His ambitions are grounded in concrete steps. Once the team is able to model a complete rat brain—that should happen in the next two years—Markram will download the simulation into a robotic rat, so that the brain has a body. He's already talking to a Japanese company about constructing the mechanical animal.

I think THAT is an amazing statement! Being able to model a complete rat brain that actual works, WOW! And, put that in a working mechanical animal! Wow wow!

I think there are still tremendous hurdles they need to over come. For example, how are memories stored? There is some evidence memories are somehow coded in RNA. Cetrtainly it must be done in some kind of protein within the neuron, and that seem to be outside what they are modeling (they are modeling ion channels). But, they'll be able to figure that out one way or another once they have a complete working model of a rat brain.

I don't see why they didn't start with something simpler, like an insect or even a nematode. Fewer neurons to model, easier to understand what is going on. It does seme to me like this is driven at least partly by Markram's ego. If you want to model something, why start with something so compliected? They would certainly have learned more by starting with a simpler model. I think in 2 years, IF they have a complete rat model, they will see they have an overly complicated model and do exactly that.

They'll have to go back to a much simpler model to understand some of the basic principles before they can understand the whole thing.

Vertebrate evolution began with fishes and the brain is constructed in layers. The rhombencephalon "reptilean" brain, or hindbrain, is at the base, the mesencephalon (midbrain) over that, and then the prosencephalon (forebrain) sits on top of that. These are three distinct layers of the brain. Start with a simple invertebrate, like a sea cucumber, or a nematode, then model a more sophisticated invertebrate, maybe an ant or even an octpus. Both have sophisticated behavior, and the octopus has a very sophisticated nervous system indeed. Then model the rhombencephalon, mesencephalon, and prosencephalon in that order. I think the fact that this is NOT the path Markram is pursuing is very telling. It indicates his approach is motivate by personal agrandizement more than the goals of science. Plus he's an arrogant bastard, have you heard him talk?

Very interesting stuff either way.

With the right supercomputer, our lucid reality can be faked. "There is nothing inherently mysterious about the mind or anything it makes," Markram says. "Consciousness is just a massive amount of information being exchanged by trillions of brain cells. If you can precisely model that information, then I don't know why you wouldn't be able to generate a conscious mind."

Well, there he's making an assertion I don;t think he has the science to back up, and that REALLY is the interestign thing about this question. Is consciousness "just a massive amount of information being exchanged by trillions of brain cells?" Frankly I don't think it is, and the simplest and most elegant way to demonstrate that is to consider the question of how it is that, when you look at some object, a flower or a mountain, that an image is formed somehow in your mind's eye. That is, somehow, somewhere, a real image is formed. that image is part of you consciousness. You can "see" it so to speak, but that voersimplifies the question because the question here is, what is "seeing?" The image is formed mechanically by your eye. The photons are focused to form an image on your retina, the rods and cones in your retina are stimulated by those photons, and the pattern of stimulation is carried by the optic nerve to the visual cortex, where it has been shown that neurons become activate forming a rough physical image of the scene on the back of your brain. But, how does this image become the image you percieve in your mind's eye? Is the image in your mind's eye nothing more than the actiavtion of those neurons in the visual cortex? If it is, than what is the apparent "magic" that turns that into the image in your mind's eye? How does it become a part of your stream of consciousness, and what, after all, is your stream of consciousness? What is "consciousness" made of?

I think it's quite a jump to ascert that, as Markram does, "consciousness is just a massive amount of information being exchanged by trillions of brain cells."

And yet, Markram is candid about the possibility of failure. He knows that he has no idea what will happen once the Blue Brain is scaled up. "I think it will be just as interesting, perhaps even more interesting, if we can't create a conscious computer," Markram says. "Then the question will be: 'What are we missing? Why is this not enough?'"

Now there is where the metal meets the road. Thsi experiment, if successful, can actually test an important hypothesis about the nature of consciousness. If the simulation becomes conscious (I don't know how you could test that by the way) it would indicate Markram's statement is true. If not, as he puts it, what are we missing? One way or another the question is going to be answered if he succeeds in meeting his goals (if he can).