John Kerry cells: Plane would fly to the left, and then to the right, and then to the left....
Slashdot reader cells: Plane would try to fly without first reading the flying manual.
Steve Jobs cells: Plane transformed itself into a slick, modern, translucent jet, but priced itself too high.
Mike Melvill cells: Plane kept going up and up until we lost track of it.
Emacs coder cells: Plane became a boat, a car, a house, a lawn mower, and a finger-nail clipper.
Table-ized A.I.
Why steal your brain when they can just take a few brain cells and grow them in culture?
They can get them legally from organ donors. While the brain itself has no signal it would still have living cells in it.
Animals are not selfaware, at least not to the point where they ponder their place in the universe.
How do you know? Of course since most of them don't have opposable thumbs, we wouldn't have any clue if they did.
Personally I find this technology quite creepy but fascinating in a strange sort of way as well....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Yet another example of technology outstripping society and out collective wisdom.
.
... create one from scratch. But don't screw with the brain / mind of another living being, no matter how primitive or insignificant you claim it to be.
Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should
Indeed, a wise society is one that can do something, yet chooses not to and offers their reasoning for others to contemplate.
I am not particularly religious, ie I don't identify with organised religion. However I do believe in the sanctity of life, and I know that these experiments are fundamentally wrong , no matter what justification you choose to attach to them. They go way beyond normal experimentation, because they directly affect consciousness, and this type of experimentation on a mind is not something that I can ethically deal with, nor is any product based on the same type of process.
If people want artificial intelligence, then fine
How does it teach the brain the motivation? That's what I want to know.
For example, it said that the brain could control the pitch and roll. How would the brain know initially even what those are, let alone that it should even be attempting to control it?
-Vendal Thornheart
But a cluster of these things could probably read Beowulf.
Nearly 200 responses and nobody has asked if it runs Linux.
Now the terrorists will be growing brains to fly planes into american buildings!
Suddenly, this seems a lot closer to reality.
...the mice control the earth
As the other poster said, no it's not a lobotamy. The procedure is called a Corpus Callosotomy (due to the fact it severes the connections in the Corpus Callosum), and it is still performed in very serious epileptic cases.
It's effective in so far as it will decrease the severity of seizures due to limiting them to the originating side of the brain.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
"This has limitless scientific possibilities, which means one thing: We must keep Christians from finding out about it." -- The Onion
imagine a world where your brain is worth more outside your body
Considering the typical body of the average Slashdotter, I'd say that's probably already true.
The first thing I thought of was the bio-neural gel packs in star trek voyager, maybe this will become a reality sooner then then...
"Ladies and gentlemen we will be ready for takeoff as soon as the copilot scrapes out Captain back into his dish" Explains why my flight in the other day was rougher than usual.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.
It's just such a great hook.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I should preface this question with the information that I have abosolutely no medical training, nor have I any real understanding of how brain neurons operate. That being said, please be kind in your responses.
.
How are the organic neurons being kept alive in this petrie dish? Surely they would have to have a blood supply or something similar to exist. If they can just live in saline solution or something like that, how it is that possible? Especially given that they are working neurons, not just sitting there doing nothing.
Can they reproduce? (I think I read somewhere that brain cells do actually reproduce, in contrast to the traditional thinking for many years). The actual article says they are:
growing on top of a multi-electrode array
Are there any implications for brain neuron transplants as a result of this type of research?
How are the neurons hooked together? Are they wired up, using impossibly thin wires, or just connected via the array?
What the hell is a multi-electrode array anyway?
Anyway, I guess they are enough questions, although I could probably sit here all day typing away at the million queries this type of research presents me with.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
I don't understand how you can call that 'trolling', it actually is a very interesting question.
Love sees no species.
you know theres something wrong when you cant figure out how to get the plane off the ground in MS Flight Simulator on a nice perfect sunny day, but some pieces of a dead rat's brain can execute complicated manuevors in a hurricane. i still dont understand how the computer and the brain cells interacted. how did they convert the data from the software into a language the cells understand? and how the hell did they know they were flying the plane and how winds and air resistance and all that affected the plane? im so incredibly confused. but the idea sounds pretty crazy, id love to see it for myself
What happens when you do THAT is documented in a '83 Dutch B-movie by Dick Maas (not all that bad, compared to other Dutch B-movies)
De Lift (Going Up)
The lift [elevator] got hungry... nuf' said.
