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Sunday, July 29, 2018

Biocentrism (ethics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biocentrism (from Greek βίος bios, "life" and κέντρον kentron, "center"), in a political and ecological sense, as well as literally, is an ethical point of view that extends inherent value to all living things. It is an understanding of how the earth works, particularly as it relates to biodiversity. It stands in contrast to anthropocentrism, which centers on the value of humans. The related ecocentrism extends inherent value to the whole of nature.

Biocentrism does not imply the idea of equality among the animal kingdom, for no such notion can be observed in nature. Biocentric thought is nature based, not human based.

Advocates of biocentrism often promote the preservation of biodiversity, animal rights, and environmental protection. The term has also been employed by advocates of "left biocentrism", which combines deep ecology with an "anti-industrial and anti-capitalist" position (according to David Orton et al.).

Definition

The term biocentrism encompasses all environmental ethics that "extend the status of moral object from human beings to all living things in nature". Biocentric ethics calls for a rethinking of the relationship between humans and nature. It states that nature does not exist simply to be used or consumed by humans, but that humans are simply one species amongst many,[6] and that because we are part of an ecosystem, any actions which negatively affect the living systems of which we are a part adversely affect us as well, whether or not we maintain a biocentric worldview. Biocentrists observe that all species have inherent value, and that humans are not "superior" to other species in a moral or ethical sense.

The four main pillars of a biocentric outlook are:
  1. Humans and all other species are members of Earth's community.
  2. All species are part of a system of interdependence.
  3. All living organisms pursue their own "good" in their own ways.
  4. Human beings are not inherently superior to other living things.[8]

Relationship with animals and environment

Biocentrism views individual species as parts of the living biosphere. It observes the consequences of reducing biodiversity on both small and large scales and points to the inherent value all species have to the environment.

The environment is seen for what it is; the biosphere within which we live and depend on its diversity for our health. From these observations the ethical points are raised.

History and development

Biocentric ethics differs from classical and traditional ethical thinking. Rather than focusing on strict moral rules, as in Classical ethics, it focuses on attitudes and character. In contrast with traditional ethics, it is nonhierarchical and gives priority to the natural world rather than to humankind exclusively.[9]

Biocentric ethics includes Albert Schweitzer's ethics of "Reverence for Life", Peter Singer's ethics of Animal Liberation and Paul Taylor's ethics of biocentric egalitarianism.[5]

Albert Schweitzer's "reverence for life" principle was a precursor of modern biocentric ethics.[5] In contrast with traditional ethics, the ethics of "reverence for life" denies any distinction between "high and low" or "valuable and less valuable" life forms, dismissing such categorization as arbitrary and subjective.[5] Conventional ethics concerned itself exclusively with human beings—that is to say, morality applied only to interpersonal relationships—whereas Schweitzer's ethical philosophy introduced a "depth, energy, and function that differ[s] from the ethics that merely involved humans".[5] "Reverence for life" was a "new ethics, because it is not only an extension of ethics, but also a transformation of the nature of ethics".[5]

Similarly, Peter Singer argues that non-human animals deserve the same equality of consideration that we extend to human beings.[10] His argument is roughly as follows:
  1. Membership in the species Homo sapiens is the only criterion of moral importance that includes all humans and excludes all non-humans.
  2. Using membership in the species Homo sapiens as a criterion of moral importance is completely arbitrary.
  3. Of the remaining criteria we might consider, only sentience is a plausible criterion of moral importance.
  4. Using sentience as a criterion of moral importance entails that we extend the same basic moral consideration (i.e. "basic principle of equality") to other sentient creatures that we do to human beings.
  5. Therefore, we ought to extend to animals the same equality of consideration that we extend to human beings.[10]
Biocentrism is most commonly associated with the work of Paul Taylor, especially his book Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (1986).[11] Taylor maintains that biocentrism is an "attitude of respect for nature", whereby one attempts to make an effort to live one's life in a way that respects the welfare and inherent worth of all living creatures.[1] Taylor states that:[11][12]
  1. Humans are members of a community of life along with all other species, and on equal terms.
  2. This community consists of a system of interdependence between all members, both physically, and in terms of relationships with other species.
  3. Every organism is a "teleological centre of life", that is, each organism has a purpose and a reason for being, which is inherently "good" or "valuable".
  4. Humans are not inherently superior to other species.
Historian Donald Worster traces today's biocentric philosophies, which he sees as part of a recovery of a sense of kinship between man and nature, to the reaction by the British intelligencia of the Victorian era against the Christian ethic of dominion over nature.[13] He has pointed to Charles Darwin as an important spokesman for the biocentric view in ecological thought and quotes from Darwin's Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837):[14]
If we choose to let conjecture run wild, then animals, our fellow brethren in pain, diseases, death, suffering and famine—our slaves in the most laborious works, our companions in our amusement—they may partake of our origin in one common ancestor—we may be all netted together.
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species. This publication sparked the beginning of biocentrist views by introducing evolution and "its removal of humans from their supernatural origins and placement into the framework of natural laws".[15]

