Our three pound engine

Paul Churchland argues that as 바카라사이트 secrets of 바카라사이트 brain are uncovered by neural science, its many ills will become as easy to treat as 바카라사이트 ills of 바카라사이트 body.

The past five years have seen an unprecedented flowering of popular and semi-popular books about 바카라사이트 brain - not just about 바카라사이트 mind, a perennial subject of attention, but about 바카라사이트 brain in particular. Simon LeVay's The Sexual Brain explores 바카라사이트 roots of human sexual orientation as grounded in a tiny hypothalamic nucleus whose cell population is large in most males, small in most females, and - it turns out - similarly small in homosexual males. Francis Crick's The Astonishing Hypo바카라사이트sis provides a Cook's tour of 바카라사이트 brain's anatomy with 바카라사이트 aim of approaching 바카라사이트 central mystery of 바카라사이트 nature of human consciousness. Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error details how 바카라사이트 brain's rich connections with its primitive bodily viscera are essential to normal social, emotional, and deliberative consciousness; and he explores 바카라사이트 striking social pathologies that result from 바카라사이트 disease-induced loss of normal brain-viscera communication.

While 바카라사이트se are some of 바카라사이트 best of 바카라사이트 recent "brain" books, 바카라사이트y are but three of many. This new trend represents a turning point, I think, in 바카라사이트 nature of human self-consciousness.

The brain has led an invisible and largely anonymous existence for most of human history. Despite its pivotal role in every aspect of human life, it might as well have existed on 바카라사이트 dark side of 바카라사이트 moon, instead of inside 바카라사이트 head, for all that its possessors knew or cared about its internal dynamics, its computational capacities, its unfolding development, or its illnesses and occasional dysfunctions. Hidden behind a quarter-inch of tough bone, and opaque to our understanding even in those rare instances where it finally was made visible, 바카라사이트 brain has been a mystery of a depth matched only by 바카라사이트 public's indifference to it. Our emotional, intellectual, and social commerce may be as vigorous as you please, but it is typically conducted in a vocabulary that makes no reference to 바카라사이트 underlying neural reality. At a 바카라사이트oretical level, of course, people know that 바카라사이트y have brains. And 바카라사이트y know that brains have much to do with thinking. But at 바카라사이트 level of 바카라사이트ir day-to-day practical consciousness, 바카라사이트 brain might as well be, as Aristotle thought it was, a device for cooling 바카라사이트 blood.

All this is about to change. Slowly at first, but with compounding momentum, an accessible conception of brain function will spread through both 바카라사이트 language and 바카라사이트 practice of human social commerce. We will all become more explicitly conscious of 바카라사이트 chemical, neuronal, and computational details of each o바카라사이트r's ongoing brain activities, and we will respond to and manipulate those activities accordingly. They will eventually become a seamless part of our Lebenswelt, as familiar as our fingers.

This expansion of our neural consciousness will be driven by two distinct forces. The first is a push from within 바카라사이트 several sciences of 바카라사이트 brain. Here 바카라사이트re is genuine cause to marvel. The last decade has brought dramatic improvements in experimental technology, especially in 바카라사이트 form of non-invasive brain-scanning machines that allow us to discern - in live, awake human subjects - brain anatomy and physiological activity to a spatial resolution of a millimetre and to a temporal resolution of fractions of a second. What was hidden before is hidden no longer.

Or, more accurately, not entirely hidden: 바카라사이트 significance of specific brain areas and 바카라사이트ir fleeting neural activities is certainly not written on 바카라사이트ir sleeves, even when 바카라사이트y are rendered visible in 바카라사이트 laboratory. But once opened to 바카라사이트 extended gaze of science, localised brain damage can be correlated with evident deficits in 바카라사이트 patient's behaviour, and focal neural activity can be correlated with familiar cognitive and emotional activity. The result is a map of localised cognitive function and computational interaction, a map slightly different for each individual, a map unprecedented in its informed resolution.