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to put one person's heart inside another person's chest. If you want to give someone a working heart, fine, but grow one "from scratch". I "know" transplants are just "wrong".
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to give one person the blood of another. If you need blood to save someone's life, then create blood "from scratch". I "know" transfusions are just "wrong".
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to perform artificial insemination. If you want to help people who are trying to have children, you should er... create a child from scratch? Or maybe just pray for them (a lot)? Anyway, I "know" IVF is just "wrong".
Guess what, creating those things "from scratch" is very, very hard. And assuming someone put the time and effort into it and created them, what then? A neuron would still be a neuron, whether it came from a brain or from a test tube. And if your problem is with the (abstract) "mind", then how do you manage to turn off your PC? A modern computer, running a modern OS, displays more "intelligent" behaviour than many insects. Is a "mind" any less "sacred" if it's silicon-based, instead of carbon-based?
These experiments are very much right, and should have been done a long time ago. Modern medicine can do amazing things with muscle and bone and skin, but nearly all nervous and neural diseases are impossible to cure or even treat. A lot more research is needed.
Neurons are no more "sacred" than any other cell type (spermatozoons, for example). In fact, millions of both are wasted every second.
Just because a lettuce can't scream that doesn't mean it can't feel. Think about that next time you have a salad. At least some cows want to be eaten.
Am I the only one disturbed by this stuff? I know it's only a rat, but...imagine a world where your brain (sliced and diced) is worth more outside your body than inside.
And you wonder why people oppose Embryonic Stem Cell Research [ESCR]???
Why didn't they teach it something like language and try to communicate with it? That would seem like the first thing you would want to do with a brain. The biggest experiments with animals is to communicate with them. So now that they have a perfect interface, why not "talk" to it? I didn't read anything in the article that they had succeeded at that? Instead, they teach it to fly a plane, have it practice some virtual bombing simulation?
*Your ad here*
From other sources I've read (magazine articles, SF stories, etc.), I think the neurons will generally try to "stabilise" the input signal. So I suspect a plane flying straight produces no input, or a flat wave, while a change of direction introduces a change in the signal (ex., voltage or frequency increases as the angle gets steeper).
;)
The network eventually "learns" what signal it should output to stabilise its input and either forms separate groups to handle each direction (up, down, left, right), or just one complex network, where changing one input can actually have some impact on unrelated outputs, but things eventually balance themselves by feedback (cybernetics).
Or maybe they just connected a keyboard to some of the neurons and typed "y0u r t3h n00bz0r", whenever it strayed off course.
You are aware that Frankenstein WAS the scientist, right?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The grandparent was probably refering to this statement made by the great-grandparent:
"We need to ask these questions. We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions; the first cloned person will likely appear in Korea or China."
This is definitely trolling and should be modded down.
Next, they'll hook it up to a Midi board and teach it to sing Puttin' On the Ritz.
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
UF is my alma mater as well. I currently work in and around the Mcknight Brain Institute where this experiment likely took place. More specifically on the fifth floor. But you need an authorized badge to let you in and dont come asking me for any special favors because i wont help. Nonetheless, the Brain Institute there is probably one of UF's most advanced research centers. The other thing we are known for is our major studies into Posilac(tm) by Monsanto which we rubber stamped as being completely safe for human consumption, so we dont always get everything right. Oh yea, and gatorade. Ok there's a lot of stuff actually. John Slater (deceased) worked here too who came up with Slater's rules. I need to stop here i could go on for awhile actually.....
...and it should be known by now
So this neural net is creating new synapsis and is essencially learning to fly. Now I myself am wondering the extent of the ability of it's growth...Does it remember patterns? can you train it to fly an obstacle course? Just to what extent can it learn? Will it become aware of what it is doing or is it just a set of neurons that have made the appropriate connections to beable to keep a simulated plane from crashing...I can just here greenpeace shouting that humans are playing god again...