The work of Aldo Leopold has also been associated with biocentrism.[16] The essay The Land Ethic in Leopold's book Sand County Almanac (1949) points out that although throughout history women and slaves have been considered property, all people have now been granted rights and freedoms.[17] Leopold notes that today land is still considered property as people once were. He asserts that ethics should be extended to the land as "an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity".[18] He argues that while people's instincts encourage them to compete with others, their ethics encourage them to co-operate with others.[18] He suggests that "the land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land".[18] In a sense this attitude would encourage humans to co-operate with the land rather than compete with it.

Outside of formal philosophical works biocentric thought is common among pre-colonial tribal peoples who knew no world other than the natural world.

In law

The paradigm of biocentrism and the values that it promotes are beginning to be used in law.

In recent years, cities in Maine, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia have adopted laws that protect the rights of nature.[19] The purpose of these laws is to prevent the degradation of nature; especially by corporations who may want to exploit natural resources and land space, and to also use the environment as a dumping ground for toxic waste.[19]

The first country to include rights of nature in its constitution is Ecuador[20] (See 2008 Constitution of Ecuador). Article 71 states that nature "has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes".[21]

In religion

Islam

In Islam: In Islam, biocentric ethics stem from the belief that all of creation belongs to Allah (God), not humans, and to assume that non-human animals and plants exist merely to benefit humankind leads to environmental destruction and misuse.[22] As all living organisms exist to praise God, human destruction of other living things prevents the earth's natural and subtle means of praising God. The Qur'an acknowledges that humans are not the only all-important creatures and emphasizes a respect for nature. Muhammad was once asked whether there would be a reward for those who show charity to nature and animals, to which he replied, "for charity shown to each creature with a wet heart [i.e. that is alive], there is a reward."[23]

Hinduism

In Hinduism: Hinduism contains many elements of biocentrism. In Hinduism, humans have no special authority over other creatures, and all living things have souls ('atman'). Brahman (God) is the "efficient cause" and Prakrti (nature), is the "material cause" of the universe.[22] However, Brahman and Prakrti are not considered truly divided: "They are one in [sic] the same, or perhaps better stated, they are the one in the many and the many in the one."[22]

However, while Hinduism does not give the same direct authority over nature that the Judeo-Christian God grants, they are subject to a "higher and more authoritative responsibility for creation". The most important aspect of this is the doctrine of Ahimsa (non-violence). The Yājñavalkya Smṛti warns, "the wicked person who kills animals which are protected has to live in hell fire for the days equal to the number of hairs on the body of that animal".[22] The essential aspect of this doctrine is the belief that the Supreme Being incarnates into the forms of various species. The Hindu belief in Saṃsāra (the cycle of life, death and rebirth) encompasses reincarnation into non-human forms. It is believed that one lives 84,000 lifetimes before one becomes a human. Each species is in this process of samsara until one attains moksha (liberation).

Another doctrinal source for the equal treatment of all life is found in the Rigveda. The Rigveda states that trees and plants possess divine healing properties. It is still popularly believed that every tree has a Vriksa-devata (a tree deity).Trees are ritually worshiped through prayer, offerings, and the sacred thread ceremony. The Vriksa-devata worshiped as manifestations of the Divine. Tree planting is considered a religious duty.[22]

Jainism

In Jainism: The Jaina tradition exists in tandem with Hinduism and shares many of its biocentric elements.[24]

Ahimsa (non-violence), the central teaching of Jainism, means more than not hurting other humans.[25] It means intending not to cause physical, mental or spiritual harm to any part of nature. In the words of Mahavira: ‘You are that which you wish to harm.’[25] Compassion is a pillar of non-violence. Jainism encourages people to practice an attitude of compassion towards all life.

