r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/Far-Profit-47 • 4h ago
Funny Whats going on with fly brains as of lately?
•
u/VelocityRapter644 3h ago
Does this mean we’ll eventually be able to play Doom on the human genome?
•
•
•
u/bloodfist 3h ago
The fly brains are because researchers released a "connectome" of a fly's brain along with some research, so now you can download a fly if you want.
A connectome is when they map every neuron and their connections within a brain, which allows you to simulate stimuli and response. So people are figuring out how to send it signals and read outputs into games and stuff.
There's a human connectome project too. It's an enormous collaborative process and still years and years from completion.
No one who works on these seem to think they are in any way really experiencing anything or thinking btw. Just a mathematical simulation.
•
u/picabo123 3h ago
It is interesting to think about what the difference really is and if something like a fly connectome put into a little robot fly would "feel" anything. 100 trillion compared to 100 million connections is also a big leap, maybe there is some phase transition at some point?
•
u/ICBPeng1 2h ago
It really brings into question what a person is.
Because we’re just kind of software running on meat hardware.
But what happens when you start running software on simulated hardware
•
u/bloodfist 1h ago
Lol I guess check my comment history because I went on a super long stoned rant about AI and consciousness last night. I think it's really interesting stuff too.
The main thing I think separates the two is that in a brain, the neurons continue to exist after firing. In the computer it is doing the mathematical operation that a neuron would perform, but then nothing else exists except the number that comes out of that operation.
There isn't really anything there to experience anything. The only time anything "exists" for any meaningful definition of the word is when the processor is performing each individual operation. Then it ceases to exist to make room on the chip for the next. The stuff stored in memory is just a heap of numbers, which is very different to the electrochemical states in a brain.
Like, no matter how good your weather simulation is, it isn't going to start raining you know? It's not made of the right stuff. It'll only ever be a mathematical representation of that stuff.
Which isn't to say it is impossible to do, I just don't really see how it could with the way it currently works.
•
•
u/angelwolf71885 3h ago
Me knowing if you use ALL the DNA sequence to store data rather then actual instructions to build an organic thing…you can’t actually store anything or build anything
•
•
u/justasillylilgoos3 3h ago
We really got Super Mario Sunshine in the human genome before we got GTA 6
•
u/Liminal__penumbra 3h ago
Fun fact, the existence of Hachimoji Synthetic DNA led me to try making a math model based on recoverable information using 8 symbol addressing. It is not nor do I believe will ever be anything more than a fun project. But it's lead me to understand concepts like geometry and representation a lot more.
•
u/New_Salamander_4592 2h ago
human brains are multitudes of sizes larger than the amount of neurons in a fruit fly so whether or not we're that close is actually a bit of an exaggeration.
•
•
u/FigureFourWoo 2h ago
It always baffles me how close human DNA is to lines of code. We don’t understand how to fully decode it yet but wouldn’t it be wild if ancient information is already encoded in them and one day we will understand how to read it.
•
u/qualityvote2 4h ago
Heya u/Far-Profit-47! And welcome to r/NonPoliticalTwitter!
For everyone else, do you think OP's post fits this community? Let us know by upvoting this comment!
If it doesn't fit the sub, let us know by downvoting this comment and then replying to it with context for the reviewing moderator.