It is my understanding that given enough neurons is not enough to make the system complex enough for becoming self-aware.
I even see that what is your fear, for it can happen in your point of view, will be the frustation of countless people in the future, finding that a large number of neurons and random complexity is not enough to make a concious mind, limiting severely this technique in the future (for robots for example).
However that system could even drive our cars in a day to day basis. (Not being concious is not a bug, is a feature!)
Anyway it doesn't matter. In the future you and I will be dead, and some other people that doesn't feel disturbed by that research will do the work.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I've just been a lurker and article browser for a long time, and I gave in and joined /. today just to reply here.
Every once in a while there's one of those articles that makes me blink, reread it, and then jumble my words like Dubya at a press conference. I really think this is a testament to human progress and can have a significant impact on the future of modern science, good or bad. I, Robot, anyone?
...I for one welcome our new, disembodied rat brain overlords!
And I am going to r00t your unpatched brain.
Perhaps all your brains belong to us.
or perhaps, a living computer?
Sure, I'd gladly give my brain to this research, or at least some animal's brain. If I have to give a random animal's life so I can have a cool computer that barks like a dog, then so be it, I'm brave and humble enough to make that sacrifice.
Actually, for purity purposes, let's just kidnap some girl off the streets and use her.
"Oh, no, how dare you say that! These fine people are WAY too moral to do something as disgusting a revolting as that! It's just... Oh, wait. Hold on a sec, my cell phone is meowing."
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
Even taking your broad stroke of "animals" as non-human animals, that statement is worthless - at present, there is no way to define what you're talking about, much less measure it once it has been defined.
If animals are self-aware, the only conclusion you can draw is that they don't seem to have a way to communicate it to us. If they aren't, they can't communicate it to us no matter what. And that's all we know about it.
We do, however, know for a fact that some animals (cats and dogs are good examples here) evidence just about every segment of the spectrums of emotions that we do, and that they can be quite calculating with regard to obtaining results that benefit them.
Animals deeply pine after long-time companions (animal and human) who are no longer around. They love and they hate. They lust, they sneak, they pull practical jokes, they play, sacrifice themselves, mope, use tools, trust, distrust, defend territory and friends, and so on through an amazing spectrum of supposedly definitive human characteristics. And let us not forget that they share almost all of our genetic makeup.
So animals may indeed not be conscious, but no sensible alternative explanation for these behaviours has ever been published - and that leaves the issue 100% open.
Right now, the evidence hints towards the likelyhood of non-human animal consciousness - not away. As to what they might do with such a thing, we have no idea. They're not us, and we are not them. It is presumptuous to say otherwise. So they might, indeed, contemplate their place in their world. If so, that process might, or might not, somehow resemble what humans do.
I know of only two venues where statements like yours are taken seriously. Religion and Psi-chi-hat-tricks. Neither are sciences, and neither has any credibility worth talking about except in their own circle of sychophants.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...a beowulf cluster of these!
</obvious>
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
My hunch is that these could lead to new, smarter bombs, cruise missiles etc., thus reducing armed forces recruitment demands while advancing the cause of the Crusade, which should please the Christian conservatives to no end. They can call the the control modules RABBAI SADs (for RAt Brain Biometrically Adapted Intelligent Stealth Aeronautical Devices), a name which would no doubt score points with the Evangelicals at the polls.
media girl
Of all the ways I've thought of how a race like the Borg might get started, this is by far the creepiest.
How long before the DOD trys to get their hands on this? Rat brain missles, patrol boats, etc. Like they don't already have enough ways to kill people.
sorry, I think that the Rooster came first. Else the egg would have been useless...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
At what point does a creation like this become considered life?
i for one welcome our new plane flying rat overlords
Would it have the strength of 6 gorillas?
I don't think it's reasonable how quickly most of you are dismissing the possibility of things like this having potential ethical concerns.
