131–140 of 173 posts
I'm eager for the day to come when we can map an entire animal to a computer model -or even human-, so animals won't be necessary anymore for this kind of procedure. How many years away do you guys think we are from that dream?
I'm eager for the day to come when we can map an entire animal to a computer model -or even human-, so animals won't be necessary anymore for this kind of procedure. How many years away do you guys think we are from that dream?
We could probably make a computer model of tiny arthropods in 2017, if someone were willing to throw piles of money at the problem. A computer model of a human will be more difficult.
But also consider that an acceptably accurate model of the human brain would be an AI. You would still be experimenting on a person.
I'm eager for the day to come when we can map an entire animal to a computer model -or even human-, so animals won't be necessary anymore for this kind of procedure. How many years away do you guys think we are from that dream?
That depends largely on whether you want to model mites or mammals. We could probably make a computer model of tiny arthropods in 2017, if someone were willing to throw piles of money at the problem. A computer model of a human will be more difficult. But also consider that an acceptably accurate model of the human brain would be an AI. You would still be experimenting on a person.
But that's talk for another topic. On this case, you'd want to emulate only the physical functioning of our brain and body and not our minds.
I'm eager for the day to come when we can map an entire animal to a computer model -or even human-, so animals won't be necessary anymore for this kind of procedure. How many years away do you guys think we are from that dream?
Computation will never be cheap enough to get accuracy. Biology is too dynamic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computation will never be cheap enough to get accuracy. Biology is too dynamic.
I think saying 'computation will never be __________' is usually just wrong. We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body, and there's no technical limitation on putting a ton of supercomputers together to do what OP suggested. It's more of a matter of waiting until it's economically worth it.
I fundamentally disagree. We have models, sure, but they're approximative, not predictive, and I don't see any indication we'd be able to get prediction ever. It's very difficult to understand how biological approximation layered over chemical and physical approximation could give any benefit we get now from experimentation.
Among other things, there is no such thing as model verification.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computational Neuroscience student here. Research of this nature requires reading the electrical spike trains of small sets of neurons (often even individual cells). EEG will give you a measurement of the combined electric field of every single neuron that is active in the entire brain. You can use multiple electrodes and run machine learning algorithms to get a qualitative measure of a macroscopic chunk of brain act…
The point of my comment was that getting good testing is surely easier on humans than monkeys. Actually going in has to happen at some point - why not do this on humans that have volunteered? Cellular level investigations are obviously important but getting a wire in somewhere is not going to happen at a level this small. It will be image guided surely. X-ray would by my guess and hopefully MR but that obviously has…
Neural lace looks promising. But wouldn't be the first to volunteer for one :)
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v13/n10/full/nmeth.3969....
Sidenote: I feel slightly uneasy about all this stuff.
On one level it is progressing our knowledge, but both the methods of the research (animal testing) and potential implications of deep human+machine symbiosis, combined with CRISPR on animals and humans, feel instinctively bad. It won't stop at curing disease.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that case, why not start with human subjects?
Economic reasons? Humans are worth a lot more than monkeys. I know it's a cruel reason and hardly the only one.
Americans would be astounded to learn the usual settlements awarded for deaths due to traffic accidents (as an example I'm familiar with) in South America.
Payments of 25.000 dollars aren't uncommon. Colombia and Uruguay pay around U$ 150.000 per death. Heck, even first world countries like Spain can pay less than that.
So, an expensive monkey pet can be more expensive than a human.
http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/10-most-expe...
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Most-Expensive-Pets/
(Spanish) http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/04/08/actualidad/13...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The desire to protect dogs/cats/horses over other animals isn't cognitive dissonance. Our relationship to certain species goes deeper than intellectual debates. We have evolved dogs from wolves, and so to have we evolved alongside them, to see value beyond meat. We have an instinct that protects dogs and cats because they are more valuable than food. They gather and protect our food. Pigs may be more intelligent, but…
I wonder if this is slowly changing as values change. In NZ there is a growing movement to eradicate pests to help protect native species. Cats fall on the wrong side of this goal. There have been public calls by high profile individuals to eradicate cats. Maybe someday birds will be seen to greater value than cats down here. http://nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10...
I do wonder whether a place like NZ might then have a rat problem. Rats also do real damage to native species, including birds as they eat eggs. Removing a key rat predator inside cities might have repercussions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The intelligence argument is nonsense. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Describe the treatment of livestock (pigs, chickens, cows) but frame it as something that is happening to dogs and you'll drive hundreds of thousands of outraged meat eaters to signing a petition. The reason is cognitive dissonance, we're taught from the moment we can understand that it's okay to farm animals and very few people ever really think…
My wife is in vet school and when I learned all of what you describe from her I have been phasing out dairy as best as I can. Still can't kick the butter cheese and icecream though :(