This, ahem, "experiment" has already been attempted in Britain by the notorious Kevin Warwick, a professor in the Cybernetics Dept. at the Univ. of Reading. Basically, he implanted a silicon chip "transponder" under the skin of his forearm. When he passed by certain equipment- it recognised the transponder and performed certain actions e.g. walking up to a door in the lab would cause the door to open. The cynical amongst us might point out that having the transponder in yuor pocket would cause exactly the same action, and wouldn't require surgery...
His next experiment was similar but involved attaching the transponder to the epineurium (sheath) of one of the nerves of the arm- the idea was that the transponder would pick up signals (eg the axonal activity caused by touch sensation, or pain) and then that these signals could be sent to a computer and encoded as "patterns" (eg one pattern for holding a pen, one pattern for being pricked by a pin). These patterns could then be analysed and even sent back to the transponder, where it could now act as an output device, and cause the sensation that was encoded! There was even talk of implanting Prof. Warwick's wife with an identical transplant and putting them in continual communcation, so that for example, when Warwick stroked a kitten, his wife would hae the sensation of kitten-stroking.
Not surprisingly for those of us that have neurological/neuroscientific training, the results from this study have never seen the light of day. The ideas are flawed from top to bottom. Warwick's main mistake is that his second experiment has no relation to the first. The first (having a transponder that identifies individuals) is marginally interesting, if overblown (the transponder doesn't have to be surgically implanted to work) - his idea is "The chip implant technology has the capability to impact our lives in ways that have been previously thought possible in only sci-fi movies. The implant could carry all sorts of information about a person, from Access and Visa details to your National Insurance number, blood type, medical records etc., with the data being updated where necessary."
Im sure fellow/. readers find that scary rather than necessary!
Anyway, that "experiment" (more like a beta test) doesnt logically lead to the second nerve implant. His lack of elementary neuroscience is evident here- peripheral nerve trunks are not good places to encode data- and if he did manage to "record" patterns for himself - how could he "play" them back on his nerves? A simple magnetic transponder? It would be like trying to email a GIF to someone by holding an industrial elctromagnet next to a bundle of phone-wires! And the thought that recorded patterns could be played back on another person's CNS using such crude technology is simply unbelievable.
Professor Warwick is regarded as something of a quack in the UK high-tech/neuro community, as this site, Kevin Warwick Watch, testifies. His research, however, does raise one or two interesting questions. His techniques and methods, though, are nopthing more than circus sideshows, compared to the excellent work with the mollusc neurons.
Mobious Genomics is a British company that claims to be on the verge of offering a new machine that will revolutionize gene sequencing by combining biology "with quantum physics". The "genius" behind the company, Dan Densham used to go to Med SChool with me until he dropped out to concentrate on this breakthrough. there are various semi-sycophantic articles on the web, such as this one, about how intelligent etc. he is and what a huge breakthrough his equipment will bring. I've always been wary about claims of "giant leaps" in science, especially when they come from someone Ive seen vomiting copiously following one too many beers (i.e. two) at the medical school bar. However it looks like Doc Densham (Im assuming hes got a PhD by now, even if its honorary) is getting lots of backing for his "biochip", which is great. The actual Tech is pretty hazily described, but appears to use molecular resonance- on the basis of radiation released whern a specific enzyme (helicase/primase) interacts with the base- I assume his "biochip" senses the state of that radiation as the DNA "passes through" the enzyme. Interesting.
P.S. if you're reading this Dan, do you need an electrophysiologist? G. (LOL)
The stupid thing is, the Guardian (the Observer's sister paper) reported on this guy's financial problems the week before they started spouting this rubbish.
The Guardian/Observer are reknowned in the Brit tech community as over-excitable and inaccurate (see NTK pretty much any week for details.
That was badly put. There is no in theory about it- organic neural networks don't need programming, period. Look at the locust example.
The "in theory" is whether we can create an artificial one of these organic nets. At the minute, no. It will be a long time before we build something as intelligent as a locust. But build one we shall.
Well, we better do, someday, or all that grant money will have gone down the plughole!
I understand and take on board your criticism. I know our current levels of understanding are very low, and that organic computers of any usefulness are a long way off.
My last post was a very generalist encouragement for further research in this field. What we are looking at with this piece of research is really the first rung on a very long ladder. The leech neuron to an organic computer is like a transistor to a silicon one.
A transistor can be understood by a few equations. But simplicity is both a blessing and a curse- it makes it easy to understand, implement and manufacture- but also limits the complexity of the functions it can carry out (essentially gate a 1/0 bit).
