A computer simulated human brain – that undoubtedly sounds like science fiction. But the EU flagship project, the Human Brain Project, actually has computer simulation of the brain as an objective.
What will be accomplished during the ten years that the project is financed will presumably be simulations of more limited brain functions (often in the mouse brain). But the proud objective to simulate the human brain has now been formulated in a serious research project.
But what does “computer simulation of the brain” mean?
In an article in the journal Neuron Kathinka Evers and Yadin Dudai discuss the meaning of simulation of the brain. Kathinka Evers from CRB leads the philosophical research in the EU Project and Yadin Dudai is a neuroscientist from the Weizmann Institute of Science who also works in the project.
The article combines philosophical and scientific vantage points to clarify the type of simulation that is relevant in neuroscience and what goals it may have. Several of the questions in the article are relevant also for the simulation of more limited brain functions. For example, the question if the ability to make a computer simulation of a brain function means that you understand it.
The most thought-provoking questions, however, concern the big (but distant) goal to simulate a whole human brain. Is it possible in principle, given that the brain is embedded in the body and is in constant interaction with it? Is it possible, given that the brain interacts not only with the body but also with a social environment?
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.