Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  The “hundred-steps rule” demonstrates the possibility of the existence of a threshold that must be reached with regard to the speed of information processing in protoplasm brains, in silicon brains, or in any other type of processing and calculation apparatus.

  The rule can be explained by the following metaphor: a person is required to carry a hundred sacks, each of which requires the person’s full carrying capacity. The sacks are to be carried beyond a mountain range. Crossing the mountain range requires one million steps. If this person hires a hundred people who carry the sacks, the overall time of performance will be shortened by a hundred. The hiring of extra workers, however, will not make the hands of the clock move faster until the finish line, since the simultaneous performance potential has already been utilized, and the average length of a human’s step is not affected by the number of people who take that step.

  The validity of this rule is controversial. One can claim that an alternate relay run of a thousand people who share the carrying of the hundred sacks in a serial pattern might shorten the duration of the task, since a “fresh” carrier takes the sack from the tired carrier that preceded him. Yet, many others claim that the rule is valid, and that it dictates a rough top limit with regard to the speed of performance based on the type of information that is being processed.

  Artificial neural networks are a calculatory mathematic model that resembles a natural neural network in certain aspects. This model still has difficulties with clarifying certain central aspects of brain activity. On the other hand, this model shares surprising similarities with certain aspects of brain activity patterns, such as the fact that most of the information that is stored in our brain is not located in a specific location but scattered throughout the network.

  Models of neural networks (neuroid networks—in the shape of neurons) “invented” new capabilities and skills that were not assimilated in them by their creators in the first place. These features, which showed up spontaneously, are remarkably similar to skills that “derive” from the brain, especially in the brain areas that operate according to an “open code” information processing pattern (i.e., the area of the neo- cortex).

  The brain and the digital computer are able to process information in a serial pattern and in a parallel pattern, according to the nature of the task.

  On the other hand, computers lack personal-experience reality. A computer is not an entity that is aware of the contents of the information it mediates. It is not equipped with meta-memory (the capacity to pass from one memory to the next according to the person’s desire), etc.

  Some physicists, such as Roger Penrose, claim that there are similarities between the human brain and the quantum computer, with respect to the manner of processing information, in the sense that the brain carries out processing in superposition, which is intensified exponentially.

  The Turing test for determining intelligence, proposed by mathematician Alan Turing in 1950, suggests that a machine will be considered intelligent if its output misleads a human being to believe it is human. This threshold is yet to be crossed, and some people doubt it will ever be.

  A large, global research project called “the blue brain” is based on the structure and function of the human brain. The researchers who work on this project are developing a conceptual core model of brain function in an attempt to grant the designated computer the skills of coping with vague input, responding in context, and demonstrating independent learning curve, similar to the features of the human brain.

  Limited Experts

  Expertise (in the sense of extraordinary, unique skills) among people who are limited in their skills in other fields is called “savantism.”

  The skill of a savant is an extraordinary talent in a person who is extremely limited in other cognitive domains.

  Savant syndromes are characterized by extreme height differences in the topographic map of mental capabilities—as if Everest and the Dead Sea were located at the same region. So, for example, autistic people who suffer from severe impairment in language proficiency and basic life skills might demonstrate unique talents related to musical memory or painting talents.

  As with a raw diamond compared to a polished one, some claim that savants have more access to raw data coming from the sensory organs, which are normally unavailable to ordinary people since they undergo processing, filtering, and polishing before they are available for conscious processing. As we have been climbing the phylogenetic ladder (the ladder of evolutionary development), our perception mechanisms have become a sophisticated polishing workshop that operates on the raw diamonds (as a metaphor to raw sensory information) that come across it instantaneously. It seems that this perceptual mechanism improves our daily functioning, and was created as a survival adjustment, but, in a sense, it detaches us from the authentic perception of raw information. An unpolished diamond is highly valued in our brain’s stock exchange.

  An enchanting story by Jorge Borges—Funes the Memorious—describes Funes, who, until the age of 19, used to be extremely forgetful. Then, after he fell from a horse and injured his head, he became a grand mnemonist of details who remembered every leaf of every tree, but not the trees as a whole, or, alternatively, remembered all the trees but not the forest. Funes had a rare talent of remembering details but failed in seeing the global picture, and, even when he tried wholeheartedly to forget, he could not escape from the arms of his memory.

  This characteristic of remembering details in an amazingly accurate and detailed manner is unique to some of the people who suffer from autism. It is known, however, that autistic people who have this extraordinary skill, like Funes, fail in seeing the “global picture.”

  There is a claim regarding the manifestations of exceptional excellence among autistic people that their excellence is reflected in meticulous reconstruction of reality, but not in creation of a new reality, which is an important measurement of creativity. They might excel in their ability to come up with a “mental photograph” of a scene and draw it with photographic accuracy, but they will find it difficult to draw a nonconcrete figure. Alternatively, they might excel in playing a musical piece after listening to it once, but it will be difficult for them to compose a new tune.

