The "Blue Brain" & Human Consciousness -Scientists Create Artificial Brain

The "Blue Brain" & Human Consciousness -Scientists Create Artificial Brain: "A network of artificial nerves is evolving right now in a Swiss supercomputer. This bizarre creation is capable of simulating a natural brain, cell-for-cell. The Swiss scientists, who created what they have dubbed 'Blue Brain', believe it will soon offer a better understanding of human consciousness. This is no sci-fi flick; it’s an actual ‘computer brain’ that may eventually have the ability to think for itself. Exciting? Scary? It could be a little of both.
The designers say that 'Blue Brain' was willful and unpredictable from day one. When it was first fed electrical impulses, strange patterns began to appear with lightning-like flashes produced by ‘cells’ that the scientists recognized from living human and animal processes. Neurons started interacting with one another until they were firing in rhythm. 'It happened entirely on its own,' says biologist Henry Markram, the project's director. 'Spontaneously.'
The project essentially has its own factory to produce artificial brains. Their computers can clone nerve cells quickly. The system allows for the production of whole series of neurons of all different types. Because in natural brains, no two cells are exactly identical, the scientists"