The convergence of AI, NNs, prosthetics, robotics & quantum theory
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Brian
Created by Brian J Flanagan Apr 26, 2008 at 8:44am. Last updated by Brian J Flanagan Apr. 28, 2008.
Started by Melanie Sauer Apr 3.
Started by Brian J Flanagan Dec. 27, 2008.
Started by Brian J Flanagan Nov. 16, 2008.
by David Gelernter, 06.22.09, 06:00 PM EDT, Forbes
The two major mystery-boxes of mind-science (each decorated with an intriguing question mark) are "consciousness" and "thought." Both mysteries are notoriously hard to unravel, but computing ought to help us understand thought, which is (on one level) a process or series of actions--like computing itself. Consciousness, on the other hand, is a state of being--and, despite the best efforts of theoretical AI, there is no reason to believe that a computer will ever achieve this state, or that software can bring it about.
As far as we know, consciousness can only be created by a mind, and a mind can only be realized by a human's (or some other advanced creature's) brain and body working together. If, in the near future, a grinning robot should walk up to you at a party and say, "Hi, my name is Bob; pleased to meet you," you'd be apt to cut it some slack and assume that it really is--on some level and in some way--"pleased." But in fact there's no reason to believe that any robot is pleased to meet you or ever will be, has ever been pleased to meet anybody, or has ever experienced the state of mind we call "pleasure" under any circumstances at all. So far as we know, software cannot re-create the sort of inner mental world human beings inhabit.These I call original or primary qualities of the body, which I think we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz., solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number.
Secondly, such qualities which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colour, sounds, tastes, etc., these I call secondary qualities.
History teaches us
Quanta & Consciousness
Field Effect Technologies

The computers of tomorrow could be quantum not classical, using the quantum world's strange properties to vastly increase memory and speed up information processing. But making quantum computing parts from standard kit has proved difficult so far.
Now physicist Leonardo DiCarlo of Yale University, New Haven, and his colleagues have made the first solid-state quantum processor, using similar techniques to the silicon chip industry. The processor has used programs called quantum algorithms to solve two different problems. The work is published in Nature1.
The latest piece of the puzzle is superoxide, an oxygen molecule that may combine with light-sensitive proteins to form an in-eye compass, allowing birds to see Earth’s magnetic field.
“It connects from the subatomic world to a whole bird flying,” said Michael Edidin, an editor of Biphysical Journal, which published the study last week. “That’s exciting!”
The superoxide theory is proposed by Biophysicist Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lead author of the study and a pioneer in avian magnetoreception. Schulten first hypothesized in 1978 that some sort of biochemical reaction took place in birds’ eyes, most likely producing electrons whose spin was affected by subtle magnetic gradients.
Weird Science
Separate brain regions firing in unison may be what keeps us focused on important things while we ignore distractions.
A deluge of visual information hits our eyes every second, yet we’re able to focus on the minuscule fraction that’s relevant to our goals. When we try to find our way through an unfamiliar area of town, for example, we manage to ignore the foliage, litter and strolling pedestrians, and focus our attention on the street signs.
Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that the brain’s control center syncs up to its visual center with high-frequency brain waves, directing attention to select features of the visual world.
“It’s been known that the prefrontal cortex plays an important role in focusing our attention, but the mystery was how,” said neuroscientist Robert Desimone, who led the study, published in Science Friday. “Now we have some insight into how it has that focusing role — through this synchrony with our sensory systems.”
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Let me just point out that I've been arguing for years that this kind of synchrony would be essential to preserving the phase relations of incident waves/vectors -- and necessary for building up conscious representations of the environment, as is most easily 'seen' in vision.
The quantum-mind program has gone mainstream, with leading universities hosting symposia on the subject. Where to from here?
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