The principle of interdependence is also very important in Jainism. This states that all of nature is bound together, and that "if one does not care for nature one does not care for oneself.".[25]
Another essential Jain teaching is self-restraint. Jainism discourages wasting the gifts of nature, and encourages its practitioners to reduce their needs as far as possible. Gandhi, a great proponent of Jainism, once stated "There is enough in this world for human needs, but not for human wants."[25]

Buddhism

In Buddhism: The Buddha's teachings encourage people "to live simply, to cherish tranquility, to appreciate the natural cycle of life".[26] Buddhism emphasizes that everything in the universe affects everything else. "Nature is an ecosystem in which trees affect climate, the soil, and the animals, just as the climate affects the trees, the soil, the animals and so on. The ocean, the sky, the air are all interrelated, and interdependent—water is life and air is life."[26]

Although this holistic approach is more ecocentric than biocentric, it is also biocentric, as it maintains that all living things are important and that humans are not above other creatures or nature. Buddhism teaches that "once we treat nature as our friend, to cherish it, then we can see the need to change from the attitude of dominating nature to an attitude of working with nature—we are an intrinsic part of all existence rather than seeing ourselves as in control of it."[26]

Criticism

Biocentrism has faced criticism for a number of reasons. Some of this criticism grows out of the concern that biocentrism is an anti-human paradigm and that it will not hesitate to sacrifice human well-being for the greater good.[20] Biocentrism has also been criticized for its individualism; emphasizing too much on the importance of individual life and neglecting the importance of collective groups, such as an ecosystem.[27]

A more complex form of criticism focuses on the contradictions of biocentrism. Opposed to anthropocentrism, which sees humans as having a higher status than other species,[28] biocentrism puts humans on a par with the rest of nature, and not above it.[29] In his essay A Critique of Anti-Anthropocentric Biocentrism Richard Watson suggests that if this is the case, then "Human ways—human culture—and human actions are as natural as the ways in which any other species of animals behaves".[30] He goes on to suggest that if humans must change their behavior to refrain from disturbing and damaging the natural environment, then that results in setting humans apart from other species and assigning more power to them.[30] This then takes us back to the basic beliefs of anthropocentrism. Watson also claims that the extinction of species is "Nature's way"[31] and that if humans were to instigate their own self-destruction by exploiting the rest of nature, then so be it. Therefore, he suggests that the real reason humans should reduce their destructive behavior in relation to other species is not because we are equals but because the destruction of other species will also result in our own destruction.[32] This view also brings us back to an anthropocentric perspective.
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An artificial synapse for future miniaturized portable ‘brain-on-a-chip’ devices

MIT engineers plan a fingernail-size chip that could replace a supercomputer
January 22, 2018
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/an-artificial-synapse-for-future-miniaturized-portable-brain-on-a-chip-devices
Biological synapse structure (credit: Thomas Splettstoesser/CC)

MIT engineers have designed a new artificial synapse made from silicon germanium that can precisely control the strength of an electric current flowing across it.

In simulations, the researchers found that the chip and its synapses could be used to recognize samples of handwriting with 95 percent accuracy. The engineers say the new design, published today (Jan. 22) in the journal Nature Materials, is a major step toward building portable, low-power neuromorphic chips for use in pattern recognition and other machine-learning tasks.

Controlling the flow of ions: the challenge

Researchers in the emerging field of “neuromorphic computing” have attempted to design computer chips that work like the human brain. The idea is to apply a voltage across layers that would cause ions (electrically charged atoms) to move in a switching medium (synapse-like space) to create conductive filaments in a manner that’s similar to how the “weight” (connection strength) of a synapse changes.

There are more than 100 trillion synapses (in a typical human brain) that mediate neuron signaling in the brain, strengthening some neural connections while pruning (weakening) others — a process that enables the brain to recognize patterns, remember facts, and carry out other learning tasks, all at lightning speeds.