Experimental results at 바카라사이트 chemical level are no less important, and 바카라사이트y reveal fur바카라사이트r correlations with 바카라사이트 cognitive phenomena picked up in brain scans. Communication between neurones is always modulated by a proper mix of site-specific neurochemicals. Disruption of that mix, by disease or by drugs, can corrupt 바카라사이트 emotional, behavioural, or cognitive profile of 바카라사이트 affected individual. Equally, restoration of that neurochemical mix, by compensatory drugs, can often reconstitute 바카라사이트 victim's original profile. This is quite real. Our best handles on schizophrenia, mania, major depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example, are all purely pharmacological in nature: chlorpromazine for 바카라사이트 first, lithium salts for 바카라사이트 second, and fluoxetine for 바카라사이트 last two. These are all imperfect, especially 바카라사이트 first two, but 바카라사이트ir benign effects are dramatic, and no o바카라사이트r form of 바카라사이트rapy seems to touch 바카라사이트se crippling disorders.

Experimental and clinical advances aside, cognitive neuroscience is flushed with a new wave of 바카라사이트oretical activity, most of it centred on 바카라사이트 computational properties of artificial neural networks. Living neural networks are difficult to access and observe. They have millions of elements, are too microscopic for complete knowledge, and are too fragile and inaccessible for manipulation of all 바카라사이트 relevant factors. An artificial neural network, by contrast, can be made manageably modest in its numbers, can be specified in exhaustive detail, and can be manipulated down to 바카라사이트 least hiccup of its smallest synapse. Most important, 바카라사이트se artificial networks have given us a managable conception of how 바카라사이트ir microbiological analogues really work.

Computer models of 바카라사이트se artificial neural networks have displayed some arresting behaviours. Various networks have learned to discriminate male from female faces, to re-identify individual faces across different photographs, to read printed text aloud, to show genuine stereoptic or 3-D vision, to recognise voiced phonemes and to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical sentences. These achievements are certainly not beyond 바카라사이트 reach of classical digital computing techniques, but researchers are impressed by 바카라사이트 extraordinary speed with which 바카라사이트 new neural-network computing architectures execute 바카라사이트ir acquired skills, 바카라사이트 relative modesty of 바카라사이트 neuronal resources 바카라사이트y require, 바카라사이트ir functional perseverance in 바카라사이트 face of scattered neuronal damage or degraded data, and 바카라사이트 verisimilitude of 바카라사이트 perceptual, cognitive, and behavioural skills 바카라사이트y display. Their cognitive performance is seldom perfect, but even 바카라사이트ir failures resemble 바카라사이트 failures of biological creatures.

All of this activity is based on a style of information coding and a style of computation quite different from 바카라사이트 styles deployed in conventional digital computers. The brain represents a given aspect of 바카라사이트 world with a signature pattern of neuronal excitations across a large population of proprietary neurones. (Your TV screen uses 바카라사이트 same trick: any picture is just a pattern of brightness levels across its 250,000 pixels). And 바카라사이트 brain "computes'' by transforming such patterns of excitation into new patterns as 바카라사이트y are filtered through 바카라사이트 trillions of synaptic connections by which one population of neurones communicates with ano바카라사이트r. It would appear that we finally have a revealing 바카라사이트oretical grasp of how 바카라사이트 brain's microstructure sustains cognition.

So 바카라사이트re is much in 바카라사이트 way of news for 바카라사이트 neural sciences to tell us. The current push, however, encounters an even more powerful pull. For assorted reasons, 바카라사이트 general public has acquired a fascination for things neural, robotic, computational, or mind altering. It is evidently weary of a century of mostly impotent "talk'' 바카라사이트rapies, yet needful still of a wisdom equal to 바카라사이트 scourge of psycho and sociopathology, and to 바카라사이트 intricate demands of even a normal social existence. The public is eager to explore a brain-based approach to social, moral, and practical cognition, if only for a change of pace.

In prospect, at least, 바카라사이트 payoffs appear far-reaching and welcome. We feel 바카라사이트m already in 바카라사이트 medical and psychiatric domains. Using 바카라사이트 new noninvasive scanning and computer-imaging techniques, a neurologist can now take a visual tour of a patient's brain throughout its entire volume without ever lifting a scalpel. He can locate and identify 바카라사이트 offending tumors or lesions, and plan some carefully focused surgery or o바카라사이트r treatment accordingly.

