I ran across this while checking on CERN progress. Al Gore did not invent the internet, it was (more or less) an accident of CERN-like communication efforts. That is all about to change as the program has a new, not open to the public, comm system which is having a huge impact on philosophy. It will change your life soon in the form of communication and medical technology.

The vision and conCERNs presented in the attached video are a combination of spiritual and technological events. Some are true and some are fears of coming truth. Even if you don't understand the technology, you should make yourself aware of the possibilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWauFkFE4dc&feature=related

This is extremely interesting.

Its a pity, the video you liked was full of woo, I had hoped when I clicked the link it was about this . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLCT3wU4fek&feature=related
Science does not posit terms like spiritual higher planes without defining such things mathematically, that vid you posted was word soup at best.

My favorite quote: "Transdimensional draco reptilians serpents of hell"

There is one thing that they are correct about....the pace of technological advancement in this area may surprise us in the next generation.

I thought I made it clear that some of the vid was "fears ...", not reality. What I found most interesting was the blend of processing power with the need (in certain projects) for processing power as well as data transfer speed. Speed is the name of the game and with offsite parallel processing, data transfer rate is the only obstacle.

Yeah you have to separate the buzz words and bologna from the tech reality, but the facts are that the world of processing and data transfer are changing quickly and will greatly affect medical technology, communications, and who knows what else.

We had a thread not too long ago about the ability to transfer brain signals to a computer from a quadriplegic. This form of data transfer is working for the blind, deaf, and immobile. The movie Avatar may end up being more true than many of us suspect in a closer future than many of us suspect.

Your posted vid is a nice view into a small part of the research being done trying to create a human neural net analog. What I found interesting about the one in the OP is the broad strokes the brush painted, i.e., the fact that the technology will affect so many unanticipated parts of our lives.

The key element, the data transfer rate of the optical system, is not a part of the neural pattern duplication program.

Here is a little more information.

Begin Quote:

Henry Markram

Henry Markram, Project Director of the Blue Brain Project, Director of the Center for Neuroscience & Technology and co-Director of EPFL's Brain Mind Institute, obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) from Cape Town University, South Africa under the supervision of Rodney Douglas and his Ph.D from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, under the supervision of Menahem Segal. During his PhD he discovered a link between acetylcholine and memory mechanisms by showing that acetylcholine modulates the primary receptor linked to synaptic plasticity.

He went to the USA as a Fulbright Scholar at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he studied ion channels on synaptic vesicles. He then went as a Minerva Fellow to the Laboratory of Bert Sakmann at the Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany, where he discovered calcium transients in dendrites evoked by sub-threshold activity, and by single action potentials propagating back into dendrites. He also began studying the connectivity between neurons, describing in great detail how layer 5 pyramidal neurons are interconnected.

He was the first to alter the precise millisecond relative timing of single pre- and post-synaptic action potentials to reveal a highly precise learning mechanism operating between neurons -- now reproduced in many brain regions and known as spike timing-dependent synaptic plasticity (STDP). These experiments were carried out in 1993, four years before publication. Although there were some correlation-sensitive findings before, this was the first study that manipulated single pre- and post-synaptic spike times to monitor the effect of synaptic changes.

He was appointed assistant professor at the Weizmann Institute for Science, Israel, where he started systematically dissecting out the neocortical column. He discovered that synaptic learning can also involve a change in synaptic dynamics (called redistribution of synaptic efficacy) rather than merely changing the strengths of connections. He also revealed a spectrum of new principles governing neocortical microcircuit structure, function, and emergent dynamics. Based on the emergent dynamics of the neocortical microcircuit he and Wolfgang Maass developed the theory of liquid computing, or high entropy computing.

In 2002 he moved to EPFL as full professor and founder/director of the Brain Mind Institute and Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Technology. At the BMI, in the Laboratory for Neural Microcircuitry, Markram has continued to unravel the blueprint of the neocortical column, building state-of-the-art tools to carry out multi-neuron patch clamp recordings combined with laser and electrical stimulation as well as multi-site electrical recording ,chemical imaging and gene expression. Markram has received numerous awards and published over 75 papers.

I consider immersive telepresence in another organism by some means to be basically guaranteed, eventually. I didn't pay attention to the hypothetical mechanism used in avatar; I mean, that whole business about needing to use a twin because he had the same genome struck me as purely a plot device, zero to do with any current science or possible future science for living-organism telepresence.

The movie Avatar was, of course, science fiction. The science part of using the clone for the connection was the premise that a clone would recreate the basic hard wiring of the original, making the connection "take" quicker with less relearning and rewiring of the neural net. The reality is that the brain constantly rewires itself from both experience and hormone release so you are probably right in a practical sense. But the premise is logical in that "If it could be done, it would be easier to do".

Maybe.

Yea the practical complications are the things learned in development, far too often we fail to realize until we get started.

Its fascinating how early we are into this research and yet how far we have come, very exciting.