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Category: biological – Page 27

Wetware computing and organoid intelligence is an emerging research field at the intersection of electrophysiology and artificial intelligence. The core concept involves using living neurons to perform computations, similar to how Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are used today. However, unlike ANNs, where updating digital tensors (weights) can instantly modify network responses, entirely new methods must be developed for neural networks using biological neurons. Discovering these methods is challenging and requires a system capable of conducting numerous experiments, ideally accessible to researchers worldwide. For this reason, we developed a hardware and software system that allows for electrophysiological experiments on an unmatched scale. The Neuroplatform enables researchers to run experiments on neural organoids with a lifetime of even more than 100 days. To do so, we streamlined the experimental process to quickly produce new organoids, monitor action potentials 24/7, and provide electrical stimulations. We also designed a microfluidic system that allows for fully automated medium flow and change, thus reducing the disruptions by physical interventions in the incubator and ensuring stable environmental conditions. Over the past three years, the Neuroplatform was utilized with over 1,000 brain organoids, enabling the collection of more than 18 terabytes of data. A dedicated Application Programming Interface (API) has been developed to conduct remote research directly via our Python library or using interactive compute such as Jupyter Notebooks. In addition to electrophysiological operations, our API also controls pumps, digital cameras and UV lights for molecule uncaging. This allows for the execution of complex 24/7 experiments, including closed-loop strategies and processing using the latest deep learning or reinforcement learning libraries. Furthermore, the infrastructure supports entirely remote use. Currently in 2024, the system is freely available for research purposes, and numerous research groups have begun using it for their experiments. This article outlines the system’s architecture and provides specific examples of experiments and results.

The recent rise in wetware computing and consequently, artificial biological neural networks (BNNs), comes at a time when Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are more sophisticated than ever.

The latest generation of Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Meta’s Llama 2 or OpenAI’s GPT-4, fundamentally rely on ANNs.

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Between 1.8 billion and 800 million years ago, earthly life was in the doldrums. During this period, called the “boring billion,” the complexity of life remained minimal, dominated by single-celled organisms with only sporadic ventures into multicellular forms. This era set the stage for the later emergence of complex multicellular life, marking a key chapter in evolutionary history.

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The researchers’ recently published study describes a way to re-activate apoptosis in mutated cells, which would amount to forcing cancer to self-destruct through a bioengineered, bonding molecule.

Gerald Crabtree, one of the study’s authors and a professor of development biology, said he had the idea while hiking through Kings Mountain, California, during the pandemic period. The new compound would have to bind two proteins which already exist in the cancerous cells, turning apoptosis back on and making the cancer kill itself.

“We essentially want to have the same kind of specificity that can eliminate 60 billion cells with no bystanders,” Crabtree said, so that no cell gets destroyed if it isn’t the proper target of this new killing mechanism. The two proteins in question are known as BCL6, an oncogene which suppresses apoptosis-promoting genes in the B-cell lymphoma, and CDK9, an enzyme that catalyzes gene activation instead.

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On this episode, neuroscientist and author Robert Sapolsky joins Nate to discuss the structure of the human brain and its implication on behavior and our ability to change. Dr. Sapolsky also unpacks how the innate quality of a biological organism shaped by evolution and the surrounding environment — meaning all animals, including humans — leads him to believe that there is no such thing as free will, at least how we think about it today. How do our past and present hormone levels, hunger, stress, and more affect the way we make decisions? What implications does this have in a future headed towards lower energy and resource availability? How can our species manage the mismatch of our evolutionary biology with our modern day challenges — and navigate through a ‘determined’ future?

About Robert Sapolsky:

Robert Sapolsky is professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. Over the past thirty years, he has divided his time between the lab, where he studies how stress hormones can damage the brain, and in East Africa, where he studies the impact of chronic stress on the health of baboons. Sapolsky is author of several books, including Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, A Primate’s Memoir, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, and his newest book coming out in October, Determined: Life Without Free Will. He lives with his family in San Francisco.

For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.co…

00:00 — Episode highlight.
00:15 — Guest introduction.
03:10 — When did Robert know he wanted to study animal behavior?
04:40 — When was his last research trip?
05:46 — Challenges that come from differences from modern and ancestral environments.
07:20 — Physiology and our emotions.
09:37 — Divide in evolutionary beliefs.
12:13 — Behavioral science and religion.
14:40 — Past students’ impacted by Robert.
16:48 — Testosterone.
21:07 — Dopamine.
29:02 — Oxytocin.
32:19 — Hormones affecting social behavior.
38:21 — Changing the environmental stimuli of pregnant people to positively impact fetus’ development.
41:55 — Free will.
57:24 — Science of attractiveness.
58:55 — Do people have free will?
1:13:12 — Emergence.
1:18:17 — Quantum and indeterminacy.
1:19:18 — Complexity of free will.
1:23:46 — Difference between free will and agency.
1:26:43 — How to use Robert’s work to change policies around the world in a positive way.
1:29:15 — What’s the difference between a deterministic world and a fatalistic one?
1:34:39 — Robert’s thoughts on his newest book, Determined: Life Without Free Will.
1:40:48 — Key components in a new systems society understanding this science.
1:45:30 — What should listeners take away from this podcast?
1:47:32 — Robert’s recommendations for the polycrisis.
1:52:20 — What Robert cares most about in the world.
1:53:00 — Robert’s magic wand.
1:54:36 — Future topics of conversations.

#natehagens #thegreatsimplification #neuroscience #dopamine #freewill #testosterone

Continue reading “Robert Sapolsky: “The Brain, Determinism, and Cultural Implications” | The Great Simplification #88” | >

“There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote… of a soul?” – Dr. Alfred Lanning, I, Robot.

