Category Archives: 2015 January update eight

Endless fun: The question is not whether we can upload our brains onto a computer, but what will become of us when we do

Could we ever map a complete human connectome? Well, scientists have done it for a roundworm. They’ve done it for small parts of a mouse brain. A very rough, large-scale map of connectivity in the human brain is already available, though nothing like a true map of every idiosyncratic neurone and synapse in a particular person’s head. The National Institutes of Health in the US is currently funding the Human Connectome Project, an effort to map a human brain in as much detail as possible. I admit to a certain optimism toward the project. The technology for brain scanning improves all the time. Right now, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is at the forefront. High-resolution scans of volunteers are revealing the connectivity of the human brain in more detail than anyone ever thought possible. Other, even better technologies will be invented. It seems a no-brainer (excuse the pun) that we will be able to scan, map, and store the data on every neuronal connection within a person’s head. It is only a matter of time, and a timescale of five to 10 decades seems about right.

Of course, nobody knows if the connectome really does contain all the essential information about the mind. Some of it might be encoded in other ways. Hormones can diffuse through the brain. Signals can combine and interact through other means besides synaptic connections. Maybe certain other aspects of the brain need to be scanned and copied to make a high-quality simulation. Just as the music recording industry took a century of tinkering to achieve the impressive standards of the present day, the mind-recording industry will presumably require a long process of refinement.

The Human Connectome Project

FK – Will ‘people’ who’ve been downloaded into their own ‘realities’ be allowed to create sentient beings to co-exist with them, expecting them to be their slaves and torturing those who don’t go along with the game plan?

Has this already happened?

Hell-bent : Younger Christians may be ditching doctrines of fire and brimstone – but will Christianity ever get rid of hell entirely?

FK – Another good one from the same site:

The god effect: Religion spawns both benevolent saints and murderous fanatics. Could dopamine levels in the brain drive that switch?

Police want app ‘Waze’ to be disabled

A smartphone app called Waze, which allows drivers to mark where they spot police cars along roadsides, is under fire by police officers who want the app disabled.

Waze, which was bought by Google in 2013 for $966 million, is a free, social media type app which allows drivers to interact in real-time with other drivers on the road. The app currently has 50 million users in over 200 countries.

Traffic conditions are constantly updated within the app and any route detours or bad road conditions are also made visible for other drivers to see. The app also allows users to mark where they spot police cars on the road, but whether the police cars are part of a speed trap or a DUI checkpoint is not viewable.

FK – They’re our employees, our hired public servants, hired by our elected public servants, we’re supposed to know where they are and what they’re doing. They’re supposed to fear us, not the other way ’round.

If the purpose is ‘safety,’ then drivers will see the warning and slow down. If the purpose is revenue enhancement then those who control the police want speeding to continue so tickets can be written. Which is it? We know the answer. If a driver’s ‘license'(permission) was about safety few to no teenagers would be driving, we’d all be retested from time to time and no one past 65 or 70 would drive without being tested every couple years.

More from the ‘just-us’ crowd:

New bill proposes a ban on body armor

FK – After the blood starts flowing this is another law that won’t matter anymore.

Chuck Norris now credited for cracking communism

Beginning in the late 1960s, the brutal, communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu clamped an iron hand over the eyes, mouths and minds of the Romanian people.

For the next 20 years, the repressive state tightly controlled what Romanians read, heard, watched and said. Any trace of independent thought or Western influence was stamped out by Ceausescu’s secret police with terrifying ferocity. The Romanian people were simply cut off from the rest of the world.

But then something amazing happened: Chuck Norris invaded Romania.

In the mid-1980s, according to a new documentary being shown at the Sundance Film Festival called “Chuck Norris vs. Communism,” the invention of the VCR and some courageous smugglers brought thousands of Hollywood films – including Norris classics like “Lone Wolf McQuade,” “Missing in Action” and “The Delta Force” – into the country.

Dubbed by a death-defying female translator whose voice became a symbol of freedom for the isolated Romanians, the movies gave courage and hope to a people long beaten down by an oppressive state.

FK – How ironic that what ‘saved’ them is killing us.

As long as the average sheeple can go to for steak and ice cream and sit on the couch in front of the big screen they think everything’s OK. We send our young men to die overseas fighting communism and ‘terrorism’ when our greatest enemies are right here. We should have kept them home from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and let them hunt those who will pass the laws that finally kill the Bill of Rights, the document that truly makes us ‘exceptional.’

A commenter on this thread called our ‘leaders’ sick and gutless. That’s a mistake. We the people hired them. They are our elected public servants and we are responsible for their action or inaction.

It’s time to stop waiting for the world to end and stand up for the future of humanity.
The Founders shed blood over much less.

Is It Possible For Evolution To Reverse?

FK – Walking around in any redneck mecca will answer this question.

This commenter seems to get it:

anubis2814 1 day ago (edited)

Wow, this video was just Awful! Evolution is just change caused by environmental pressure.  These is no REVERSE EVOLUTION the nomenclature is absolutely wrong. If genes change due to natural selection, that is evolution.  If suppressor gene breaks and old genes re-express and it is advantageous to the species overall, and nature doesn’t filter it out, it is still just evolution.  That is how evolution works. None of this is turning evolutionary science on its head, and scientists have known about this for years, if scientists are against it is because they are against the use of the word reverse evolution. People have a bad enough understanding of evolution as it is, and especially creationists claim to not believe in evolution but reverse evolution because we started out perfect and are getting worse.  When a usually legitimate science show get something this wrong, it just gives fodder to the bad pop-sci out there.

But our ‘scientists’ still have a lot to learn:

FK – Meanwhile we’re working hard at our own extinction:

Soda Habit May Prompt Early Puberty in Girls, Study Suggests

Supreme Court: Cops can now do anything if it’s an “honest mistake”

FK – They must really want some to consider that it’s open season on LEOs. What else are we to assume?

Any kind of trash with a good memory can make it through shyster school and kiss the right rear ends and become a black-robed shyster. We the people are the final arbiters of our rights, not some court of whores.