  The savant’s phenomenon is highly common among people who suffer from autism; the rate is one savant out of ten autistic people. The phenomenon is six times greater among autistic boys in comparison to autistic girls (the rate of autism, in general, is four to seven times higher among boys in comparison to girls). A similar disproportion between boys and girls exists not only with respect to autism but, also, with respect to other neural impairments such as dyslexia, speech delay, stuttering, and hyperactivity.

  In the case of savants, there is exceptional intensification of skills that survived the basic brain impairment. Most of their extraordinary skills are related to nonverbal fields such as music, arithmetic skills, and spatial distinction ability.

  Some ascribe the amazing abilities of the savants to expertise differences between the two halves of the brain.

  Most thinking-function impairments among autistic people are related to functions of the left hemisphere.

  A talent similar to savant ability might appear at a later stage of life, in particular following brain injuries such as stroke or brain tumors. The rather sudden appearance of a talent “out of the blue” (contrary to innate savant syndromes, which usually appear after a long, continuous effort of the savant) suggests that a hidden ability is put from theory into practice. Some ascribe this phenomenon to the release of right-hemisphere ability from the inhibitions and barriers imposed by the left hemisphere in ordinary action pattern. It is primarily ascribed to the left temporal lobe, which is thought to be the residence of the “thought police.”

  Among people who suffered injury in the left temporal-frontal area, the ability to understand words was damaged, but hidden artistic talents, such as playing and drawing, which characterize the functions of the right temporal-parietal are
a, appeared. Such is the case of brain researcher Jill Taylor. Taylor had a stroke in 1996 following a hemorrhage in the left hemisphere, which was reflected in the loss of function in the right side of her body and in speech damage. Taylor described the experiences she had after the stroke and claimed that the impairment of the left hemisphere “released” right-hemisphere capabilities that were not expressed earlier.

  The ones who are of the opinion that the impairment in the function of the left hemisphere releases the hidden skills of the right hemisphere from their mental handcuffs mostly refer to spatial orientation, and painting and playing talents. The right hemisphere sometimes acts as an iconoclast—shattering conventions—and in such a climate creativity might also spread its wings.

  It seems that the engine of creativity is fed by energy that derives mostly from the right hemisphere. In this context, there is an anecdote regarding Mozart, who asked his wife to read him stories while he was composing. A possible explanation for his request might be that the contents of the stories occupied his left hemisphere (which focuses on processing familiar linguistic aspects), “swallowed its mental resources,” and prevented it from imposing censorship on the creativity of the right hemisphere.

  In the spirit of this explanation, it seems that the scissors of the censor, which were operated by the left temporal and frontal lobes and concealed the artistic talents, vanished and, by doing so, liberated the hidden talents. The artist who was hidden in the right hemisphere no longer bows his head in front of the strict analyst from the left hemisphere.

  This supposition is related to an additional assumption, according to which the “genius within” is concealed in each of us—in other words, that hidden savant talents are hidden between the folds of our brain and are not expressed due to constant hindering.

  An example of acquired acquisition of extraordinary skills is the case of Rüdiger Gamm, a German young man of average skills, according to his description, who developed exceptional mathematic calculation capabilities that enabled him to come up with the ninth power, or the fifth root, of a number within a very short period of time. When a PET (functional imaging) brain scan was performed, it was found that his brain recruited brain areas that are about five times bigger than the ones used by average people for making calculations. Experts believe that people like him, who developed extraordinary skills, rely on long-term memory, with the help of which they retrieve core facts and information processing methods that make shortcuts, while ordinary people mostly rely on short-term memory.

  A Brain in the Dark

  The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges lost his eyesight in 1955. He became totally blind in one eye and partially blind in the other one. It happened at the time he was appointed manager of the national library in Buenos Aires; then he said that he received two conflicting gifts at the same time: numerous books and night—words and the lack of ability to read them. He wrote, “Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch the declaration of the mastery of God who, with magnificent irony, granted me both the gift of books and the night.”[35]

  An example of a sensory, neural injury that leads to the intensification of creativity can be found in the life story of Sargy Mann, a painter who gained his reputation in Britain. During the course of his life, he became blind but continued to draw out of the darkness, and the drawings he drew as a blind painter became very successful. Mann tried to explain his success and said that, when he still had his eyesight, he followed the style of admirable painters, but once he became blind the spring of his inspiration changed and streamed from his own brain. The footprint of “the paintbrush of his brain” became a colorful light coming out of the darkness.

