TED Talks – Henry Markram Builds A Brain In A Supercomputer
October 17, 2009
Not too long ago I discussed how Henry Markram is building a brain in an IBM supercomputer over at EPFL while suggesting patterns of strange attraction that might exist within the mind (see Self Similarity ~ Fractals, Fractals Everywhere…). Looks like we might be able to know in the next 10 years or so whether my intuition is actually fact, or just simply fiction… Also, we might be provided with the definiion of Life, as a sentient being is born within the mainframe of the computer… Perhaps this might preclude the advent of A.I. and justify the complex issues in stories such as Masamune Shirow’s “Ghost In The Shell” and the film “A.I.”?
Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved — soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they’re made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain’s 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.
About Henry Markram:
Henry Markram, Project Director of the Blue Brain Project, Director of the Center for Neuroscience & Technology and co-Director of EPFL’s Brain Mind Institute, obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) from Cape Town University, South Africa under the supervision of Rodney Douglas and his Ph.D from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, under the supervision of Menahem Segal. During his PhD he discovered a link between acetylcholine and memory mechanisms by showing that acetylcholine modulates the primary receptor linked to synaptic plasticity.
He went to the USA as a Fulbright Scholar at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he studied ion channels on synaptic vesicles. He then went as a Minerva Fellow to the Laboratory of Bert Sakmann at the Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany, where he discovered calcium transients in dendrites evoked by sub-threshold activity, and by single action potentials propagating back into dendrites. He also began studying the connectivity between neurons, describing in great detail how layer 5 pyramidal neurons are interconnected.
He was the first to alter the precise millisecond relative timing of single pre- and post-synaptic action potentials to reveal a highly precise learning mechanism operating between neurons — now reproduced in many brain regions and known as spike timing-dependent synaptic plasticity (STDP). These experiments were carried out in 1993, four years before publication. Although there were some correlation-sensitive findings before, this was the first study that manipulated single pre- and post-synaptic spike times to monitor the effect of synaptic changes.
He was appointed assistant professor at the Weizmann Institute for Science, Israel, where he started systematically dissecting out the neocortical column. He discovered that synaptic learning can also involve a change in synaptic dynamics (called redistribution of synaptic efficacy) rather than merely changing the strengths of connections. He also revealed a spectrum of new principles governing neocortical microcircuit structure, function, and emergent dynamics. Based on the emergent dynamics of the neocortical microcircuit he and Wolfgang Maass developed the theory of liquid computing, or high entropy computing.
In 2002 he moved to EPFL as full professor and founder/director of the Brain Mind Institute and Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Technology. At the BMI, in the Laboratory for Neural Microcircuitry, Markram has continued to unravel the blueprint of the neocortical column, building state-of-the-art tools to carry out multi-neuron patch clamp recordings combined with laser and electrical stimulation as well as multi-site electrical recording ,chemical imaging and gene expression. Markram has received numerous awards and published over 75 papers.
For more information about Henry Markram and his amazing work, please click here.
Teaching
October 14, 2009
Give back what you’ve learned.
Share your experience.
If you are in the position of teaching others, then you should teach without reservations. What need is there to hold back? You could tell the secret of life ten times over, and it would still be safe. After all, the secret is only known when people make it real in their own lives, not when they simply hear it.
In the past, masters were selfish. They had only learned with extreme difficulty, and so they in turn made it difficult on others. In addition, they were affraid of being surpassed by their students, and so they always held back some key. How foolish this attitude was! How can a student ever challenge a master, unless that master allows his or her abilities to decline? You should teach dispassionately and without holding back.
When you cultivate internal power, it begins to accumulate within you. But there is one odd thing. You cannot hold it in forever. If you try to do that, the spiritual energy will destroy you. But if you use it prudently – to heal others, to teach others, to comfort others – then the energy will surge back stronger and stronger, like a well that always replenishes itself. The more you give, the more you gain in return. The more selfless you are, the more the self benefits.
Environment
October 12, 2009
How can you live
With the constant noise of traffic?
The stench of garbage?
The sight of buildings instead of mountains?