Instead of carrying out computations based on binary, on/off signaling, like current digital chips, the elements of a “brain on a chip” would work in an analog fashion, exchanging a gradient of signals, or “weights” — much like neurons that activate in various ways (depending on the type and number of ions that flow across a synapse).

But it’s been difficult to control the flow of ions in existing synapse designs. These have multiple paths that make it difficult to predict where ions will make it through, according to research team leader Jeehwan Kim, PhD, an assistant professor in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, a principal investigator in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and Microsystems Technology Laboratories.

“Once you apply some voltage to represent some data with your artificial neuron, you have to erase and be able to write it again in the exact same way,” Kim says. “But in an amorphous solid, when you write again, the ions go in different directions because there are lots of defects. This stream is changing, and it’s hard to control. That’s the biggest problem — nonuniformity of the artificial synapse.”

Epitaxial random access memory (epiRAM)

(Left) Cross-sectional transmission electron microscope image of 60 nm silicon-germanium (SiGe) crystal grown on a silicon substrate (diagonal white lines represent candidate dislocations). Scale bar: 25 nm. (Right) Cross-sectional scanning electron microscope image of an epiRAM device with titanium (Ti)–gold (Au) and silver (Ag)–palladium (Pd) layers. Scale bar: 100 nm. (credit: Shinhyun Choi et al./Nature Materials)

So instead of using amorphous materials as an artificial synapse, Kim and his colleagues created an new “epitaxial random access memory” (epiRAM) design.

They started with a wafer of silicon. They then grew a similar pattern of silicon germanium — a material used commonly in transistors — on top of the silicon wafer. Silicon germanium’s lattice is slightly larger than that of silicon, and Kim found that together, the two perfectly mismatched materials could form a funnel-like dislocation, creating a single path through which ions can predictably flow.*

This is the most uniform device we could achieve, which is the key to demonstrating artificial neural networks,” Kim says.

Testing the ability to recognize samples of handwriting

As a test, Kim and his team explored how the epiRAM device would perform if it were to carry out an actual learning task: recognizing samples of handwriting — which researchers consider to be a practical test for neuromorphic chips. Such chips would consist of artificial “neurons” connected to other “neurons” via filament-based artificial “synapses.”

Image-recognition simulation. (Left) A 3-layer multilayer-perception neural network with black and white input signal for each layer in algorithm level. The inner product (summation) of input neuron signal vector and first synapse array vector is transferred after activation and binarization as input vectors of second synapse arrays. (Right) Circuit block diagram of hardware implementation showing a synapse layer composed of epiRAM crossbar arrays and the peripheral circuit. (credit: Shinhyun Choi et al./Nature Materials)

They ran a computer simulation of an artificial neural network consisting of three sheets of neural layers connected via two layers of artificial synapses, based on measurements from their actual neuromorphic chip. They fed into their simulation tens of thousands of samples from the MNIST handwritten recognition dataset**, commonly used by neuromorphic designers.

They found that their neural network device recognized handwritten samples 95.1 percent of the time — close to the 97 percent accuracy of existing software algorithms running on large computers.

A chip to replace a supercomputer

The team is now in the process of fabricating a real working neuromorphic chip that can carry out handwriting-recognition tasks. Looking beyond handwriting, Kim says the team’s artificial synapse design will enable much smaller, portable neural network devices that can perform complex computations that are currently only possible with large supercomputers.

“Ultimately, we want a chip as big as a fingernail to replace one big supercomputer,” Kim says. “This opens a stepping stone to produce real artificial intelligence hardware.”

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation. Co-authors included researchers at Arizona State University.

* They applied voltage to each synapse and found that all synapses exhibited about the same current, or flow of ions, with about a 4 percent variation between synapses — a much more uniform performance compared with synapses made from amorphous material. They also tested a single synapse over multiple trials, applying the same voltage over 700 cycles, and found the synapse exhibited the same current, with just 1 percent variation from cycle to cycle.

** The MNIST (Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology database) is a large database of handwritten digits that is commonly used for training various image processing systems and for training and testing in the field of machine learning. It contains 60,000 training images and 10,000 testing images.  

