Aesthetics is how science can really speak to people. By showing a world that's more beautiful than as we know it, people can also emotionally become interested in science.
Japanese scientists have created a method to render the flesh of a dead animal transparent, and at the same time colorize the bones. Now I don't know if there is a direct practical effect, since their website is written in Japanese. But beautiful and interesting it sure is.
Also watch the movie to really get the sense that the entire body is actually still there.
Immersion is redefining its limits with JoAnn Kuchera-Morin's Allosphere, a spherical room in which people can experience a three-dimensional simulation showing for example the inside of an atom, or an fMRI brain scan. Now this could be the start of us becoming nano-engineers, manipulating our own brain cells from the inside out by having our physical actions mediated to the nanorealm by anthropomorphic nanobots. We are becoming creators of our entire cosmos, space only being one of the first obvious dimensions in which we lose our experiential confinement to a certain configuration that more or less randomly emerged through evolutionary processes.
I'm also thinking that it would be interesting to see what would happen in the visual cortex if we are linked in real time to a visualization of it in our environment, so we could launch ourselves into a self-induced experiential infinity like a 21st century version of the Droste effect.
We can come to understand human behavior much better if we look at seemingly simpler organisms and their hardwiring. The video in this post shows how a fly can be 'tricked' into 'thinking' that it flies with a different speed than it does, by dynamically modifying its perceptual environment. In a sense, a fly is behaviorally not much more than a bunch of light sensors wired in a particular configuration to a few muscles. A fly does not know its speed; its flying behavior has just emerged through evolution from its rooting into a perceptual environment so that it can maximize its own chance of survival and in a sense, happiness, within this environment.
Concepts like speed and space are just constructions of the human mind in order to create explicit predictive models of the world so that they can actively explore different ways to happiness, gradually becoming more independent of wild nature. The technological environments we create for ourselves are still mostly reflections on our Newtonian conception of a three dimensional space that we occupy, with the mind being distinct from it, creating models of this physical space. Our cities, our houses, our gadgets, our interfaces and even the microchips we build are in a not so far-fetched way direct translations of the pure Cartesian grid. Think of it the next time you're sitting in a public bathroom where all walls are paved with these white square tiles, and it becomes obvious how you are treated by your world; an object, a linear, mechanistic machine, needing to be controlled rationally.
In a world where everything becomes highly dynamic, sensitive, and instantly adapting, a new embodied intelligence will arise where the increasing uselessness of static concepts like space and linear time, and rationalism in general, will intuitively become clear to us, but we realize how we are directly and holistically coupled to our environment, our cosmos. Fundamentally, we are not much more than this fly, blindly reacting to the patterns our universes present us with based on our neural hardwiring. The difference is that obviously we have thousands of times as much neurons, and we can perceive our internal structures and consciously steer their growth. We are never static entities, but always molding ourselves on our paths in life. Our plasticity, or even liquidity and ethereality, is very much a new cultural realization that makes us see that we never were what we thought we were.
The realization of the idea of having a body that you can change almost instantly in whatever way you like is coming ever nearer. It is now possible to create human organs inside a laboratory or inside an other animal, hence creating a kind of hybrid species, or an extreme form of parasitism. Take a look at this video:
In this time where boundary after boundary is being blurred, dichotomy after dichotomy being dissolved, we need to start reflecting in a forward direction, see that understanding how everything is becoming united lies in the understanding and feeling that it already is united, that nothing really changes because all there is is one big cosmic process of which the understanding lies not in the modelling of it, the theorizing, the creation of mental images, but in the resonance with the direct experience and optimization of its beauty as perceived by you. A fundamental realization, the ultimate dichotomy we need to overcome, is that of seeing that life is the same as death, that our classification of things being living as opposed to dead is a mere concept, that there is a fundamental beauty transcending this dichotomy too, and that this transcendence is a critical point towards a state of being where we are enlightened with our minds, and later also with our bodies with which we will have lost identification completely, seeing them both as objects and as subjects so also this dichotomy disappears, making way for a supreme, holistic, invulnerably blissful mode of being.
A recent article on New Scientist, 'Rise of the rat-brained robots', describes how professor Kevin Warwick and his team have succeeded to incorporate a living culture of neurons into the simple behaviour of a wheeled robot. These neurons are kept disembodied from it, in an oven, and communicate wirelessly. The goal is to create a model of the brain that might be useful in the treatment of diseases like Alzheimers.
It is interesting how behaviours emerge like neurons firing when they are not stimulated to a certain extent. I am not a neuroscientist, but such findings might be the key to understanding things like human creativity on a neuronal basis; it might be just neurons firing randomly out of 'boredom'. It also provokes many questions, such as how it will feel if you would connect some of your neurons to a body somewhere else in the world. You could literally become a spread out being, as if you transformed from a solid to a gaseous state of being.
I personally can't wait for more of these findings, but at the same time am concerned, since any study does not just generate neutral knowledge; it also invites certain developments more than others. And, as with any research, I would like to see not just stating the obvious goals of such research, but also the wider implications and possible future scenarios. I would certainly like to invite discussions on this, so feel free to comment through this blog.
The Blue Brain Project, a collaboration of IBM and a Swiss polytechnic school called EPFL, might be leading to the first product that equals humans in terms of intelligence.
This ambitious project aims for an understanding of the human brain by modelling it from the bottom up. The team is trying to match the behaviour of individual simulated neurons with behaviour of real neurons by studying the brain of a living rat. So far, they have succeeded in simulating the behaviour of an entire neocortical column. This is the basic building block of which every brain is made up; ours contains a few thousands of these elements, each highly specialized in one function like recognizing the taste of cheese. After stimulating the model with impulses the simulated neocortical column just seemingly spontaneously began to grow dendrites, connecting neurons in an optimal way. Many entities, each of them behaving according to simple rules, can generate beautifully complex, highly intelligent, and seemingly unpredictable behaviour as a mass. The virtual model is now even so accurate to the behaviour of biological neurons that studying the model delivers better results than studying a real brain.
