[This is an important report, though the Viola Vogel comments are from someone who is in part a nanotechnology critic. For instance, Vogel calls simulating a human mind on a computer a "nightmarish scenario," though it seems to me to be an inevitable and unobjectionable step. Forwarded from a related mailing list, apologies for the bad formatting. --Declan] ********** Here is the final report of an NSF conference on "Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, NSF": http://itri.loyola.edu/nano/societalimpact/nanosi.pdf On pages 146-147 one finds: SOCIETAL IMPACTS OF NANOTECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION AND MEDICINE V. Vogel, University of Washington ... Science fiction rather than reality: The popular press has often aired heated discussions by the author Ray Kurzweil and others about the idea that it will soon be possible to scan the human brain and essentially transfer its neural activity to a computer designed to simulate billions and billions of human neurons (Kurzweil 1999). This fantastic thought is based on a series of assumptions, some of which are reasonable extrapolations of future technological abilities. Others, however, completely neglect how little is still known about how the mind works. Imaging technology may indeed reach microscopic resolution, which may reveal individual synaptic contacts between nerve cells. If Moore's law can be extrapolated, computers will achieve the memory capacity and computing speed of the human brain by around the year 2020. Computer experts were therefore quick to postulate that copying the 3D neural circuitry of the human brain would become possible with these powerful computers and advanced imaging technologies. Once this is achieved, they claim, it will be possible to simulate first the brain and its function and eventually the state of the human mind, complete with its memories, emotions and creativity. But it is important to remember that these nightmarish scenarios are put forward without any real biological understanding of the brain. For example, these scenarios rely on the assumption that the brain is nothing more than a hard-wired neural network, and that knowledge of the 3D brain architecture would be sufficient to assess its functional states. This may be the case for nematodes — the worm C. Elegans has a nervous system consisting of 302 neurons whose connections are all known (White 1986). But the brains of higher vertebrates have fundamentally different system architectures than computers. Furthermore, single neurons are highly nonlinear systems. Single neurons in the cerebrum can make more than ten thousand connections to other nerve cells. The picture gets even more complex with the recent findings that higher vertebrate brains show plasticity. Plasticity is the ability of a system to change its structure and/or function in response to injury, the environment and/or other changing conditions (for further readings see Jacobs et al. 2000; Malinow, Mainen, and Hayashi 2000; Poldrack 2000; Simos et al. 2000; Tramontin and Brenowitz 2000). Given this complexity of the brain, a scan of the brain will not allow a read-out of the human brain's mind nor its memory. A century ago, society was embroiled in an almost parallel controversy as to whether the future was completely deterministic and calculable based on Newtonian mechanics. It took the discovery of quantum mechanics to defy the notion that our future is predictable. Nanobots are often on top of the list of nanotechnological creations that cause deep concern to the public. Eric Drexler and followers postulate that it will soon be possible to create nanoscale, addressable robots that have the ability to move in space, recognize the environment and self-replicate (see e.g., Stix 1996 for a critical review). Will it indeed be possible to create another form of life at the nanoscale? When it comes to the engineering of nanoscale machinery, nature is still far superior in its ability to integrate synergistically operating nanoscale systems of high complexity. Yet, even nature has not been able to engineer nanoscale creatures that combine all of the above-mentioned attributes of nanobots. Viruses are amazing nanoscale systems, but even they do not have the finesse of the hypothetical nanobots. Viruses are able to move and they contain the genetic blueprint of themselves, yet they are not capable of self-replication. Since they depend on the replication system and protein synthesis machinery of much larger organisms, namely micro-scale cells, they do not meet the definition of a self-replicating system. While mankind is equipped with increasingly powerful tools to manipulate living systems, we are not at the verge of creating herds of synthetic self-replicating nanobots that will run out of control and threaten our lives. Future man-made nanosystems will certainly be able to perform a variety of functions, but a robot that is proficient in all three functions — movement in space, recognition of a chemically complex environment and self-replication — will remain the fabric of dreams. ********** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. 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