Science

The Human Brain
Photo Source: Stock.xching

When it comes to non-human intelligence, did you ever wonder that if we met extraterrestrials would we be able to tell if they were artificial or natural? This question is not as crazy as it sounds. We are now beginning to get into organic robot and computer brains. While our work is quite primitive and based on the neurons of lower life forms, it is starting to show that we can create a simple organic brain and attach it to a circuit board. One of the first questions that I have to ask is how do we know that this experiment is not being tried with human neurons somewhere? Maybe our military, or the military of other advanced countries is already conducting experiments into this area? Yeah you are right, this really doesn't seem so crazy when you think about it does it? We know that neurons can be harvested from a brain and then nutrients given to them and they grow. We know this because we have done it using rat neurons.

We are only at a primitive stage right now, but a race that was even a couple of hundred years ahead of us in technology might have already figured this out. They might have been able to grow entire brains and place them into bodies. The bodies themselves could be composed of tissue that was grown in a laboratory on some distant planet. As we all know, we are also starting to grow body parts, so again this isn't that far fetched either. Instead of a robot made of metal, it may be possible some day for us to make one of flesh, that is indistinguishable from us. It would be like those depicted on the remake of Battlestar Galactia. Would this type of life be any lesser than any other type? Would it be lesser than natural humans if it were as intelligent? It might even become God fearing.

Why would the military want to develop this type of thing? For one thing it might produce soldiers that have no fear. The part of the brain that produces fear might be able to be blocked out. We are learning more and more about the human brain and the centers that control our emotions. Secondly, it would relieve the military of the burden of having to ship bodies back to families. One of the major objections of Americans is the amount of dead that we experience during war time. If these beings are considered artificial, then there may be no objection to their deaths. Since we might be able to block out their fear area, we may also be able to block out the area in their brains that allows them to feel pain. Think of it, a soldier that doesn't feel pain. It would still be able to function right up to the end of its existence.

There is an ethical question involved here. How would we know if a being that was artificial was responding to some program, or was sentient? It is the same question that we have been talking about for years when we discuss artificial life in regard to computer programs. I guess the answer might be that if we produce an organic being and it gets taught the same way a human does, by having instructors and it attains at least an average I.Q. then we might have to admit that it is sentient. If it is sentient than is it right to send it out to die, or to alter the centers of its brain? The answer has to be that this would be wrong. If it is wrong, than how can we allow our military to do this? We can't. If we believe in a human soul, wouldn't it be possible for a fully functional organic copy of ourselves to also have a soul even though we created it? I think if we asked one of these creations that question and they said yes, we would have to accept that answer.

Robot
Photo Source: NASA

Some people that claim to have been abducted state that the extraterrestrials that abducted them were helped by smaller beings that looked like the famous Greys. As many times as I have heard them discussed, I do not recall anyone ever wondering if they were artificial or natural. If a race was so advanced that it could travel between stars, then using us as a yardstick, it must have developed the capacity for developing artificial organic beings. On the other hand, a race that advanced might have been wise enough to outlaw the practice of creating other sentient beings, looking on that as the job of God. While not quite the same thing that I am talking about, cloning comes close and I am sure that even though it is supposedly illegal to create a human clone, the experiments are being done in at least a few places on this planet.

It is almost always the military that pushes for these things. The world would be so much better off if all the militaries of the world were abolished, but that will never be. Too bad we can't all be like Costa Rica which abolished its army in 1948 and doesn't seem to be any the worse for it. This country would be destroyed in a heartbeat if we ever tried that. Everything around us is gaining in intelligence faster than we are. Our cars are getting more intelligent, our televisions, our homes and even our refrigerators, not to mention our computers. Will there come a time when we are the stupidest things on the planet? If that ever happens, will our creations let us live, or will they decide that there is no longer a need for us? It is an interesting question and we can only hope that we never let this state of affairs get to that point.

We are being taken out of the loop already in some areas of manufacturing. We are no longer involved in any part of the process from designing to manufacturing in a few areas. We only fulfill a very tiny purpose and that is keeping the supplies rolling in and soon that will probably be done robotically. We may think that this is good, but is it really? Machines are now designing themselves without human intervention and may get so advanced that we won't know exactly what they are doing. I can't help but think that we are already letting things get out of hand and are begging for the Terminator scenario.