Lifeboat Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySPvBbfY2Fc

A 3D-printed layered structure that incorporates neural cells to mimic the structure of brain tissue has been created by researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) in Australia, and it could have major consequences in studying and treating conditions such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s. The three-dimensional structure will allow scientists to better understand the complex nature of the brain and its 86 billion nerve cells. We look at the benefits and risks of this scientific breakthrough on the Lip News with Jose Marcelino Ortiz and Jo Ankier.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/researchers-are-getting-clo…ing-brains

Continue reading “3D-Printed Brain Tissue a Success” »

http://www.scienceandnonduality.com

John Hagelin, Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy Director of the Board of Advisors for the David Lynch Foundation.

Continue reading “Is Consciousness the Unified Field? A Field Theorist’s Perspective — John Hagelin, SAND11” »

The electromagnetic theories of consciousness propose that consciousness can be understood as an electromagnetic phenomenon.

Thanks to the work of a small group neuroscientists and theoretical physicists over the last few years, we may finally have found a way of analyzing the mysterious, metaphysical realm of consciousness in a scientific manner. The latest breakthrough in this new field, published by Max Tegmark of MIT, postulates that consciousness is actually a state of matter. “Just as there are many types of liquids, there are many types of consciousness,” he says. With this new model, Tegmark says that consciousness can be described in terms of quantum mechanics and information theory, allowing us to scientifically tackle murky topics such as self awareness, and why we perceive the world in classical three-dimensional terms, rather than the infinite number of objective realities offered up by the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Consciousness has always been a tricky topic to broach scientifically. After all, science deals specifically with effects that can be observed and described mathematically, and consciousness has heretofore successfully evaded all such efforts. In most serious scientific circles, merely mentioning consciousness might result in the rescinding of your credentials and immediate exile to the land of quacks and occultists. (Read: How to create a mind, or die trying.)

In SELF/LESS, a dying old man (Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley) transfers his consciousness to the body of a healthy young man (Ryan Reynolds). If you’re into immortality, that’s pretty good product packaging, no?

But this thought-provoking psychological thriller also raises fundamental and felicitous ethical questions about extending life beyond its natural boundaries. Postulating the moral and ethical issues that surround mortality have long been defining characteristics of many notable stories within the sci-fi genre. In fact, the Mary Shelley’s age-old novel, Frankenstein, while having little to no direct plot overlaps [with SELF/LESS], it is considered by many to be among the first examples of the science fiction genre.

Continue reading “Never Say Die – SELF/LESS from Science-Fiction to -Fact” »

US Military likes Google Earth for training missions.

Closed off from all non-essential personnel in a secured, vault-like work environment known as a Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility, the 204th Intelligence Squadron is a mystery to those outside the squadron.

If you have the “blues” eat some “greens”.

You can be in excellent physical shape, with low cholesterol, a healthy body weight and good overall physical fitness — but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy.

Your brain is “Plastic” according to Professor Bliss the receipentant of the UK’s Brain Prize award.

Three British researchers win a one million-euro prize for their work on how memories are stored inside the brain.

Biography : Scott Aaronson is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally. He also has written about consciousness and personal identity and the relevance of quantum mechanics to these issues.

Michael Cerullo: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. Given the recent advances in brain preservation, questions of personal identity are moving from merely academic to extremely practical questions. I want to focus on your ideas related to the relevance of quantum mechanics to consciousness and personal identity which are found in your paper “Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine” ( http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159 ), your blog “Could a Quantum Computer Have Subjective Experience?” ( http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1951 ), and your book “Quantum Computing since Democritus” ( http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/) .

Before we get to your own speculations in this field I want to review some of the prior work of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff ( http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/content/hameroff-penrose…-or-theory ). Let me try to summarize some of the criticism of their work (including some of your own critiques of their theory). Penrose and Hameroff abandon conventional wisdom in neuroscience (i.e. that neurons are the essential computational element in the brain) and instead posit that the microtubules (which conventional neuroscience tell us are involved in nucleic and cell division, organization of intracellular structure, and intracellular transport, as well as ciliary and flagellar motility) are an essential part of the computational structure of the brain. Specifically, they claim the microtubules are quantum computers that grant a person the ability to perform non-computable computations (and Penrose claims these kinds of computations are necessary for things like mathematical understanding). The main critiques of their theory are: it relies on future results in quantum gravity that don’t exist; there is no empirical evidence that microtubules are relevant to the function of the brain; work in quantum decoherence also makes it extremely unlikely that the brain is a quatum computer; even if a brain could somehow compute non-computable functions it isn’t clear what this has to do with consciousness. Would you say these are fair criticisms of their theory and are there any other criticisms you see as relevant?

Continue reading “Scott Aaronson On The Relevance Of Quantum Mechanics To Brain Preservation, Uploading, And Identity” »