Brain Food

More often than not, every question leads not to an answer, but to another question. For instance, researchers at the University of Manchester are building a computer that mimics the human brain. Great. My question is "who's brain?"

The computer will be the first of its kind and will be used to try and understand how, for example, the details of complex visual scenes are encoded by the brain. It will be designed with the aim of modeling large numbers of neurons in real time and to track patterns of neural spikes as they occur in the brain. The computer will be built using large numbers of simple microprocessors designed to interact like the networks of neurons found in the brain. The aim will be to place dozens of microprocessors on single silicon chip, thereby reducing the cost and power consumption of the computer.

According to Spinnaker project leader Steve Furber, "Our brains keep working despite frequent failures of their component neurons, and this 'fault-tolerant' characteristic is of great interest to engineers who wish to make computers more reliable. Our aim is to use the computer to understand better how the brain works at the level of spike patterns, and to see if biology can help us see how to build computer systems that continue functioning despite component failures."

Sounds fine to me, but my question stands: Who's brain? Might I suggest, say, Larry, Curley, or Moe's instead of, oh, Attila the Hun or Adoph Hitler? That sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 11:53 AM  Permalink