The leech neuron however, is considerably more complex, notably in it's synaptic (connective) characteristics. Add to this the added level of complexity added by the fact the leech CNS contains not one (neuronal) but TWO information processing cells (the other being the giant glial cell, see work by Joachim Deitmer in the neuro journals), which act in completely different ways, and one can see the blesing/curse of organic neural circuitry is it's complexity.
We are currently at the stage of trying to understamd a tiny tiny portion (leech neuron) of a huge whole (conciousness, I s'pose). I'm under no illusions that we are at only the beginning of a very long and difficult path. But don't discourage those brave (or foolish) enough to try. The rewards will (eventually) be great.
Sorry if I've come across a bit preachy. I just love neuroscience.
The beauty of organic neural networks is that in theory they don't need programming. One of the problems I think techie people have comprehending organic neuroscience is due to the loss of the software/hardware duality present in computing. An ideal neural network isn't "hardware" onto which one would program, at least not in the traditional way.
An organic neural system ONS) is a learning, and functioning, machine. One doesn't need to "program" the CNS of a locust for it to do it's job- control a locust's behaviour, motor and sensory function etc. The set of commands to be a locust aren't somehow coded onto a blank CNS before birth- they are the locust CNS!
More advanced creatures, like us, are slightly different. We are taught many of our more advance human functions (e.g. walking, talking) by our parents. This is the price we pay for the greater adaptibilty and plasticity of our nervous systems. The upside, of course, being our ability to master abstract conceptions and contribute to sites like Slashdot! Surely these kind of machines are worth building.
Cynicism is healthy, but I would have thought/. readers would have held a bit more hope for the future.
I am absolute disagreement with your assessment of living neural tissue vs. silicon. Comparison of conduction rates is invalid and misguided for a host of reasons, an elctrical engineer or a neuroscientist could give you a trillion reasons why each. But leaving aside that technical point, I think you misunderstand the potential advantages of neural circuit over simple semiconductor technology.
1) Complexity of input, simplicity of output.
Silicon semiconductors are on or off. CNS neurons are arranged in such a way that thousands of inputs synapse onto one neuron, which then either does or does not fire an action potential. This is an extremely elegant and flexible system. Each one of those thousand odd inputs is either inhibitory or excitatory, and also has a set strength realtive to other inputs. The beauty of this system is clear- it allows distillation of huge amouints of information into one action- the exact ability we are searching for in intelligent beings, whether natural or built by us. While this could be SIMULATED by a comparatively gigantic nmber of silicon transistors (in the form of a chip), it would never possess
2) Learning ability
Neurons and synapses are plastic. The strength of individual inputs in the CNS is continually changing, being reinforced by certain actions and reduced by others. This is the cellular basis of learnt behaviour (ok, a bit simplified). Silicon can't do this. An OS running on the silicon could be programmed to SIMULATE this behaviour, but again in an artificial, memory hungry way. Your brain doesn't have an OS, it is an OS! That is the plain advantage of organoc neural computers. A chunk of memory doesn't need to be clogged up by instructions on HOW to artificially "learn", the whole thing is a learning machine!
By the way, why are they using leech neurons? Surely they suck! (sorry, couldn't resist)
Slashdot Mirror
His next experiment was similar but involved attaching the transponder to the epineurium (sheath) of one of the nerves of the arm- the idea was that the transponder would pick up signals (eg the axonal activity caused by touch sensation, or pain) and then that these signals could be sent to a computer and encoded as "patterns" (eg one pattern for holding a pen, one pattern for being pricked by a pin). These patterns could then be analysed and even sent back to the transponder, where it could now act as an output device, and cause the sensation that was encoded! There was even talk of implanting Prof. Warwick's wife with an identical transplant and putting them in continual communcation, so that for example, when Warwick stroked a kitten, his wife would hae the sensation of kitten-stroking.
Not surprisingly for those of us that have neurological/neuroscientific training, the results from this study have never seen the light of day. The ideas are flawed from top to bottom. Warwick's main mistake is that his second experiment has no relation to the first. The first (having a transponder that identifies individuals) is marginally interesting, if overblown (the transponder doesn't have to be surgically implanted to work) - his idea is "The chip implant technology has the capability to impact our lives in ways that have been previously thought possible in only sci-fi movies. The implant could carry all sorts of information about a person, from Access and Visa details to your National Insurance number, blood type, medical records etc., with the data being updated where necessary."
