Growing Human Brains I don’t know how many of you remember me mentioning the fact scientists were growing tiny brains and the fact they were growing them from human cells. They were calling them organoids and we were told not to worry since they never would achieve the level of knowing what was going on. There has been a change. Some were sent into space and they seem to be growing like gangbusters. Some of these mini-brains have been connected to robots and one scientist said we are rapidly approaching being able to create what he calls a brain which will be able to feel pain and be capable of sentience. This will bring up all sorts of ethical problems. What could be more terrible than a brain stuck in a jar or in a machine which realizes it is alive and suffering? The organoids were created to study the human brain not to actually create a living human brain which is aware. The problem is these tiny brains have begun to develop brain waves. The scientists cannot understand how yet. An article was published in the medical journal Cell which states these tiny brains could be more complicated than first suspected. The human brain is more mysterious than we ever thought. One man which I spoke about before had complained about having headaches so he went to the doctor and told him about his problem. A brain scan was recommended which he dutifully carried out. When the doctor read the scan, he couldn’t believe what the pictures showed. The man was a guy of average intelligence and seemed normal in every way. The pictures from the scan showed he had no brain. All he had was some small piece of tissue above his spine. This still puzzles scientists. The important thing this did indicate was he didn’t need much to function and perhaps the small amount tissue shows even a mini brain would have worked in his case. If all we need is a tiny amount of brain to function than we are creating tiny living brains without bodies which could be in pain and have no outlets to the outside world. They would be left just with their thoughts. What could be crueler? On the other hand, using this procedure to grow organs would be a great thing for the human race. There is a tremendous shortage of organs and certain rare blood types and this could all be solved by growing organs. If sending the tiny brains into space to grow and allowed them to flourish, why not try this with organ growth? If it is the lack of gravity helping these things along, perhaps something could even be setup on earth in the future to allow for the growing of organs more efficiently here. Putting these brains into robots should never be allowed. We are creating monsters which rival the Doctor Frankenstein’s monster only worse. The first thing I think of is a brain which is mentally ill being put into a robot which has the strength of ten men. Even if we send it up into space, there is a dangerous problem with it working with humans. If we sent it to the space station it could go berserk and tear the place apart and kill everyone on the station. Yes, I know it sounds like a plot in a science fiction movie, but it is a very dangerous situation. I am sure scientists would tell us there is nothing to worry about just liked they told us the mini-brains would never achieve awareness and we know now how that went, they developed brain waves showing there was brain activity. Some people are religious, some are not and some are atheists, but I think most people, however they believe, will think developing these brains is wrong. Here is one of the problems we have now. Even if we don’t develop human brains you can bet some other country will either begin work to develop them or have already begun. Look what happened with cloning humans. China cloned a human baby. I think we have to look at things this way, if we create a human brain and then either destroy it or put it through painful tests, we will become modern day Nazis. What I mean by this is we will have no regard for human life, life which should have never been created in the first place. We are on the cusp of creating human life if we can create a human brain. This is something we never thought would be possible. That is why we have put so much money into trying to create an artificial one and we have become close to succeeding in a mechanical and electrical way. I am not talking just about artificial intelligence which is based on computer programming, I am talking about an artificial brain which can think like we do. We have put a lot of time and money into developing an artificial neural network. This is an artificial brain that works on interconnected nodes and is modeled after the way the neurons in our brains operate. This has been the dream of every scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, that is to create an artificial brain which would work just like our biological brain. Let me tell you before I go any further, we are not there yet. It is bizarre, but some scientists were said to have gone into this field because they were not satisfied with growing tiny human brains, that was before it was realized they could produce brainwaves. I wonder how these scientists feel about this now? We have to remember we could probably not produce an artificial brain which would be as capable as a human brain in the next hundred years. If we do produce an artificial neural network in an artificial brain which is what they would call efficient it will only be like holding a match to a spotlight when compared to what we are carrying around with us in our skulls. Will the temptation be too much for these scientists not to abandon growing human brains? I certainly hope not. Will the next thing we hear them tell us be the brains they are growing can never be aware as they are pumping out these brain waves? Can we even grow a human brain which will not have some sort of problem because of a lack of a body? These are all things to consider and I hope we abandon this line of research even if others don’t.
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