Abstract of SiGe epitaxial memory for neuromorphic computing with reproducible high performance based on engineered dislocations

Although several types of architecture combining memory cells and transistors have been used to demonstrate artificial synaptic arrays, they usually present limited scalability and high power consumption. Transistor-free analog switching devices may overcome these limitations, yet the typical switching process they rely on—formation of filaments in an amorphous medium—is not easily controlled and hence hampers the spatial and temporal reproducibility of the performance. Here, we demonstrate analog resistive switching devices that possess desired characteristics for neuromorphic computing networks with minimal performance variations using a single-crystalline SiGe layer epitaxially grown on Si as a switching medium. Such epitaxial random access memories utilize threading dislocations in SiGe to confine metal filaments in a defined, one-dimensional channel. This confinement results in drastically enhanced switching uniformity and long retention/high endurance with a high analog on/off ratio. Simulations using the MNIST handwritten recognition data set prove that epitaxial random access memories can operate with an online learning accuracy of 95.1%.

References:

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Speciesism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Speciesism (/ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm, -siːˌzɪz-/) involves the assignment of different values, rights, or special consideration to individuals solely on the basis of their species membership. The term is sometimes used by animal rights advocates, who argue that speciesism is a prejudice similar to racism or sexism, in that the treatment of individuals is predicated on group membership and morally irrelevant physical differences. Their claim is that species membership has no moral significance.

(DJS view):  I regard the campaign against meat eating as illiogical and misguided.  In fact, unlike humans, the cattle, pigs, etc., that we consume cannot comprehend that they are being raised for food or are fated to be slaughtered.  In fact, if we did end meat eating, they would never have the opportunity to live at all, which I regard as worse than dying, something we all must do and doesn't make us wish we had never lived.  As long as the animals are treated humanely while alive (something I will gladly pay for), if anything we are doing them a favor by eating their flesh

Ironically, it is the anthropomorphizing of other species which leads people to this error.  It is like condemning human ownership and mastery over dogs as slavery; in fact, not only does the dog not comprehend the concepts involved, a kind master is the best thing that can happen to it.


The term has not been used uniformly, but broadly embraces two ideas. It usually refers to "human speciesism" (human supremacism), the exclusion of all nonhuman animals from the rights, freedoms, and protections afforded to humans. It can also refer to the more general idea of assigning value to a being on the basis of species membership alone, so that "human–chimpanzee speciesism" would involve human beings favouring rights for chimpanzees over rights for dogs, because of human–chimpanzee similarities.

History

Origin of the term

Richard D. Ryder coined the term "speciesism" in 1970

The term speciesism, and the argument that it is simply a prejudice, first appeared in 1970 in a privately printed pamphlet written by British psychologist Richard D. Ryder. Ryder was a member of a group of intellectuals in Oxford, England, the nascent animal rights community, now known as the Oxford Group. One of the group's activities was distributing pamphlets about areas of concern; the pamphlet titled "Speciesism" was written to protest against animal experimentation.[5]

Ryder argued in the pamphlet that "[s]ince Darwin, scientists have agreed that there is no 'magical' essential difference between humans and other animals, biologically-speaking. Why then do we make an almost total distinction morally? If all organisms are on one physical continuum, then we should also be on the same moral continuum." He wrote that, at that time in the UK, 5,000,000 animals were being used each year in experiments, and that attempting to gain benefits for our own species through the mistreatment of others was "just 'speciesism' and as such it is a selfish emotional argument rather than a reasoned one".[6] Ryder used the term again in an essay, "Experiments on Animals", in Animals, Men and Morals (1971), a collection of essays on animal rights edited by philosophy graduate students Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris, who were also members of the Oxford Group. Ryder wrote:
In as much as both "race" and "species" are vague terms used in the classification of living creatures according, largely, to physical appearance, an analogy can be made between them. Discrimination on grounds of race, although most universally condoned two centuries ago, is now widely condemned. Similarly, it may come to pass that enlightened minds may one day abhor "speciesism" as much as they now detest "racism." The illogicality in both forms of prejudice is of an identical sort. If it is accepted as morally wrong to deliberately inflict suffering upon innocent human creatures, then it is only logical to also regard it as wrong to inflict suffering on innocent individuals of other species. ... The time has come to act upon this logic.[7]
Those who claim that speciesism is unfair to non-human species have often argued their case by invoking mammals and chickens in the context of research or farming.[8][9][10] However, there is not yet a clear definition or line agreed upon by a significant segment of the movement as to which species are to be treated equally with humans or in some ways additionally protected: mammals, birds, reptiles, arthropods, insects, bacteria, etc.

