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Article 2228 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Scaled up slug brains
Message-ID: <1991Dec18.135620.16540@news.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 18 Dec 91 13:56:20 GMT
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>Parts of the brain are understood now.  My estimate is that the brain
>will be completely understood by the year 2050. 

   By 2050 will will probably have discovered so much that we will realize
just how little we know.  We don't even know enough about the low-level
physics to be able to think about simulating synapses with any reasonable
fidelity, even if we knew the mechanisms those synapses used.  By 2050 we
should at least have some grip on what kind of problem we are dealing with,
though.

   I don't think anything will ever be _completely_ understood, and if it
could be the world would be a much more dull place.

>>We are now in the second industrial revolution.  The first was basically
>>amplifying human physical strength.  The second is amplifying the human mind.

   Yes, that's certainly true.  But frankly, we didn't need to know how to
duplicate human muscles for the first industrial revolution to take place,
just how to make an equivalent system that will do the job.  I suspect that
for the second industrial revolution, something similar will be the case.
--scott