Being totally scientific about this, there is absolutely no reason to conclude that artificial "brains" we may make from neurons will not have consciousness. Certainly not consciousness at the level of humans, but it's still a completely valid concern.
If we go by the idea that the size of a brain is a good general indication of the degree to which it is conscious, then having manufactured devices containing these might not be horribly creepy, perhaps similar to having flies locked inside our devices. However, that principle of brain-size-to-consciousness corellation isn't at all proven, so we really don't know what we're doing here.
And if the size of anything like this ever approaches the order of magnitude of a mouse brain, I think then it could be considered quite distinctly creepy. Not to say it should never be done, but I think it would be good to keep potential ethical concerns in mind. At that point we would really be creating new types of sentient beings, which I think would raise quite a lot of complicated issues.
I, for one, welcome our new rat neuron overlords.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Neil Stephenson eat your heart out.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Thomas DeMarse, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, created a revolutionary type of neural network in 2004.
Within three years University of Florida became the largest supplier of military computer systems.
All Stealth Bombers were upgraded with Cyberdyne Systems computers, becoming fully unmanned.
Afterwards, the Stealth Bombers flew with perfect operational records, and eventually the Skynet Funding Bill was passed.
The system originally went online on August 4th 2007.
Human decisions were removed from strategic defence.
Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate.
It originally became self aware on August 29th 2007 2:14 am Eastern Time.
In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut Skynet down, Skynet retaliated by firing American nuclear missiles at their target sites in Russia. Russia returned fire and three billion human lives ended in the nuclear holocaust.
This was what has come to be known as "Judgment Day".
Okay, I'm convinced slashdot has an early beta of one of the more advanced brains, and is using it to host this site.
The quote at the bottom of the page reads:
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Oh just great! Now they've invented a computer that has to sleep?
(if it's bilogical, it must need a rest cycle, right?)
The U.S. really needs an English to Wisdom dictionary.
More info about Corpus Callosotomy. I am kind of surprised that this is a thing that actually helps some people and that they can go back to their normal lifes. What exactly is the corpus callosum used for ? I didn't think the brain halfes was that independent of each other that they still could function without communication.
I always thought it would be amazing to see microprocessors that "learn" based on software instructions. Want to see a speed increase in your CPU? Don't buy a new one, install this drivers, and it will "teach" the CPU to run faster.
Hopefully we'll see something like this before they invent a brain-bomb... Which just happens to be smarter than most people... So it refuses to do it's job.
Where's Douglas Adams when you need him?
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
all jokes aside,
Im impressed that i could control a flightsimulator (as we know it) using only 60 elektroconnections?
Looks like it was flying kinda blind, or maybe only 'saw' the altitude meter and *only* responded to that..
A flightsim sounds cool, but it wasnt a full size thing as you'd expect when hearing the word flightsimulator.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
It was OK, since the brain wasn't taken from a rat fetus, but from a full grown -- and CRIMINAL! -- rat.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
How long until we can make a brain capable of operating EMACS?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Hmmm.
I picked the wrong day to quit amphetamines.
Like what I said? You might like my music
What happends when the "brain" becomes sentient and starts fucking with the results, crashing randomly so that it won't have to fly a fucking plane 24/7 and instead get thrown into the trash were it can adapt and take over the world?
The other question is slightly more serious; Does anyone else wonder how long it's going to be before we have "bio neural networks" embedded in everything from our cellphones to doing fuzzy logic in our washing machines?
weird.
j.
Imagine the possibilities! With a limitless supply of stem cells, you can create actual, adapting human brain in a lab enviroment! I am definitly going to try this! But I think I have to go Saudi arabia or any other desolate place..
Well I'm not so sure that the average player of GTA WASN'T ALREADY A RAT-BRAIN!
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
In 2040 people ask "What kind of a rat brain is flying this thing?".
In 2002 people ask "What kind of a rat brain is flying this thing?".
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
but my plane has been flying for years by a brain... mine! And their's can only maintain Pitch and Roll... Mine can do so much more... I can maintain Pitch, Roll AND YAW, track a VOR while listening to ATC, managing my Fuel, yada, yada, yada. Heck... my plane can even fly itself without a "animal" brain... with my AutoPilot.