Spread of the idea

Peter Singer popularized the idea in Animal Liberation (1975)

The term was popularized by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in his book Animal Liberation (1975). Singer had known Ryder from his own time as a graduate philosophy student at Oxford.[11] He credited Ryder with having coined the term and used it in the title of his book's fifth chapter: "Man's Dominion ... a short history of speciesism", defining it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species":
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favouring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.[12]
Singer argued from a preference-utilitarian perspective, writing that speciesism violates the principle of equal consideration of interests, the idea based on Jeremy Bentham's principle: "each to count for one, and none for more than one". Singer argued that, although there may be differences between humans and nonhumans, they share the capacity to suffer, and we must give equal consideration to that suffering. Any position that allows similar cases to be treated in a dissimilar fashion fails to qualify as an acceptable moral theory. The term caught on; Singer wrote that it was an awkward word but that he could not think of a better one. It became an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1985, defined as "discrimination against or exploitation of animal species by human beings, based on an assumption of mankind's superiority".[13] In 1994 the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy offered a wider definition: "By analogy with racism and sexism, the improper stance of refusing respect to the lives, dignity, or needs of animals of other than the human species."[14]

More recently, animal rights groups such as Farm Animal Rights Movement[15] and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals[9] have attempted to popularize the concept by promoting a World Day Against Speciesism on June 5.

Arguments against

Moral community, argument from marginal cases

The Trial of Bill Burns (1838) in London showing Richard Martin (MP for Galway) in court with a donkey beaten by his owner, leading to the world's first known conviction for animal cruelty

Paola Cavalieri writes that the current humanist paradigm is that only human beings are members of the moral community, and that all are worthy of equal protection. Species membership, she writes, is ipso facto moral membership. The paradigm has an inclusive side (all human beings deserve equal protection) and an exclusive one (only human beings have that status).[3]

She writes that it is not only philosophers who have difficulty with this concept.[3] Richard Rorty (1931–2007) argued that most human beings – those outside what he called our "Eurocentric human rights culture" – are unable to understand why membership of a species would in itself be sufficient for inclusion in the moral community: "Most people live in a world in which it would be just too risky – indeed, it would often be insanely dangerous – to let one's sense of moral community stretch beyond one's family, clan or tribe." Rorty wrote:
Such people are morally offended by the suggestion that they should treat someone who is not kin as if he were a brother, or a nigger as if he were white, or a queer as if he were normal, or an infidel as if she were a believer. They are offended by the suggestion that they treat people whom they do not think of as human as if they were human. When utilitarians tell them that all pleasures and pains felt by members of our biological species are equally relevant to moral deliberation, or when Kantians tell them that the ability to engage in such deliberation is sufficient for membership in the moral community, they are incredulous. They rejoin that these philosophers seem oblivious to blatantly obvious moral distinctions, distinctions that any decent person will draw.[16]
Much of humanity is similarly offended by the suggestion that the moral community be extended to nonhumans. Nonhumans do possess some moral status in many societies, but it generally extends only to protection against what Cavalieri calls "wanton cruelty".[3] Anti-speciesists argue that the extension of moral membership to all humanity, regardless of individual properties such as intelligence, while denying it to nonhumans, also regardless of individual properties, is internally inconsistent. According to the argument from marginal cases, if infants, the senile, the comatose, and the cognitively disabled (marginal-case human beings) have a certain moral status, then nonhuman animals must be awarded that status too, since there is no morally relevant ability that the marginal-case humans have that nonhumans lack.

American legal scholar Steven M. Wise argues that speciesism is a bias as arbitrary as any other. He cites the philosopher R.G. Frey (1941–2012), a leading animal rights critic, who wrote in 1983 that, if forced to choose between abandoning experiments on animals and allowing experiments on "marginal-case" humans, he would choose the latter, "not because I begin a monster and end up choosing the monstrous, but because I cannot think of anything at all compelling that cedes all human life of any quality greater value than animal life of any quality".[17]

"Discontinuous mind"

Richard Dawkins argues against speciesism as an example of the "discontinuous mind"

