[MURG] new Road Map draft

[king-yin yan]

From: cat13 at illrepute.org
>> But for gradual uploading we're talking about performing infinitesimal
>> surgeries to the brain continually... What is the approx number of
>> surgeries for a whole-brain replacement? 50? or 10,000? I picture
>> a very big number.
>
>I was picturing a relatively small number - 50 being a very approximate
>upper limit.

There're about 50 Brodman areas (2 hemispheres will be ~100,
plus deep brain structures). You seem to be along this line.

But if my intuition is correct, making micro-replacements will actually
be neater than making macro- ones. Neater in the sense that the
BCI and replacement techniques will both be easier to manage
because the size of micro-replacements is small. Just my guess...

>It might be possible that our current understanding of the brain is
>comprehensive enough to allow MU (that's what, ahem, the worm project
>would answer),  IFF we consider solely sudden replacement as opposed to
>gradual replacement.  If we're talking about gradual replacement, how
>can we replace parts of the brain without a much stronger understanding
>of them and how they work than we currently have?  How can we replace
>a single part of the brain without understanding it?

I'm surprised by your question -- I think it's been answered in
the FAQ and is actually fundamental to MU. We don't need to
understand the brain in too much details (although more
knowledge won't hurt). Understanding the brain is unlikely to
reduce the amount of computational power required for WBE.
What we do need is an understanding of computational
mechanisms at the cellular level and below.

Thus, it is OK to consider gradual replacement just like we're
exploring sudden replacement now (whatever that is).

I have no objections to the worm project except the same
old financial objection. See, I'm not stopping you guys from
working on the worm project, in fact I want to join it, and
yet the worm hardly moved a micron during the past few
months.

With a clearer road map emerging we may be in a better
position to think about what can be done...



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