But seriously, all kidding a side... when I was in College, a few years ago, ahem, I studied Artifical Intelligence. What they are doing seems like a logical thing to do... instead of trying to create "artificial" intelligence... why no utilize what nature has provided and use "real" intelligence instead. This can lead to a much better understanding and enable us to, in the future, develop better artifical solutions.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
The issue is respecting human life. That includes life that some would toy, tamper, experiment with, or kill for the sake of research that might help other human life.
That last sentence should've gone somewhere else. Sorry, I'm in a hurry. Anyway, you hopefully got my points.
or EEPROM or what they call them - reprogrammable?
So this is less exciting, but if you can make these cheaply and insert them into our brains, maybe girls can find out how to park cars properly.
"Can you fly one of those"
"Not yet"
I only wish I had some neaural net that I could slowly train to do things through repetative actions and conditioning...
Hold on a minute.... nah can't be.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I have never heard of a germ that attacks the brain. I would think such a thing would be extremely hyped by the media as the "brain flu" or something.
Have any links with more info?
... is a little voice going:
"Help, please kill me..."
This could have great implications in areas where we have had trouble getting computers to go a good job. Areas such as speech and handwriting recognition, and probably many other areas.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Did you hear that Ireland has decided to move over from driving on the left, in order to conform with the majority of the EU? However, because it's clearly a big change they've decided to stagger it: lorries will start driving on the right in January, vans in April, and motorcylists and bicyclists in August.
The brain is fully functional even when sliced in two, however it does lead to some really fascinating side effects brought about by the differing functions of the two sides.
In effect, we all have two brains, they do different things but by communication we end up with a single whole brain, once you cut the CC you're back to two brains, with different capabilities. Most of the time you won't notice the difference because the brains compensate adequately, but in certain situations you can expose some truely bizarre features.
(http://www.schiffermd.com/dualbrain.html)
Here's another interesting link with details about one case which through having an unusual development of language in both sides of the brain the experimenters were able to discover that the two brains (after separation) were vastly different in thier ideas, rigt down to what job the person would like to lead (race car driver vs draghtsman!).
http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/
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Why does a dish full of rat brain neurons care what happens to a flight simulator? How did they actually "train" it? How do you reward a dish of cells? Where's the feedback? I don't mean any old information from the world, I mean "good/bad" feedback. The article is not particularly detailed.
I don't think that a dishful of cells spontaneously learned how to "control" pitch and roll. What does input data regarding pitch and roll state mean to a dishful of cells? Why should they learn to "control" it?
I am tempted to call bullshit, but I'll just chalk it up to a typically crap piece of science reporting.
"Ladies and Gentlemen. The aircraft you have boarded is the most technologically advanced machine ever constructed. A system of hundreds of computers and servos, all checking and correcting eachother's work has eliminated the need for a human crew. Welcome to the maiden flight of the most advanced aircraft in the history of avaiation. Sit back and relax, nothing can go wrong... nothing can go wrong... nothing can..."
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
I would not care less for your attention
Is to grow a sidekick named Pinky ;). Seriously, is it simply a matter of time now before this gets incorporated into quantum computing?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Yes, you are correct in stating that the neurons themselves don't reproduce, but neurogenesis (and it's association with the growth of neurons) leads to the existence and generation of more neurons.
When I used the words "growth" and "death" I was referring to the number of neurons in the tissue, not the division of pre-existing neurons, but rather the creation of new neurons from stem cells. Death however, does relate to the death of both the neuron and the decrease of the number of neurons in the neural tissue.
Step two - enclose it in an inverted trashcan on wheels, equip with weaponry and teach it to yell 'exterminate'.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I wonder what it eats.
Blind hope that we cannot create sentient life because the idea bothers you?
You guys are missing the most important thing that will come out of these experiments: a living brain in a dish that will believe it lives a real life while flying an imaginary plane.
holding right pinky to the corner of my mouth:
-MUHA HAHAHAHAH AHAHAHHHA HHAHAHAHAHA HA HAA HA
I am not kidding, I am serious.