  Cracks in the Crystal Ball

  In 1900, British experts anticipated that, by 1950, the large number of coaches and horses in London would make the city swamped with horse droppings. They did not imagine the level of technological developments and assumed, wrongly, that technology and transportation would develop in a predictable, linear manner. Often we find it difficult to look beyond the conceptual horizon that is seen from the window of our era.

  It should also serve as a lesson with respect to attempts to foresee the future in general, and the future of intelligence in particular.

  Brain-Made Intelligence

  In the spirit of the words of the computer scientist Alan Kay, who said that the best way to foresee the future is to invent it, the discipline that focuses on the interface between brain and machine yields many inventions.

  A neural memory chip, which combines silicone and live neurons from a culture, has managed to retain a shooting pattern that indicates a memory was imprinted on it as the birth moment of a long-term memory, with an artificial-natural chimera as an infrastructure. The imprinting took place in a pattern similar to the pattern in which the neurons “chat” with each other: pulses that are based on changes of voltage, which create a shooting pattern. This shooting pattern is a sequence of signals, a sort of a Morse code, that is also used by memory processes.

  In order to make the stiff features of the contemporary silicone-chip-based computer more flexible, it will be possible to interface it with neuron chips and get a sort of a cyborg brain, which combines the artificial and the natural and creates dialogue between the silicone and the neurons. The silicone will be able to function as intensifying thinking skills—a sort of cognitive prosthesis that hastens the running of the legs’ thought.

  A chip in intracranial fitting: Recruiting the power of an artificial information processing device for reinforcing the capabilities of the human brain through a direct, physical interface between them is an achievable objective which, in fact, has already been partially achieved.

  A neural prosthesis is a common term describing an artificial support system that helps intensify the capabilities of a live neural tissue. Thus, for example, there are brain-machine interfaces that enable paralyzed individuals to operate a computer by means of brain waves. Alternatively, programmed brain pacing programmed in electrodes that are inserted into the brain tissue might significantly alleviate various aspects of Parkinson’s syndromes. This is an applied method called “deep brain stimulation.”

  The possibility of a cyborg interface was demonstrated in an experiment that was conducted on monkeys (again, I am not referring to the complex ethical aspects of such problematic experiments), during which the monkeys managed to control a robotic arm, which was attached to their brain by hair’s-breadth thin wires that were inserted in the motor cortex area. They operated the artificial arm very skillfully, based on the function of their brain alone, and used this arm to feed themselves marshmallow and fruits.

  It is possible to transfer information directly to the brain, as signals across time and space, without the mediation of a certain sense, by directly stimulating input areas in the brain. Thus, it seems that artificial devices that create a direct interface with the brain will be able to replace impaired sensory organs.

  Mechanized sight interfaces (“visual prosthesis”) and interfaces related to other senses are being developed rapidly.

  Telekinesis in practice: There are interfaces of brain waves—machines that enable us to move objects we do not have a direct physical contact with. The brain waves are translated into wireless signals, and they mediate the information to the object that is being moved. In addition to helping invalids, show business is also interested in it: for the computer- games companies, brain waves are the ultimate joystick.

  The interface with artificial intelligence might stimulate the more human, emotional side in us, as is reflected in the following humoristic confession: “My computer once beat me at chess, but immediately afterward I beat it in Karate!”

  Emotional adjustment in a human-machine interface was demonstrated in a study that found that “talking” GPS systems that are installed in cars succeed more in promoting safe driving if the prosody correlates with the driver’s mood.

  Each evolutionary cycle probably has its expiry date, and it is pos
sible that this insight also applies to humans. During the evolutionary journey, which lasted for ages—from the amoeba to the primate and then to the Homo sapiens—we left the aquatic living environment, dropped off the fur, chopped the tail, and our brain swelled and swelled… but from the Age of Enlightenment, the spiritual creatures of the human brain have been creating a new evolutionary course that rushes itself in an exponential pattern and is reflected, inter alia, in the creation of supercomputers that perform highly complex calculations as quick as lightning. Will the creatures of artificial intelligence form the next stage of evolution?

  The term “singularity” is taken from the world of physics, where it means a point in space in which density is endless. The futurist Ray Kurzweil borrowed this term and gave it the meaning of a point in time in which scientific development progresses so rapidly that the graph’s line that describes its progress is almost vertical.[36]

  An interesting optional future awaits the human brain if Kurzweil’s prediction, according to which in the future “we will merge with our technology,” is fulfilled.

  Such a cyborg brain is about to lead to a far-reaching evolutionary leap. In such a case, it seems that the nonbiological component of our cognitive skills will better itself in very brief intervals.

  Is it possible to mechanize the mind, the emotions, and the consciousness?

  Creating consciousness in an artificial brain that is built by human brains will be a substantial breakthrough that will divide human history into “before” and “after.” The birth of a Robo sapiens (the thinking robot) will constitute a new stage in the evolution of intelligence.