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, argued against speciesism in The Blind Watchmaker (1986), The Great Ape Project (1993), and The God Delusion (2006), elucidating the connection with evolutionary theory. He compares former racist attitudes and assumptions to their present-day speciesist counterparts. In the chapter "The one true tree of life" in The Blind Watchmaker, he argues that it is not only zoological taxonomy that is saved from awkward ambiguity by the extinction of intermediate forms, but also human ethics and law. Dawkins argues that what he calls the "discontinuous mind" is ubiquitous, dividing the world into units that reflect nothing but our use of language, and animals into discontinuous species:[18]
The director of a zoo is entitled to "put down" a chimpanzee that is surplus to requirements, while any suggestion that he might "put down" a redundant keeper or ticket-seller would be greeted with howls of incredulous outrage. The chimpanzee is the property of the zoo. Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees is seldom spelled out, and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote (most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! ... The only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.[19]
Dawkins elaborated in a discussion with Singer at The Center for Inquiry in 2007, when asked whether he continues to eat meat: "It's a little bit like the position which many people would have held a couple of hundred years ago over slavery. Where lots of people felt morally uneasy about slavery but went along with it because the whole economy of the South depended upon slavery."[20]

Animal holocaust

David Sztybel argues in his paper, "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" (2006), that the racism of the Nazis is comparable to the speciesism inherent in eating meat or using animal by-products, particularly those produced on factory farms.[8] Y. Michael Barilan, an Israeli physician, argues that speciesism is not the same thing as Nazi racism, because the latter extolled the abuser and condemned the weaker and the abused. He describes speciesism as the recognition of rights on the basis of group membership, rather than solely on the basis of moral considerations.[21]

Centrality of consciousness

"Libertarian extension" is the idea that the intrinsic value of nature can be extended beyond sentient beings.[22] This seeks to apply the principle of individual rights not only to all animals but also to objects without a nervous system such as trees, plants, and rocks.[23] Ryder rejects this argument, writing that "value cannot exist in the absence of consciousness or potential consciousness. Thus, rocks and rivers and houses have no interests and no rights of their own. This does not mean, of course, that they are not of value to us, and to many other painients, including those who need them as habitats and who would suffer without them."[24]

Arguments in favor

Philosophical

A common theme in defending speciesism is the argument that humans have the right to exploit other species to defend their own.[25] Philosopher Carl Cohen argued in 1986: "Speciesism is not merely plausible; it is essential for right conduct, because those who will not make the morally relevant distinctions among species are almost certain, in consequence, to misapprehend their true obligations."[26] Cohen writes that racism and sexism are wrong because there are no relevant differences between the sexes or races. Between people and animals, he argues, there are significant differences; his view is that animals do not qualify for Kantian personhood, and as such have no rights.[27]

Nel Noddings, the American feminist, has criticized Singer's concept of speciesism for being simplistic, and for failing to take into account the context of species preference, as concepts of racism and sexism have taken into account the context of discrimination against humans.[28] Peter Staudenmaier has argued that comparisons between speciesism and racism or sexism are trivializing:
The central analogy to the civil rights movement and the women's movement is trivializing and ahistorical. Both of those social movements were initiated and driven by members of the dispossessed and excluded groups themselves, not by benevolent men or white people acting on their behalf. Both movements were built precisely around the idea of reclaiming and reasserting a shared humanity in the face of a society that had deprived it and denied it. No civil rights activist or feminist ever argued, "We're sentient beings too!" They argued, "We're fully human too!" Animal liberation doctrine, far from extending this humanist impulse, directly undermines it.[29]
Another criticism of animal-type anti-speciesism is based on the distinction between demanding rights one wants and being put into those one may not want. Many people who are now over 18 but remember their time as minors as a time when their alleged children's rights was legalized torture doubt if animal rights do animals any good, especially since animals cannot even say what they consider to be horrible. A distinction is made between people who are extrinsically denied their possibility to say what they think by 18 year limits, psychiatric diagnoses based on domain-specific hypotheses, or other constructed laws on one hand, and marginal case humans intrinsically incapable of opining about their situation on the other. The former is considered comparable to racism and sexism, the latter is considered comparable to animals.[30] This extends to questioning and rejecting the very definition of "wanton cruelty". One example that has been pointed out is that since we do not know whether or not animals are aware of death, all ethical considerations on putting animals down are benighted.[31] Advocates of this way of partly accepting speciesism generally do not subscribe to arguments about alleged dehumanization or other legalistic type arguments, and have no problem with accepting possible future encounters with extraterrestrial intelligence or artificial intelligence as equals.[32][33]