The movement of streets instead of rivers?
The feel of pavement instead of earth?
There are some metropolitan areas famous for their power, their sophistication, their history, their place in civilization. These places cannot be centers of spirituality too. You only need to look at them with open eyes and heart. How can anything holy root there?
The noise of traffic is constant. At any time of day or night, that distracting roar, that underlying trembling disrupts the subtle. The air is not clean but is filled with dust and soot. Especially when the weather is hot, the smell of rotting garbage wafts up from foundations like the odor of leprosy. The earth is unable to breathe, smothered beneath concrete, asphalt, steel, and junk.
Some people who live in these places become interested in spirituality. They want to know if it is possible to reach high levels in deeply urban environments. The answer is no. It is not possible to become fully realized in an urban environment. For to gain realization means the achievement of special psychophysical states. That requires quite cultivation and an acquaintance with the subtle. When the roar of the city is all there is, how can the song of the divine be heard?
Beau Lotto – Optical Illusions Show How We See
October 11, 2009
While the subject of “illusion” has been broached several times before within the pages of this blog – see “The Illusory Atom” and “Probably The Best Optical Illusion I’ve Seen In A While… And The Idea Of Priming!“… This is still a very important idea that I will come back to time and again… For it will allow us all to further develop a better understanding about the way in which we perceive our surrounding environment, the world current affairs and the way we perceive the actions of others i.e. family, friends, work colleagues, strangers, public figures and politicians… And it will even show us that what We sometimes “See” going on in nature is actually a result of the way in which we perceive the world around us, something that Werner Heisenberg beautifully demonstrated to us all with his “Uncertainty Principle.”
Here Lotto presents to us an idea that is not simply just about colors… It is also a powerful analogy that can be superimposed onto the multifarious ways in which we see the world around us i.e. the way in which we perceive our country, our “enemies” and our friends, all of which affects our ability to live and make changes in our daily lives, as well as changes in the vast interconnected network of Life here on planet Earth. Our perceptions drive our actions and dictate how we act in the world at large. And yet, as we have seen in some of the previous blogs here, perceptions are sometimes arbitrary and conditioned. Context is often defined by others… We continually use “memes” that have been passed down the line to us via our parents, media, hearsay and everyday social interaction, to act with and guide us through current situations… And why shouldn’t we? After all, they worked for those of whom we learnt these actions from… As they are hear today telling us of their “beneficial” use. But… What I want to ask here, is are they relevant to the present moment? Because to follow blindly, is simply to be lead into actions that serve no real purpose within the present, as we saw in the blog entitled “Evidence For Humans Being ‘Meme Machines’?”
We, being capable of probing thought, should go deeper than this… We should ask why certain memes are more infectious than others, in much the same way as being able to understand why a particular virus might be more infectious than others – see the blog entitled “‘Infectious’ People Spread Memes Across The Web“. Because when we understand this, we have the potential to become the “humble” custodians of this oasis suspended in an inky black void of space and time… Why? Well the answer is simple… As we are beginning to see, by searching the stars for other Earth like planets, Life really is a rarity in this universe. And once it gets a foot hold, it needs to be cared for and nurtured into a state healthy being… If one Life form becomes too arrogant, forgetting this interconnectedness of all things i.e. the vast array of strange attractors which interact in a dance of complexity over the surface of this planet… And in forgetting this, decides to take over most of the planet’s resources, using them blindly without a thought for the future of the planet… Then is surely like a cancerous cell that over replicates and dominates a body… And we all know how this ends.
To truly See this, we need to understand and challenge the “context” i.e. that “light”, in which we view things. We need to become completely aware of the moment in which we are in… Because once we do so, we leave by the way-side a limited preconditioned array and basis for our actions that serve no purpose other than to dredge up irrelevant past actions… And – perhaps it relates ourselves to the avarian “copy-cat” parrot… Not very hopeful thought really – to be compared to a “bird-brain”. As if we continue to live like this, we can only ever hope act within parameters of old, continuing conflicts of yore (war, prejudice, hate, etc…) that bring the pain of the past back into the present i.e. we carry these old hurts on chains of a “tit-for-tat” mentality that we learnt in the school playground. We need to understand the subtlety and sensitivity of our perceptive stance – see the blog “Another Take On Reality – Meme, Myself and I.”