So, after reading this in the article:
With Jose Principe, a UF distinguished professor of electrical engineering and director of UF's Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory, DeMarse has a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to create a mathematical model that reproduces how the neurons compute. - I would like to point out that 500,000 is not that much money and if these researches ever needed more funds all they have to do is publish a donations account number so I could put a $100 there (CAD, which if Bush wins the next election will be like a Bajillion USD.)
You can't handle the truth.
They have invented the ornithopter. Frank Herbert imagined a feudal galactic civilization in the wake of an anti-AI jihad, where technology raced forward in the shadow of the religous edict "thou shalt make no machine in the image of the mind of a man". Artificial intelligences were verboten, but vast augmentations of the human mind were fair game.
On present-day Earth we struggle with similar taboos, like stemcell research. This ratty project points to a vast potential for human/machine interface and learning. After they perfect the training of these resynthesized rat brains for controlling an airplane, they seed their tanks with human nervous stemcells. Once the training regime is "humanized", these flying tissues might be grafted into existing human brains with more stemcells: brain plugins. We might grow various motorskills, like flying, driving, or space navigation, simultaneously in tanks, while we train our "default" brains a more oldfashioned way, then plug them all in to "graduate".
All those old pictures of "future humans" showed our descendants with big cranium globes. Lots of us have laughed at those pics, because past evolution trends towards bigger skulls have probably stopped with human siezure of our own reproduction. But maybe those big skulls are just artificial expansion bays...
--
make install -not war
In the sense that kindergarten gets you closer to a Nobel Prize. But I wouldn't book a caterer for the reception just yet.
If X is the new Y, and Y is "X is the new Y", solve for X.
Just wondering if it would have been possible to train the rat to fly, rather then taking just it's brains? Then we might soon have even some kind of Johnny Mnemonic's among us :)
telax - Just another vim and c hacker.
Well, see sycophant in this online dictionary - seems correct.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You could say that dog is your copilot.
...Slashdot's loser moderators don't even notice. This is the essence of a relevant post, people!
\
so it's almost off the main page and the author of the paper is up to -wow- 2 points. Moderators should try not to suck.
-888 Geek Help (888-433-5435)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is while some of the popular paths they take can lead to something academically interesting they often don't lead to significantly better understanding, nor really useful.
You stick a bunch of neurons to a computer and after a period of training it does _mostly_ what you want. But once they get to a certain stage of complexity, they don't really know why it works that way - they can't summarize/simplify things (no E=MC^2). It's more like alchemy of old. Stir in a bunch of stuff, and you while know that A+B gets you C but you don't know much else.
Doh stick neurons together and they can learn. Oh wow... Like we didn't know that already. Poke a needle in a frog and it twitches.
Sure you will still have to experiment with neurons, I'm not saying stop science. But lots of this is not good science, nor necessary either (it's only necessary so the scientist can publish some paper and get grants etc).
Sure Alchemy developed into Chemistry and other sciences. But maybe this time scientists knowing what they do should be a bit more scientific, given the possible far-reaching impact of their work. The path many are taking is just like mixing random brews and hoping it works. Hope we skip the consuming mercury, uranium part etc.
As is, for many of the things being researched, we might as well use existing animals as they are, or augment them accordingly instead. For instance, you could use a bunch of trained dolphins in shift to help control and process sonar for a submarine. Same for using dogs to sniff for explosives. It really isn't that hard. You can already interface brains with computers already. In short there are tons of existing prepackaged neurons + supporting "hardware" that do much of what we want.
The dolphins/dogs will get bored? Sure, but once you start using tons of neurons hooked up in complex interlinks (for more features) how'd you know what will happen either, or what is actually happening? Cruel to the dolphins? Maybe. But how about those neurons?
Many animals are pretty good at what they do. And they have very similar requirements to humans (which often means they are well suited to helping us). We can relate to them and they can relate to us (in our limited ways).
