In an attempt to take a step back from the more “Woo Woo” topics I’ve been delving into recently, I picked this up from Barnes and Noble in the hope that it would bring me back down to earth. I figured a solid dosage of cerebral-osity would do me some real good. Aside from the obvious fact that the book talks about brains, Michio Kaku is the epitome of a scientific mind. As a famed theoretical physicist that built a 2.3-million-electron-volt particle accelerator in his mom’s garage during high school, the traditional geek-in-a-white-lab-coat seems to paint an accurate picture of him.

I was also curious to see what a mind of his caliber would have to say about something so immediate to our everyday reality, and yet so difficult to fully explain. How the heck can the most powerful, complex computer in the world fit in our skull, weigh only 3 pounds, and operate at body temperature?! Without even being able to explain the physical miracle of a brain, asking deeper questions are more often relegated to hazy college dorm room sessions. Maybe Kaku can pierce the veil of consciousness and see where it is headed.

Theory of Consciousness

In order to science-ify the workings of the mind, Kaku first constructs an all-inclusive definition of it that he calls the “space-time theory of consciousness,” that is defined below.

“Consciousness is the process of creating a model of the world using multiple feedback loops in various parameters (e.g., in temperature, space, time, and in relation to others), in order to accomplish a goal (e.g., find mates, food, shelter).”

In this sense, humans are not the only ones that have consciousness. In fact, he even went so far as to say a thermostat has consciousness, albiet an extremely low level of it. A thermostat operates in a feedback loop with respect to temperature in order to maintain a suitable environment. Since the only parameter it needs to “understand” is temperature, it doesn’t create a model of the world the way we normally would. It just monitors the temperature and responds accordingly. Flowers would operate at a slightly higher level (moisture, sunlight, gravity, etc.), but are still at a fairly low level.

The next level of consciousness would be on the level of reptiles, who operate with respect to space. They have a central nervous system to help them move around their environment, and they have various subconscious feedback loops to monitor themselves (blood pressure, balance, movement, sight, etc.).

Next would be more complex animals that operate with respect to others. They are social creatures that must be more highly developed to interact. Associated behaviors include forming allies, detecting enemies, understanding hierarchies, and displaying emotion.

Finally, we arrive at human consciousness. You may have noticed that, to a certain extent, we exhibit aspects of all the lower levels of consciousness. In fact, in the 60’s a simplistic model called the triune brain (reptilian, mammalian, and human) was developed by the neuroscientist Paul MacLean to explain the function of different parts of the brain in this way. What separates us is our ability to think with respect to time. Rational thinking and planning are useful for being able to simulate the future and act accordingly to reach our goals. For example, as an engineer, most of my career thus far has been working with AutoCAD, which is a design software that I use to model piping, equipment, structures, and landscapes. It’s extremely helpful to construct a model of a potential design without having to actually build the entire thing.  The goal is to ultimately build something that functions and won’t break down over time.

Brain Technologies

A large part of the book was spent discussing different technologies related to the brain and AI that currently exist and their implications for the future. Throughout the book in general he also explains different regions of the brain, associated functions, and how it works in general. Fascinating stuff, but I wrote too much in the first part and don’t want to talk about them in detail. Instead, I’ll list some highlights and if you are interested you should check them out!

• Dr. Gallant at UC Berkeley is attempting to videotape people’s thoughts by associating certain features of pictures to brain states captured by an MRI machine
• Software developers are working with NeuroSky’s portable EEG sensors to develop virtual reality video games where the user can mentally control avatars.
• Optogenetics: scientists can insert a gene that is sensitive to light directly into a specific neuron. When exposed to the light, the neuron will fire on command. Experiments have made fruit flies fly away, worms stop wiggling, and mice lose their timidity in this way. Implications for the future are huge.
• ASIMO: Robot developed by Honda that can run, walk, climb stairs, and speak, but has the intelligence of a bug.
• Nao: Robot that can choose emotions based on interactions with people. It remembers its interactions and “bonds” with people by interpreting their moods. His emotional responses are all preprogrammed, but acts differently depending on the person.
• The Human Brain Project: Analogous to the Human Genome Project that is attempting to map all the neural networks of the brain and eventually create a model of it. A similar project being done is called the Human Connectome Project.

Kaku’s Perspective

Overall, Kaku believes the brain is a highly complex machine that can be understood with enough research and computational power. According to Moore’s law (which isn’t really a law but more of a general trend), computational power doubles every two years. We are currently reaching the limits of how small silicon transistors can be made, so what will come after the Silicon Age?

“I often surprise people with the simple fact that your cell phone today has more computer power than all of NASA when it put two men on the moon in 1969.”

He says we are entering the molecular age, where we are gradually starting to work with informational processing on the atomic scale. The implications are ridiculous, but what will be even more fascinating is the physics involved on this scale. Modern electronics are mostly working with the electromagnetic force, but the physics are completely different on the atomic scale. Quantum effects occur on this level, which is confusing as hell.  Who knows whether we will be able to fully understand the physics. Where we will go in the future, along with the potential difference between AI and humans, lies in the quantum realm.