Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

news.rice.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 132 posts

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#91

Post by grishka »

Nextgrid wrote: post #58
grishka wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given enough curiosity, anyone can understand how and why a jet plane works in as much or as little detail as they want. Planes were engineered by humans from first principles and we're good at both documenting our inventions and understanding those first principles. Building something to interface with a biological system, though, is another matter entirely. It could as well be alien technology. It requires reverse…

> that was not designed by our civilization To the best of our knowledge, it wasn't designed at all. It's more like giving a monkey a typewriter and millions of years, with a very crude feedback function (evolution/natural selection) that makes it very hard to backtrack out of a local maximum. It's quite hard to interface with it because it's not designed to be interfaced with and the whole thing works pretty much by…

> it wasn't designed at all

Obviously. There is no functional separation between components (some proteins do multiple unrelated jobs), there's no distinct hierarchy (layers just kinda flow into each other), and there's way too much global state that works seemingly something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5mwVv5NjhA

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#92

Post by Geee »

If I understand correctly, this allows nerve-to-digital and digital-to-nerve conversions. This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones.

The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose. You could probably keep the brain alive indefinitely.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#93

Post by euroderf »

Geee wrote: post #92

If I understand correctly, this allows nerve-to-digital and digital-to-nerve conversions. This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones. The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose.…

A recurring theme in science fiction. See for example "They Saved Hitler's Brain".

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#94

Post by lordnacho »

Geee wrote: post #92

If I understand correctly, this allows nerve-to-digital and digital-to-nerve conversions. This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones. The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose.…

Why? Find a way to distil whatever process the brain does, emulate it on a computer.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#95

Post by spoiler »

lordnacho wrote: post #94
Geee wrote: post #92

If I understand correctly, this allows nerve-to-digital and digital-to-nerve conversions. This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones. The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose.…

Why? Find a way to distil whatever process the brain does, emulate it on a computer.

That's very "draw the rest of the owl"!

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#96

Post by Geee »

lordnacho wrote: post #94
Geee wrote: post #92

If I understand correctly, this allows nerve-to-digital and digital-to-nerve conversions. This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones. The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose.…

Why? Find a way to distil whatever process the brain does, emulate it on a computer.

You can do this with atom level simulation and growing the brain all the way from DNA, but it needs a lot of compute (> 50 years).

However, and in the end you'd be bored, because you could get rid of all of your human flaws, which is what makes life interesting. It'd be really depressing and boring to be a superintelligent computer.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#97

Post by momento »

Geee wrote: post #92

If I understand correctly, this allows nerve-to-digital and digital-to-nerve conversions. This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones. The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose.…

> This means that we're soon able to replace our bodies with robotic ones.

Talk about jumping to conclusions.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#98

Post by lordnacho »

Geee wrote: post #96
lordnacho wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Find a way to distil whatever process the brain does, emulate it on a computer.

You can do this with atom level simulation and growing the brain all the way from DNA, but it needs a lot of compute (> 50 years). However, and in the end you'd be bored, because you could get rid of all of your human flaws, which is what makes life interesting. It'd be really depressing and boring to be a superintelligent computer.

Yeah exactly. You would never do an atom level simulation, you would distill the model of whatever you think people are.

And then that would live on in a new environment, becoming something entirely different.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#100

Post by imp0cat »

maxerickson wrote: post #66
ElFitz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how hard it is to actually fix any accidental damage to brain cells and nerves, and the far-reaching consequences of such damage, I am always amazed to see how many are eager to just plug something into it and let some arbitrary code send electric shocks through their brain. I get the unfathomable potential of the thing, and the appeal of said potential. But that’s a product I won’t be an early-adopter of…

As of yet, most people with brain implants have them to try to improve profound problems. Cochlear implants are controversial in the deaf community, but they also have a relatively clear purpose and effect (vs being "arbitrary").

Controversial? Please do tell.
Post reply on HN