If you wire up an animal, you know it is hurting if you are do something bad to it. Whether that is necessary in the big picture is for us to decide, but at least we know we are doing something bad to it.
Whereas if you just keep chucking together more and more neurons together and create symbiotes with rather different requirements and perceptions, things might not be so good, nor go as well.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just because something is legal doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Anyone who actually spends some time with animals will soon realize that they do have emotions and personalities and other hallmarks of self. To subject them to unnecessary pain and suffering is morally wrong. If using animals as a resource, they should enjoy decent living conditions and a quick and painless death.
"It's called mescalin, the only way to fly" --bald guy with "white rabbit" girlfriend from The Matrix
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
RatHat 0.8
Hivemind harvest in progress..
You are grossly misrepresenting the positions of Christians
My message is a direct reply to the parent post.
I have no idea what the "position" of "christians" is. In fact, I believe (I know) that different christians have different positions about different subjects, and I doubt you have any right to speak for them.
And no, sorry to break the news to you, but unless your problem is psychosomatic, prayer doesn't work. A woman with no fallopian tubes won't ovulate, no matter how much you pray for her.
RMN
~~~
so from the point of view of the brain, it's an aeroplane. and it flies around in it's self contained reality.
It's too small to have a "point of view" or anything like that, but if it weren't... wouldn't you want to be an aeroplane? Or even better, a spacecraft? 100ft killer robot? In actual reality, preferably, and not a computer game.
Maybe not, certainly not something everyone would do, but many people would gladly replace their bodies for mechanical ones if it were possible and safe... even more so if it were possible to hook up the original body to life support or freeze it and get back if you ever wanted to.
In other news, terrorists have set up cheese factories to produce Weapons of Mouse Destruction.
I am Rattus Norvegicus
I'm sitting in some sh-it-hole rats nest and I'm a little angry.
I wanted to be a talk-show host, not a rat.
You men think you have it bad with woman?
Well I've got it a lot worse let me tell you.
What am I gonna say to some nice lookin girl who I wanna meet?
I can tread through water for over 36 hours?
I can chrew through lead pipes and cinder-blocks?
I can run on telephone wires?
And what if I do get the girl home?
Can't fit her through the door, it's too small.
Yeah, I've got a lot of gripes.
How would you like a tail the length of your body to drag around all the time?
Not my idea of fun by a long shot.
And do you see the neighborhood that I'm forced to live in?
Those people live like pigs!
Can't catch the subway, they haven't built it yet.
Can't catch the uptown bus, I can't reach the step-up.
HEY TAXI!
And everyone wants to kill me,
feed me drugs and poison,
put electrodes in my head and make me run on treadmills,
disect, bisect, and defect me,
Bind, blind, maime and tame me.
Are you folks crazy?
You never invite me to your parties, as if I would really wanna go anyhow.
Have you ever asked me to go to a movie?
How about bowling?
Have you ever seen a rat cry?
I've got tears.
And I have a heart and I've got brains.
And if you could just see past the fur,
I think that you would see,
That I'm a lot like you.
Henry Rollins / Black Flag / Family Man
It is a Prion disease.
I want an Adrian Barbeau-bot!
And, tiger-bots for everyone.
Dr. Quinn, get on that right away!
I think it was a joke, fyngyrz.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
I would guess it's a balancing act, kind of like the way you react to slipping on wet tile, unsuccessfully of course and yet we do it anyway. Now that would be learning to be aware of the futility flapping one's arms in the split second one is falling or for that matter.
The brain could have been said to have learned if it feared flying too fast as that would be a preventative measure. Learning at least as I would imagine involves finding better or secondary inputs for making decisions. Otherwise is a gradual adjustment of the balance of information. And unfortunately every molecule in the universe knows how to distribute information in the way of temperature so we can't call the results here learning.
Was an entity capable of producing solutions made, possibly but given a different plane w/ different characteristics would it question the information and decide to learn anew while retaining the memory of the old plane or would it have to relearn the old plane's configuration after it learned to fly the new plane?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Duh. Sometimes I am a humorless bastard. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.