When we truly understand the context in which we view things, and become humble enough to question the validity of our own perceptions… And therefore, the validity of our resulting actions that arise from these perceptions… Then perhaps we might be able to change how we act in the world… And possibly… Even hopefully… Change the world around us! And do so for the better of all Life here on Earth, preserving that delicate balance that supports us all… In a way that allows us to come from a place of Love and understanding. If you haven’t done already, I would highly recommend that you see Peter Russell’s video entitled “The Global Brain.”
Greed and need are two totally different things. And when we understand all of this, one day we will actually be able separate the two ideals, harboring a cautious mindfulness for the former, and a healthy understanding and open embracing for the latter – whereby we will start giving to people/animals/eco-systems in “need”… And not place anymore strain by simply acting on media-portrayed-memes based solely on “greed”.
Anyway… On with Lotto’s enthralling lecture… Given at TED.
Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.
About Beau Lotto:
Beau Lotto is founder of Lottolab (nothing to do with the lottery game of the same name, might we add), a hybrid art studio and science lab. With glowing, interactive sculpture — and good, old-fashioned peer-reviewed research — he’s illuminating the mysteries of the brain’s visual system.
“Let there be perception,” was evolution’s proclamation, and so it was that all creatures, from honeybees to humans, came to see the world not as it is, but as was most useful. This uncomfortable place — where what an organism’s brain sees diverges from what is actually out there — is what Beau Lotto and his team at Lottolab are exploring through their dazzling art-sci experiments and public illusions. Their Bee Matrix installation, for example, places a live bee in a transparent enclosure where gallerygoers may watch it seek nectar in a virtual meadow of luminous Plexiglas flowers. (Bees, Lotto will tell you, see colors much like we humans do.) The data captured isn’t just discarded, either: it’s put to good use in probing scientific papers, and sometimes in more exhibits.
Outside the studio work, the brain-like (that is, multidisciplinary) organization is also branching out to bigger public engagement works. It’s holding regular “synesthetic workshops” where kids and adults make “color scores” — abstract paintings that computers interpret into music, as with scrolls fed to a player piano. And lately they’re planning an outdoor walkway of color-lit, pressure-sensitive John Conway-esque tiles that react and evolve according to foot traffic. These and Lotto’s other conjurings are slowly, charmingly bending the science of perception — and our perceptions of what science can be.
Lotto teaches at University College London.
To find out more about Beau’s important work in these troubled times of varied perceptive stances, please visit his Lotto Lab website here.
And to find out where I originally sourced this video from, please click here.
Whole
October 4, 2009
I hate the way this chicken comes
All bagged in plastic
Without head or feet;
Neck, heart, liver, and gizzard
Stuck into its cavity.
No wonder people feel unconnected.
Traditional people like to see the whole animal when they shop for their meals. In cultures where personal contacts are more meaningful and closeness to the earth is a way of life, it is no surprise that people are interested in a complete relationship to their food. They buy it or raise it, they harvest it, they clean it, and they cook it – all before they eat it in gratitude. They don’t become sentimental over their food – practicality is to understand that we kill to survive – but they do give thanks for what has died to sustain them.
Today we have a very incomplete relationship with out food. We don’t see where something grows, we eat foods out of season, we buy prepared foods made by someone we don’t even know. There is a great power in knowing your food, knowing where it came from, preparing it with your own hands. This food, whether vegetable or animal, died for us. The least we can do is partake of it thoroughly and with respect.
Nowadays it is quite common for people to feel isolated. They lament not having friends, not having genuine experiences, not having a sense of who they are. If even the food that we eat and the way that we eat is lacking in wholeness, then how will we feel completion in the rest of our lives?
Egotism
October 3, 2009
The Prime Minister of the Tang Dynasty was a national hero for his success as both a statesman and military leader. But despite his fame, power, and wealth, he considered himself a humble and devout Buddhist. Often he visited his favorite Zen master to study under him, and they seemed to get along very well. The fact that he was prime minister apparently had no effect on their relationship, which seemed to be simply one of a revered master and respectful student.
