Why it's time to stop thinking about the human body as a machine

Over the last decade, science has advanced significantly forward: dentures were created, controlled by the brain, more research promise that one day we will be able to slow down the aging process. Many do believe that the process optimization of the whole body is not far off.

For example, in April, representatives of Facebook announced plans to create a brain-computer interface, allowing users to post their thoughts directly to the social network without touching the keyboard. The company expects to deliver this revolutionary product for several years. And Elon Musk recently reported that the company is opening a new Neuralink, which will develop brain implants, including mind-reading.

This, of course, goals, worthy of admiration, but not so simple. The human body - it's not a computer. It can not crack, to flash, to program or update.

Take even the most "computer" part of the body - the brain. The human brain does not store or process information the same way as it is done by computers. In the gray matter is not automatic settings that can be used to rewrite the bad memories, as in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Entrepreneurs approach is not applicable to biology

Of course, research in this area continues. For example, scientists hope that brain-computer interface to help in the treatment of mental illness. So projects DARPA US Department of Defense (DARPA) is funding the cost of the project $ 65 million, aimed at developing a method of treatment of mental illness with the help of implanted electrodes. The study lasted for more than a decade, but it is still unclear which areas of the brain would be best to stimulate the treatment of each disease.

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who decided to try his hand in the field of biology, bring to it their characteristic ideals of hacking.

In just two years Facebook experts are going to determine whether the idea is feasible to send their messages directly from the brain to the screen with a speed of 100 words per minute. Currently, the maximum print speed using the implant in the brain - about 8 words per minuteHigh performance communication by people with paralysis using an intracortical brain-computer interface. .

Elon Musk said that the first brain-computer interface Neuralink appear in a decade. And this despite the fact that the technology to read information from the brain until more than a fantastic project. Today we can measure only a small part of the neural activity that is needed to connect the whole the human brain to a computer or telepathic communication.

Yes, in 2009, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have successfully conducted an experiment: a short message posted on Twitter by a brain-computer interfaceMassively Parallel Signal Processing using the Graphics Processing Unit for Real-Time Brain-Computer Interface Feature Extraction. .

"But with a letter or a post on Facebook is much more difficult to do, - says Justin Williams, who led the research. - We just think that just send email, but imagine how much thought processes involved in this: you have to fill in the lines with the subject and the addressee, then write the letter itself. From a biological and technological point of view it is very difficult. "

Recently, the first man was not only able to control the prosthetic hand via the brain, but also feel like this hand movesA World of Awesome Mind-Controlled Prostheses Is Closer Than You Think. . However, we are still very far from understanding how the 100 billion neurons in the brain and 100 trillion connections between them. And even more so far to create a technology that can connect them all to the computer.

Nevertheless, the approach "it should be done", typical of the technology industry, it is spreading everywhere.

The human body is more than a well-oiled machine

Comparison of the human body for a long time with the machine in general has become a habit. In the XVI century, the creation of mechanisms operating by means of springs and levers, resulted in what many thinkers, including Rene Descartes, became man and called a complex mechanism. In the XIX century German physicist Helmholtz compare our brain with the telegraph. In 1958, mathematician John von Neumann said in his book "The Computer and the Brain" that human nervous system is a "digital, in the absence of evidence to the contrary."

With the development of technology is changing the metaphor, but the premise remains the same: the human body - is not nothing but a complex mechanism.

But this is not the case. And this view of the body becomes especially dangerous when trying to combine biology with computer systems. We risk begin to treat your body - in all its complexity, fragility and mystery - like a car, with which we compare. We risk to promise the impossible, and to spend time, money and patience to unrealistic research. We run the risk in the process pay their health.

In the end, we are still living beings, not soulless machines. And we can not forget about it.