19 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Whole Brain Emulation
We consider a strategy of straightforward duplication of the activity, and look at the numbers of some of the components. The human brain has up to one hundred billion (10^11) neurons and between one hundred trillion (10^14) and one quadrillion (10^15) synapses. But we have reached a point where for purposes of data acquisition these objects are now considered fairly large (e.g. 200 nm to 2,000 nm for synaptic spines and 4,000 nm to 100,000 nm for the neural soma), at least by the standards o...From Randal A. Koene's "Uploading to Substrate-Independent Minds"
16 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Atoms Form Compounds With Properties Very Different Than ...
Compounds formed by chemical attraction, possess new properties different from those of their component parts... chemists have long believed that the contrary took place in their combination. They thought, in fact, that the compounds possessed properties intermediate between those of their component parts; so that two bodies, very coloured, very sapid, or insapid, soluble or insoluble, fusible or infusible, fixed or volatile, assumed in chemical combination, a shade or colour, or taste, solub...It was long thought in Chemistry that compounds exhibited traits partway between their component parts.