Blue Brain, BBC and Global Minds: gullibility and hyperbole.

 
In both GB and Europe the high-blown claims for what we may learn from computer neo-cortex simulators continue to be propagated by the web entertainment journalists at BBC.  Here is a quote from web BBC:

The scientists say the project could lead, for example, to new ideas on how psychiatric disorders develop - illnesses such as autism, schizophrenia, and depression.

Here are my last few tweets at this point:

rshifflet G. Robert Shiplett
Brain simulator advocates do not propose to explain why some people ignore principled objections to their research proposals or faith or

rshifflet G. Robert Shiplett
Why not claim that your neo-cortex simulator may explain _________ (here you fill in the blank with any apparent dichotomy in behaviour.)

rshifflet G. Robert Shiplett
computer brain simulator builders claim that all they need is more money; theorists of AOP, stateful Traits, co-routines needed more time...

rshifflet G. Robert Shiplett
computer neo-cortex simulators suggest may explain schizophrenia - but why not explain 'tendency to exaggerate' or 'obsessed with computer'?

But before I stop mocking hyperbole in CS at unb.ca let me ask this: why is neither project working with the Vienna Freud society?  If fuzzy neural nets are to learn to "emulate mind" from Freudian fanatics, why would not at least one of these projects have done the same?

What if both tried? One could use ego | id | super-ego and one could use eros | thanatos.  Both could ignore cathexis, catharsis, resistance, introjection, repression ....

We could have a race to explain why most victims of bi-polar disorders are not cured by meditation alone or why schizophrenia [ here take your pick: strikes more at 19 than 13 or is so seldom violent paranoid or has SEEMED to have no single neural correlates.]

And by all means, do send more money.  Those who are busy squaring the circle or building perpetual motion machines are also sometimes starved for cash.  Perhaps if they were using millions of parts or drawing millions of lines they would get the attention of BBC "Tech".

But why the claim to explain schizophrenia?  Why not atheism?  Paedophilia?  Witches?

What would really matter is to explain why most schizophrenics are not violent paranoiacs.  Or not obsessed with building computer traffic simulators for crowds approaching the Roman Coliseum or wondering why "arena' would be used to name a building in which ice hockey is played - or being amused by really bad puns.

Yes, explain inveterate punning - it causes more annoyance to more people than schizophrenia.  Believe me.  Or I'll hold my breath until my brain turns blue.  Unless you pay up ...  Explain the willingness to take bribes, to turn a blind eye, and if nothing else, propose to explain the need to mock, to mock cruelly, to perseverate, to perdure in follies, to exaggerate, to fib.