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Discover杂志对1972诺贝尔奖获得者Gerald Edelman进行了访谈，透露了他对人类意识的研究，以及正在进行的人工意识体的项目。
仔细看完这篇报道后，个人以为老头子（:)，请允许我这样叫，哈哈）的研究没有走出联结主义认知心理学的范畴，即将人工神经网络模型纳入到心理过程的研究中。只是他的工作尽量将神经网络的细节模拟得更清楚了（例如离子的流动）。
但是，他有提到在Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency（即研究机器人军队的组织DARPA，这里还有个报道）上举行的足球赛（BTW，这项赛事似乎制度化了，名叫Segway Soccer）中，他研究所生产出的机器人完败了（一共5局5胜）卡内基米隆大学基于抽象AI（应该是基于序列加工范式下设计的）的机器人。
那什么是人工意识体呢？就他而言，就是这种机器人，学名叫Brain Based Device。能回忆过去预测未来，未来或许能掌握言语能力。来张特写照。
学术资料地址
PNAS (2008) 105:3593-3598
Eugene M. Izhikevich and Gerald M. Edelman
The Neurosciences Institute,
10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive,
San Diego, CA, 92121.
Abstract. The understanding of the structural and dynamic complexity of mammalian brains is greatly facilitated by computer simulations. We present here a detailed large-scale thalamocortical model based on experimental measures in several mammalian species. The model spans three anatomical scales. (i) It is based on global (white-matter) thalamocortical anatomy obtained by means of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of a human brain. (ii) It includes multiple thalamic nuclei and six-layered cortical microcircuitry based on in vitro labeling and three-dimensional reconstruction of single neurons of cat visual cortex. (iii) It has 22 basic types of neurons with appropriate laminar distribution of their branching dendritic trees. The model simulates one million multicompartmental spiking neurons calibrated to reproduce known types of responses recorded in vitro in rats. It has almost half a billion synapses with appropriate receptor kinetics, short-term plasticity, and long-term dendritic spike-timing-dependent synaptic plasticity (dendritic STDP). The model exhibits behavioral regimes of normal brain activity that were not explicitly built-in but emerged spontaneously as the result of interactions among anatomical and dynamic processes. We describe spontaneous activity, sensitivity to changes in individual neurons, emergence of waves and rhythms, and functional connectivity on different scales.