So the brain is simply a highly interactive network of these entities, and the major current limitation for the project is computing power. This is where IBM plays its role, by providing one supercomputer for simulating all neurons, and one to visualise the process. This results in spectacular imagery.
I'm pretty sure that this development will lead to the next humiliation of man, of a similar significance as the Copernican revolution. We will see that the brain is physically explainable, there is nothing metaphysical to it, that we can create artificial brains, and in the end, that technological organisms can be built that are as intelligent as humans. There already is the plan to build a robotic rat that would develop by interacting with the world, just like a real rat. Professor Henry Markram, director of the project, even believes that in the end, the model of the brain can let us experience what it experiences.
I myself do not believe in this latter prediction. The model will allow brains to communicate more easily and directly, as an alternative to language based communication about our experiences, but still it will remain communication, so there is inherently a gap caused by misinterpretation. You can never align two minds completely, so they can never share experiences, I think. The model can show us what it experiences, but then still our own consciousness selects what it picks from what is communicated. I, following the philosophy of embodiment, also feel that the project underestimates the importance of the physical form of an organism's body in generating its experiences and in the development of the inner structure of the brain. How you think is directly related to how your body is able to interact with the physical world, and this is different for every body. But I remain open for surprises, of course.
The project will have huge implications for designers of technological products. Like already with some other organs, we will possibly be able to create fully artificial human brains. But in contrast to organic brains, these technological brains could be networked electronically, via the internet for example. Brains become transparent, understandable, and rationally controllable. How can we make sure that humans still experience it as pleasurable if they become directly networked and others can directly monitor and influence them? I think to accept this, people first need to undergo a spiritual transformation, for example that of losing their egos, so they don't feel attacked but instead they feel helped by the technology.
Furthermore, how can we make sure our fellow artificially intelligent physical entities on this planet constructively and empathically interact with us? Still, biological brains are quite primitive, and need to go through great struggles to transform their internal configuration into one that works best in creating a fulfilling life. Egotism and territorialism, our present-bias, instinctive behaviour, our inclination to get stuck in self-reinforcing negative spirals, are just a few of the undesirable traits of the human brain, resulting from how we evolved in a primitive environment while these traits don't work anymore in our new, highly networked world. I think our task is not just to reverse engineer the brain, but rather already transform it so these brains more easily reach states like enlightenment. For example by equipping it with new hardwired couplings, like a new instinct. Or by giving it the additional function of being directly able to compare itself against the minds of others. Also, for people themselves to understand their brains, the electrical processes inside them must be translated for the senses, and not just remain abstract visualizations, so they can be easily interpreted and used in social communication in everyday life.
In my view, reverse engineering the brain is just a small start that will help catalyze a huge development: the complete convergence of the artificial and the natural.
Make sure you also watch this video where you can have a virtual flight through a model of the neocortical column. This will give you a feeling for the actual complexity of the human brain, and the scale on which thoughts occur; an entire neocortical column is only 2 mm long and 0.5 mm in diameter. For me this is extremely beautiful, because it confirms that thoughts are nothing but physical processes.
Remember the scene from James Cameron's movie 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' where the T-1000 spreads himself out onto a checkerboard floor, even adopting the pattern on his own body?
For me this scene is an incredibly strong symbol for future technology: liquid technology literally arises from flat, logical technology. Where the checkerboard stands for logic, flatness, and dualisms, qualities that can be found in most modern products like mobile phones, liquid technology would be the next step. It can adopt these old qualities, showed by the T-1000 'empathizing' with it like a chameleon before showing what it can do more: it can put itself in any shape, and become more human. For me, future technology should fulfill the dream not of creating T-1000-like technologies, but of becoming the T-1000. That is, liquidly extend the human body so we can do or be anything we want to do or be.
Where you could see this as an ordinary science-fiction film from the cyberpunk era, please regard that science fiction often becomes science fact, and all human developments ultimately stem from some dream, whether we are conscious about it or not. My dream is to become our technology (we are, already, in a sense; the coupling just becomes increasingly intimate). I lately dreamed I literally was a train that could morph into an aircraft, and I can tell you it is pretty amazing, even while my subconscious simulation was not very convincing yet.
Now the reason for this post is that something incredible struck me, having thought that I had seen everything already. David Gallo is a deep sea explorer, and showed footage of squids during his talk on Ted.com. The one on the end is simply mind-blowing: it actually can change the characteristics of its skin (even the texture!) in order to seamlessly blend into the environment, even make itself look like a piece of coral. This, together with other developments, like new understandings of the mechanisms of the mind, and the concept of Foglets, gives me more and more hope that once we can create similar systems. I want that skin. I want it I want it I want it!
This blog reports and reflects on intellectual and technological developments that can give rise to a liberated feeling of oneness with the whole of being, and an awakening of creative intelligence that empowers people to feel and act as inextricably linked with their lifeworld.
Special attention in this blog is paid to embodied intelligence, complex emergent behavior, applied behavioral economics, technology for physical behavior modification, and the merging of digital and physical experiences.
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The author
Ralph Zoontjens is a product designer from Tilburg, the Netherlands. He has graduated with a Master's Degree from the Industrial Design program at the Eindhoven University of Technology with an interactive jacket that gives feedback for yoga practitioners. He has worked for the Philips Design Probes group and currently does product design for Motio Development in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In his spare time he pursues his many interests, does yoga and distance-running, and tries to immerse himself into creative processes as much as possible.
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