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Ask HN: Hypothetically reverse-engineer programming solutions from the brain?

3 points by TrevorJ ↗ HN
Specifically, could we use electroencephalography or (as yet to be created) higher resolution technologies to look into the brain of a person performing a specific but complex task, and then use that information to inform the creation of programming architecture that is designed to do the same thing?

3 comments

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jacquesm
Theoretically the brain çomputes, therefore 'hypothetically' it should be possible to isolate some of the functions a brain performs and reverse engineer them.

There has been some success with reverse engineering the spatial imaging happening in a monkey brain while it makes a maneuvre to reach some object. The path is clearly visible in the brain of the monkey before it gets executed.

For much interesting reading on this subject try Steven Pinker, How the mind works.

TrevorJ
Thank you for the book suggestion!
theschwa
The Blue Brain Project is attempting to recreate the brain in a super computer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_brain

And Jeff Hawkin's (the founder of Palm Computing) has already put forth a fairly comprehensive theory on how the brain works in his book On Intelligence, and his group Numenta http://www.numenta.com/ are currently working on a simplified computer implementation.

Having read a fair amount into the topic, I'd say there's already enough information there to change how you might look at programming a certain task (especially if Numenta keeps pushing along). But it makes me think of humans more as complex memory machines rather than "compute-ers"