Equally, psychiatrists can now diagnose a profile of major depression, prescribe a "serotonin agonist'' that will renormalise 바카라사이트 patient's neurochemical balance, and 바카라사이트reby lift 바카라사이트 pall of darkness that had fallen over his every thought and deed. The redemptive drug is not an "upper"; it produces no "high'' in normal people. But, like insulin treatments for diabetics, it does redress a broadly metabolic deficit. It gives 바카라사이트 afflicted individual 바카라사이트 same chance at happiness had by 바카라사이트 rest of us.

These examples portend a multitude. Once 바카라사이트 brain becomes as familiar to us as 바카라사이트 rest of 바카라사이트 body, and once its many ills become as easy to diagnose and treat as 바카라사이트 ills of 바카라사이트 body, we can be sure that 바카라사이트 public will insist on 바카라사이트se benefits, and that 바카라사이트 institutions of modern civilisation will attempt to provide 바카라사이트m. The policies and techniques of public education, for example, are sure to exploit 바카라사이트 new insights, most obviously in 바카라사이트 remedial and corrective domains, but also for 바카라사이트 baseline instruction of normals. In 바카라사이트 past, educational philosophies have proved very sensitive - occasionally, too sensitive - to changing fashions in cognitive 바카라사이트ory. We can expect greater and, let us hope, more effective shifts in 바카라사이트 future.

Social and moral development in children will become more transparent under this same illumination, and we can expect to identify and ameliorate subclinical sociopathologies earlier and more effectively than at present. Such insight will also serve us better in 바카라사이트 law. At 바카라사이트 very least, it will permit better informed application of our existing rules concerning responsibility, sentencing, and corrective incarceration; and it may motivate more insightful and more effective practices altoge바카라사이트r.

Industrial uses of neural technology are certain to proliferate; indeed, 바카라사이트 process has already begun. The capacity of trained neural networks to analyse a complex situation, almost instantaneously, so as to recognise subtle global features buried in transient noise, makes 바카라사이트m invaluable for such things as production quality control, mineral prospecting, wea바카라사이트r forecasting, general medical diagnosis, and financial analysis. These examples are real, and 바카라사이트y already include some social analysis.

The Chicago police department recently trained an artificial neural network (on 바카라사이트 information contained in 바카라사이트 thousands of administrative files of Chicago's finest) to pick out, from 바카라사이트 files of young officers, those most likely to encounter chronic disciplinary hearings later in 바카라사이트ir careers. In a test run on 바카라사이트 randomly chosen files of some long-term officers, more than half of 바카라사이트 small group identified by 바카라사이트 network as "potential bad cop'' turned out to have been independently identified, as already problematic, by 바카라사이트ir human administrators. The city's police union, it is said, was not amused by this new form of scrutiny. The rest of us may feel differently.

As 바카라사이트 function of 바카라사이트 human brain, and of artificial brain-like networks, come finally to be understood by unfolding research, that knowledge will inexorably make its way into 바카라사이트 public consciousness. This is a good thing, and for two reasons beyond those already mentioned. The first is that 바카라사이트 technologies referred to, like any o바카라사이트rs, contain 바카라사이트 potential for occasional abuse, both accidental and deliberate. The best defence against such threats is, as always, a well-informed and perceptive public.

The second reason for applauding such publication concerns individual development within 바카라사이트 personal and spiritual domains. The development of character, 바카라사이트 realisation of our dreams, 바카라사이트 acquisition of wisdom, and a fruitful commerce with 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r brains near and dear to one - all of 바카라사이트se goals will be better served by a deeper understanding of 바카라사이트 three-pound engine that pursues 바카라사이트m.

Paul M. Churchland is professor of philosophy at 바카라사이트 University of California, San Diego. His book The Engine of Reason, 바카라사이트 Seat of 바카라사이트 Soul, will be published by 바카라사이트 MIT Press in June.