Week 7 Neurosci + Art

The different ways in which we study human consciousness are fascinating to me, as many try to explain it through observations and personal experience (psychology), while others try and understand the mechanics of the brain as an organ (neuroscience). Throughout history there have been paradigm shifts in the study of the brain, with discoveries fostering great achievements in both science and art, as for example, the mental and artistic images of the brain that are currently shaped by modern technology (example below).

Screenshot from Professor Victoria Vesna's YouTube lecture on Neuroscience.

I feel that there could be another paradigm shift in the understanding of the brain, as the computer revolution has made computer modeling of complex systems an attainable goal (numerical weather prediction). The ability to model the brain with a computer program could have enormous consequences as for example AI could one day have conscious thoughts, we could tweak the brain model to simulate possible solutions to mental problems without having to test on humans, and in general we can make changes to the brain model to facilitate our understanding of process’ in the brain.  

Illustration of a climate computer simulation (Wikipedia).

Artistic rendering of a computer brain (Nature)

While all this sounds good in theory there are many people who doubt the ability of computers to be able to model the brain as it would require too much computing power, or simply that the human brain is “noncomputatble” (Penrose). Penrose believes that there are quantum feedback cycles happening in the microtubules in the brain that make the brain noncomputable and existing in some sort of chaotic, mystical, and unknown fashion, however there is very little work to support this and his argument seems to be rooted in intuition rather than science. While I agree that a model of the brain can't be perfect, “essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” (Box), there have been many people who have successfully modeled quantum effects.

In fact there have been several attempts at modeling the brain including a recent simulation of the human brain on a Japanese supercomputer computed a second of brain activity in 40 minutes (Sparkes), and the Human Brain Project spearheaded by Henry Markram recently received 1 billion euros from the European Union to construct a computer model of the brain (Honigsbaum). However this highly ambitious project has come under heavy scrutiny for its lack of governance, scientific direction, and polarization of the neuroscience community, which could spell the end for the project (Nature). That being said I believe modeling the human brain could still be a valuable project (maybe in smaller chunks) and one day it will be a reality.

Box, George E. P.; Norman R. Draper (1987). Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, p. 424, Wiley. ISBN 0-471-81033-9.

Honigsbaum, Mark. "Human Brain Project: Henry Markram Plans to Spend €1bn Building a Perfect Model of the Human Brain." The Guardian. Neuro Science/ The Observer, 15 Oct. 2013. Web.

"Human Brain Project Needs a Rethink." Scientific American Global RSS. Nature Magazine, n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.

"Numerical Weather Prediction." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.

Sparkes, Mathew. "Supercomputer Models One Second of Human Brain Activity." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 18 May 2015.

Vesna, Victoria. "Neuroscience-pt1.mov." YouTube. YouTube, 17 May 2012. Web. 18 May 2015.