What is Consciousness? Some Neuroscientists would claim that consciousness is nothing more then a bi-product of the brain and how it is designed. With how the human brain has evolved over the past several thousand years it could be claimed that what you think of as “you” is nothing more than a collection of neural pathways interacting together. Your identity has been theorized as a random collection of synapses and biological processes which, according to futurists such as Ray Kurzweil would make it very easy to ‘copy’ and upload your identity to an avatar like body once your biological self has ceased to function. Are we nothing more than just an arbitrary collection of cells with a false sense of importance and self worth? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

I believe that the human species has a certain drive built in, almost a natural instinct in which we are born to explore and discover the unknown. I believe this reason is why we have a wide variety of fictional and non fictional scientific topics to explore and learn something from. Our very nature encourages us to explore a wide variety of topics some of which may appear as fringe ideas. Those which border on the unusual are more often reserved to the realms of Science Fiction until we reach a point on a conscious level to where we are able to objectively look on it. This is a reason I would say Science Fiction is so popular for us; it allows for the exploration of new territory without having the burden of confronting it within our daily existence.

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NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that is inhospitable to terrestrial life as we know it.

Although the surface of Mars is frigid and hostile to life today, NASA’s robotic explorers at Mars are searching for clues as to whether it could have supported life in the distant past. Researchers used instruments on board Curiosity to measure the isotopic composition of carbon-rich minerals (carbonates) found in Gale crater and discovered new insights into how the Red Planet’s ancient climate transformed.

“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said David Burtt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a paper describing this research published October 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our samples are not consistent with an ancient environment with life (biosphere) on the surface of Mars, although this does not rule out the possibility of an underground biosphere or a surface biosphere that began and ended before these carbonates formed.”

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Joscha Bach puts forward his radical theory of cyber animism.

Can the natural world be understood in terms of software agents?

Watch the full talk at https://iai.tv/video/the-case-for-conscious-ai?utm_source=Yo…nscious-ai.

Most are sceptical that artificial intelligence will one day become conscious. But might this scepticism be misguided? Join leading AI researcher, Joscha Bach, as he argues that we can create artificial consciousness if we open ourselves up to the possibility of cyber-animism, the idea that consciousness and spirit is akin to a software agent that naturally emerges in a biological organism.

#computerscience #ai #consciousness #biology #interestingfacts.

Joscha Bach is an exceptional cognitive scientist who is pushing the limits of what we can achieve with Artificial Intelligence. As an AI researcher, he is constantly exploring new frontiers in cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modelling, and multi-agent systems.

Continue reading “A radical theory of consciousness | AI researcher Joscha Bach” | >

A key challenge in the effort to link brain activity with behavior is that brain activity, measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for instance, is extraordinarily complex. That complexity can make it difficult to find recurring activity patterns across different people or within individuals.

In a new study, Yale researchers were able to take fMRI data, reduce its complexity, and in doing so, uncover stable patterns of activity shared across more than 300 different people. The findings, researchers say, are a promising step forward in uncovering biomarkers for psychiatric disorders.

The study was published Sept. 24 in the journal PLOS Biology.

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Dr. Alexander Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. He has been a visiting professor and fellow at the Center for the Philosophy of Science, at the University of Minnesota, as well as the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Oxford University, and a visiting fellow of the Philosophy Department at the Research School of Social Science, of the Australian National University. In 2016 he was the Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. He has held fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1993, Dr. Rosenberg received the Lakatos Award in the philosophy of science. In 2006–2007 he held a fellowship at the National Humanities Center. He was also the Phi Beta Kappa-Romanell Lecturer for 2006–2007. He’s the author of both fictional and non-fictional literature, including The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, The Girl from Krakow, and How History Gets Things Wrong.
In this episode, we focus on Dr. Rosenberg’s most recent book, How History Gets Things Wrong, and also a little bit on some of the topics of The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. We talk about the theory of mind, and how it evolved; the errors with narrative History, and the negative consequences it might produce; mind-brain dualism; what neuroscience tells us about how our brain and cognition operate; social science, biology, and evolution; the role that evolutionary game theory can play in explaining historical events and social phenomena; why beliefs, motivations, desires, and other mental constructs might not exist at all, and the implications for moral philosophy; if AI could develop these same illusions; and nihilism.

Time Links:
01:17 What is theory of mind, and how did it evolve?
06:16 The problem with narrative History.
08:17 Is theory of mind problematic in modern societies?
11:41 The issue with mind-brain dualism.
13:23 The concept of “aboutness”
15:36 Neuroscience, and no content in the brain.
22.21 What “causes” historical events?
28:09 Why the social sciences need more biology and evolution.
37:13 Evolutionary game theory, and understanding social phenomena.
41:06 The implications for moral philosophy of not having beliefs.
44:34 About “moral progress”
47:41 The usefulness of thought experiments in Philosophy.
49:58 The theory of mind will not be going away anytime soon.
51:37 Could AI systems have these same cognitive illusions?
53:13 A note on nihilism and morality.
57:38 Follow Dr. Rosenberg’s work!
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Follow Dr. Rosenberg’s work:
Faculty page: https://tinyurl.com/ydby3b5f.
Website: http://www.alexrose46.com/
Books: https://tinyurl.com/yag2n2fn.
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A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, BRENDON J. BREWER, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, MIGUEL ESTRADA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JIM FRANK, AND JERRY MULLER!

I also leave you with the link to a recent montage video I did with the interviews I have released until the end of June 2018:
https://youtu.be/efdb18WdZUo.

And check out my playlists on:

Continue reading “#115 Alexander Rosenberg: Theory of Mind, History, Mental Illusions, and Nihilism” | >