One day, during his usual visit, the Prime Minister asked the master, “Your Reverence, what is egotism according to Buddhism?” The master’s face turned red, and in a very condescending and insulting tone of voice, he shot back, “What kind of stupid question is that!?”
This unexpected response so shocked the Prime Minister that he became sullen and angry. The Zen master then smiled and said, “THIS, Your Excellency, is egotism.”
Is The Universe Deterministic?
October 2, 2009
This blog follows on from where “Do We Have Free Will?” left off… It is an article written by Vlatko Vedral for the New Scientist, which was published on 24th November 2006.
I present it here as I feel it ties in with ideas that were raised in “Another Take On Reality – Meme, Myself and I,” demonstrating that this illusion of reality, something which we all experience daily, might be governed by nothing more than a predefined structure and program i.e. the human brain and body, much like an etched circuit board, that dictates how, why, what and when we think and act i.e. that we have hard-wired channels/parameters within in which we operate.
Again this issue arises and paradoxes abound… But none the less, these ideas should be grasped… For to operate with absolute certainty in an uncertain world can only procure ultimate folly, as Chuang Tzu once mused.
WHEN I was a child I liked to ponder deep questions before falling asleep. One of my favourites was “Do we have free will?”. Shifting my mind back and forth between the possibilities served me well – it was a good technique for falling asleep. Now I am a grown man I am lucky enough to have a job that involves deliberating over questions like this. So what does a man of science have to say about free will?
Most of us in the west are certain that we have free will, though how we reach that conclusion, and even what we mean by it, is far from clear. If we define free will in everyday terms – as the capacity that allows us to control our actions – the answer would seem to come down to one of two possibilities: “Yes, we do have free will”, or “No, we don’t”. Both, however, quickly lead us into contradictions.
Suppose you answer with “yes”. How would you demonstrate the validity of this statement? You would need to act in a way that would not be predetermined by anything. But how can this ever be, when whatever you do can be traced back to some cause?
Say you decide to prove your free will by acting out of character: having an introverted personality, you decide to start a conversation with a complete stranger on the street, for instance. The very fact that you have decided to act contrary to your usual predisposition seems itself to be fully predetermined by the fact that you wanted to act out of character to prove your free will. The very act of trying to prove free will adds to the evidence that you have none.
About Vlatko Vedral:
Vlatko was born on the 19th of August 1971 in Belgrade. After doing his degree and post graduate at Imperial College London, Vedral went to Oxford University as a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College 1998-2000. From 2000-2003 he was Governor’s lecturer at Imperial (permanent). Vedral was promoted to Reader in 2003. He became a Professor at Leeds in 2004. He has held visiting professorships in Vienna and Singapore (NUS) and at Perimeter Institute in Canada. Written 2 textbooks on Quantum Optics (Imperial College Press, 2005) and Quantum Information (OUP, 2006). Vedral has published more than 100 research papers in quantum mechanics and quantum information. Recently awarded Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
For more information on Professor Vlatko Vedral, please visit his website by clicking here.
Helixes
October 1, 2009
Three subtle energy currents:
Twin helixe around a jade pillar.
This glowing presence
Is the force of life itself.
Deep in meditation, it is possible to become aware of the life-force itself. You can see it if you learn how to look within. To describe it as electricity, or power, or light, or consciousness is all somewhat correct. But such descriptions are inadequate. You have to see it for yourself. You have to feel it for yourself. You have to know it for yourself.
To be in its presence is like being in front of something primeval, basic, mysterious, shamanistic, and profound. To be in its presence makes all references mute and all senses slack, leaving only deep awe. One is drawn to it in utter fascination. It is the mighty flame to our mothlike consciousness.
This column of energy that coils around itself holds all the stages of our growth. It is our soul; it is the force that animates us and gives us awareness. If you want to engage your life completely, it is essential for you to come to terms with this inner power. Once you harmonize with it you can blend with the dynamics of being human.