Im sure fellow
Anyway, that "experiment" (more like a beta test) doesnt logically lead to the second nerve implant. His lack of elementary neuroscience is evident here- peripheral nerve trunks are not good places to encode data- and if he did manage to "record" patterns for himself - how could he "play" them back on his nerves? A simple magnetic transponder? It would be like trying to email a GIF to someone by holding an industrial elctromagnet next to a bundle of phone-wires! And the thought that recorded patterns could be played back on another person's CNS using such crude technology is simply unbelievable.
Professor Warwick is regarded as something of a quack in the UK high-tech/neuro community, as this site, Kevin Warwick Watch, testifies. His research, however, does raise one or two interesting questions. His techniques and methods, though, are nopthing more than circus sideshows, compared to the excellent work with the mollusc neurons.
P.S. if you're reading this Dan, do you need an electrophysiologist? G. (LOL)
The Guardian/Observer are reknowned in the Brit tech community as over-excitable and inaccurate (see NTK pretty much any week for details.
That was badly put. There is no in theory about it- organic neural networks don't need programming, period. Look at the locust example.
The "in theory" is whether we can create an artificial one of these organic nets. At the minute, no. It will be a long time before we build something as intelligent as a locust. But build one we shall.
Well, we better do, someday, or all that grant money will have gone down the plughole!
I understand and take on board your criticism. I know our current levels of understanding are very low, and that organic computers of any usefulness are a long way off.
My last post was a very generalist encouragement for further research in this field. What we are looking at with this piece of research is really the first rung on a very long ladder. The leech neuron to an organic computer is like a transistor to a silicon one.
A transistor can be understood by a few equations. But simplicity is both a blessing and a curse- it makes it easy to understand, implement and manufacture- but also limits the complexity of the functions it can carry out (essentially gate a 1/0 bit).
The leech neuron however, is considerably more complex, notably in it's synaptic (connective) characteristics. Add to this the added level of complexity added by the fact the leech CNS contains not one (neuronal) but TWO information processing cells (the other being the giant glial cell, see work by Joachim Deitmer in the neuro journals), which act in completely different ways, and one can see the blesing/curse of organic neural circuitry is it's complexity.
We are currently at the stage of trying to understamd a tiny tiny portion (leech neuron) of a huge whole (conciousness, I s'pose). I'm under no illusions that we are at only the beginning of a very long and difficult path. But don't discourage those brave (or foolish) enough to try. The rewards will (eventually) be great.
Sorry if I've come across a bit preachy. I just love neuroscience.
An organic neural system ONS) is a learning, and functioning, machine. One doesn't need to "program" the CNS of a locust for it to do it's job- control a locust's behaviour, motor and sensory function etc. The set of commands to be a locust aren't somehow coded onto a blank CNS before birth- they are the locust CNS!
More advanced creatures, like us, are slightly different. We are taught many of our more advance human functions (e.g. walking, talking) by our parents. This is the price we pay for the greater adaptibilty and plasticity of our nervous systems. The upside, of course, being our ability to master abstract conceptions and contribute to sites like Slashdot! Surely these kind of machines are worth building.
Cynicism is healthy, but I would have thought /. readers would have held a bit more hope for the future.
I am absolute disagreement with your assessment of living neural tissue vs. silicon. Comparison of conduction rates is invalid and misguided for a host of reasons, an elctrical engineer or a neuroscientist could give you a trillion reasons why each. But leaving aside that technical point, I think you misunderstand the potential advantages of neural circuit over simple semiconductor technology. 1) Complexity of input, simplicity of output. Silicon semiconductors are on or off. CNS neurons are arranged in such a way that thousands of inputs synapse onto one neuron, which then either does or does not fire an action potential. This is an extremely elegant and flexible system. Each one of those thousand odd inputs is either inhibitory or excitatory, and also has a set strength realtive to other inputs. The beauty of this system is clear- it allows distillation of huge amouints of information into one action- the exact ability we are searching for in intelligent beings, whether natural or built by us. While this could be SIMULATED by a comparatively gigantic nmber of silicon transistors (in the form of a chip), it would never possess 2) Learning ability Neurons and synapses are plastic. The strength of individual inputs in the CNS is continually changing, being reinforced by certain actions and reduced by others. This is the cellular basis of learnt behaviour (ok, a bit simplified). Silicon can't do this. An OS running on the silicon could be programmed to SIMULATE this behaviour, but again in an artificial, memory hungry way. Your brain doesn't have an OS, it is an OS! That is the plain advantage of organoc neural computers. A chunk of memory doesn't need to be clogged up by instructions on HOW to artificially "learn", the whole thing is a learning machine! By the way, why are they using leech neurons? Surely they suck! (sorry, couldn't resist)