[somestag]

I just finished reading Ubik, so this is eerily timed for me.

I have trouble interpreting discoveries like these because my understanding of (neuro)biology is limited. For example, this:

> At the cellular level, these brains are very close to being alive, but if we consider the life of the brain as the expression of the functionality of the brain, then they’re very far from being alive.

I understand this is basically saying, "Just because the cells are working doesn't mean the brain is." But then my question is, what's the gap? I know the brain is complex at all, but it's always been a little strange to me that we aren't better at bringing back the dead. Do we know what it theoretically takes to "start" a brain?

[NotSammyHagar]

That's the key question (I'm just a poor programmer so I don't really know), but my thinking is we don't understand the software that powers the brain. your cpu my be running, the hardware may be say refreshing the ram right on schedule to keep the contents viable, but that's separate from having the running program you want. We don't really know the software running in the brain. I'm sad, really I don't expect brain upload (whatever it would mean metaphysically, I want to upload my consciousness, instead of just pass into nothing) in the next 30 or 40 years. Even for billionaires.

[bt1a]

Imagine the minimum number of neurons (say, n) needed to 'light up' consciousness. Why doesn't n - 1 work? How can you go from having the lights on to nothing based on a marginal decrease? There must be a spectrum with our minds on one end to a complete absence of running software on the other end. Thanks for reading.

[Figs]

If the brain is anything like computer hardware, the actual physical connectivity likely matters quite a bit. Consider what would happen if you randomly removed a single transistor on a CPU. Even though the transistors are very simple, virtually identical constructs the effect of taking any individual one out varies a great deal depending on what the transistor represents to the workings of the CPU. If it's involved in thermal regulation, it might result in spurious thermal shut-offs, performance throttling at incorrect times, bad fan control, or other problems. It could be involved in advancing the instruction pointer, which means that software on the affected core most likely wouldn't run correctly whatsoever. If it's part of a cache, you may get memory corruption problems that could be extremely difficult to diagnose. If it's involved in a rarely used calculation, you might never even notice that there's damage!

[bt1a]

Hey that's a very interesting response, thanks for taking the time to write that! Sorry I'm late :)

[fyfy18]

I imagine such a brain upload process would be rather traumatic. Assuming it works reliably, what sort of physiological trauma would you now have? So many people associate themselves with their body, how they look, what physical things they do (sports, gym, etc)... and then suddenly they are just their thoughts and whatever external stimuli we can simulate. I guess we could simulate those things in VR, but even so, deep down you will know it's not "you".

[mennis16]

I didn't read the actual publication but based on this article I think what they are essentially saying is that the cells were still functioning in the context of basic cell operation, but were no longer functioning as neurons. In which case the cells themselves weren't fully working either.