09 October 2006

Creating Consciousness?

Just to flag up something to keep an eye on.
Next month, IBM is set to activate the most ambitious simulation of a human brain yet conceived. It's a model they say is accurate down to the molecule. No one claims the "Blue Brain" project will be self-aware. But ...

There are potentially ethical issues here, like what the status of 'it' would be if consciousness were to arise. But it may take quite a while, presumably the simulation would have to take time to develop and a bodily experience would need to be simulated, and it is arguable that human consciousness is, in any case a shared thing and that a single brain without social [largely mimetic] context is unlikely to amount to much.... but maybe they've thought of all that.

The Connection.org : The Ethics of Creating Consciousness: Filed in: , , , , , ,

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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"

 I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...