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Brain implants to increase intellectual capabilities, control machines using thought alone, or transfer information directly into the brain are quite popular in sci-fi and have been recently adopted as concrete research goals by many science and engineering teams around the world. Currently developed prototypes adopt a "black box" model - they do not allow the user to experience what is going on inside the implant. Our brain, however, doesn't only process sensory input and calculate appropriate behaviors based on it, but also enables us to experience what is happening. In other words, brain activity is accompanied by consciousness. Potentially, brain chips can also be designed to have consciousness inside them. Inserted into a human brain, such a conscious implant would expand the user's conscious experience with its own contents. For this, however, a new kind of brain-machine interface should be developed that would merge consciousness in two separate systems - the chip and the brain - into single, unified one. Progress in conscious interfaces could eventually allow us to unify consciousness of different human beings, leading to the emergence of special kind of global brain, in which every individual will experience itself being a GB, and won't become just one of the cogs in this huge super-intelligent system. Comments for slides can be found here: http://engineuring.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/mind-implants-or-how-to-expand-consciousness-using-new-technologies/
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new technologies to enrich your mind
Expanding consciousness with
Brain-machine interfaces
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste smell
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste painsmell
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste painsmelllet’s enrich this experience with new
technologies!
brainqualia
syntheticqualia
similarly to neurons, brain
implant represents itself in
consciousness
Expanding experience
Synthetic qualia? but is it possible for artificial device
to create consciousness?
artificial neural network modelshave been already developed
which demonstraterudimentary consciousness or some
aspects of consciousness
Edelman brain-based devices
neural networks simulations byDehaene, Gamez
Putting them togetherhow to integrate synthetic qualia
with those produced by brain?
learn from nature!
color
shape
motion
sounds
so how does brain bring them all together?
The miracle of broadcastInformation Integration
TheoryTononi & Edelman
•differentiation consist of many specialized modules•integration each
module profoundly affects activity of others•consciousness can be
measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
•many specialized modules•integration/
broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
The miracle of broadcastInformation Integration
TheoryTononi & Edelman
•differentiation consist of many specialized modules•integration each
module profoundly affects activity of others•consciousness can be
measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
•many specialized modules•integration/
broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
(C) Consciousness as Integrated Information: a provisional manifesto
Tononi, 2008
The miracle of broadcastInformation Integration
TheoryTononi & Edelman
•differentiation consist of many specialized modules•integration each
module profoundly affects activity of others•consciousness can be
measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
•many specialized modules•integration/
broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
The miracle of broadcastInformation Integration
TheoryTononi & Edelman
•differentiation consist of many specialized modules•integration each
module profoundly affects activity of others•consciousness can be
measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
•many specialized modules•integration/
broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
(C) Neural mechanisms for access to consciousnessDehaene & Changeux, 2003
The hardwarehow to make the implant broadcast?
today’s brain-machine interfaces
electrode gridX only those neurons close to the surface
DBS electrode
X many connections
are not possible:•can
damage everything•procedure
too cumbersome
The hardwarea new hopes
“sprouting” brain-machine interfaces
Harnessing the blood supply network (R.
Llinas)
Growing up your own network of
neuroagents
neurons are grown on a
chip
their axons grow through
the brain
intermediate layer
between brain and
electronics
communication channel is natural
for the brain
The hardwareinterfacing in a brain-friendly way
Applicationsartificial bodies
tactile and proprioceptive
feedbackfor
neuroprostheses
Applicationsapproach to “cracking neural code”
conscious neural implants provide a fresh approach to the problem of transferring
information into the brain
1. transfer happens when brain-implant system becomes conscious
2. a mathematical tools for analyzing conscious systems are being developed
3. these tools finally allow to calculate optimal design for the implant enabling consciousness = information transfer
Going furtherexploring the minds of Others
would it be possible to join conscious
experience of another being with yours?
the major difficulty is provided by functional
aspects of consciousness
Going furtherthe Consciousness Singularity
all consciousness on the planet, living and artificial, merged to a
single one
the “functional problem” disappears at the global level
Ω
The end?nop, just the beginning!
Thank you!