Ayn Rand's Objectivism holds that humans are the only beings who have what Rand called a conceptual consciousness, and the ability to reason and develop a moral system. She argued that humans are therefore the only species entitled to rights. Randian philosopher Leonard Peikoff argued: "By its nature and throughout the animal kingdom, life survives by feeding on life. To demand that man defer to the 'rights' of other species is to deprive man himself of the right to life. This is 'other-ism,' i.e. altruism, gone mad."[34]

The British philosopher, Roger Scruton, regards the emergence of the animal rights and anti-speciesism movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he argues, distinctive to the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species. Scruton argues that if animals have rights, then they also have duties, which animals would routinely violate, with almost all of them being "habitual law-breakers" and predatory animals such as foxes, wolves and killer whales being "inveterate murderers" who "should be permanently locked up". He accuses anti-speciesism advocates of "pre-scientific" anthropomorphism, attributing traits to animals that are, he says, Beatrix Potter-like, where "only man is vile." It is, he argues, a fantasy, a world of escape.[35]

Religious

The Rev. John Tuohey, founder of the Providence Center for Health Care Ethics, writes that the logic behind the anti-speciesism critique is flawed, and that, although the animal rights movement in the United States has been influential in slowing animal experimentation, and in some cases halting particular studies, no one has offered a compelling argument for species equality.[36]

Some proponents of speciesism believe that animals exist so that humans may make use of them. They argue that this special status conveys special rights, such as the right to life, and also unique responsibilities, such as stewardship of the environment. This belief in human exceptionalism is often rooted in the Abrahamic religions, such as the Book of Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Animal rights advocates argue that dominion refers to stewardship, not ownership.[37] Jesus Christ taught that a person is worth more than many sparrows.[38] But the Imago Dei may be personhood itself, although we humans have only achieved efficiencies in educating and otherwise acculturating humans. Proverbs 12:10 mentions that "The righteous one takes care of his domestic animals."

Law and policy

Law

The first major statute addressing animal protection in the United States, titled "An Act for the More Effectual Prevention of Cruelty to Animals", was enacted in 1867. It provided the right to incriminate and enforce protection with regards to animal cruelty. The act, which has since been revised to suit modern cases state by state, originally addressed such things as animal neglect, abandonment, torture, fighting, transport, impound standards, and licensing standards.[39] Although an animal rights movement had already started as early as the late 1800s, some of the laws that would shape the way animals would be treated as industry grew, were enacted around the same time that Richard Ryder was bringing the notion of Speciesism to the conversation.[40] Legislation was being proposed and passed in the U.S. that would reshape animal welfare in industry and science. Bills such as Humane Slaughter Act, which was created to alleviate some of the suffering felt by livestock during slaughter, was passed in 1958. Later the Animal Welfare Act of 1966, passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was designed to put much stricter regulations and supervisions on the handling of animals used in laboratory experimentation and exhibition but has since been amended and expanded.[41] These groundbreaking laws foreshadowed and influenced the shifting attitudes toward nonhuman animals in their rights to humane treatment which Richard D. Ryder and Peter Singer would later popularize in the 1970s and 1980s.

Great ape personhood

Great ape personhood is the idea that the attributes of nonhuman great apes are such that their sentience and personhood should be recognized by the law, rather than simply protecting them as a group under animal cruelty legislation. Awarding personhood to nonhuman primates would require that their individual interests be taken into account.[42]
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MIT nanosystem delivers precise amounts of drugs directly to a tiny spot in the brain

... without interfering with the normal functions of the rest of the brain
January 28, 2018
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/mit-nanosystem-delivers-precise-amounts-of-drugs-directly-to-a-tiny-spot-in-the-brain
MIT’s miniaturized system can deliver multiple drugs to precise locations in the brain, also monitor and control neural activity (credit: MIT)

MIT researchers have developed a miniaturized system that can deliver tiny quantities of medicine to targeted brain regions as small as 1 cubic millimeter, with precise control over how much drug is given. The goal is to treat diseases that affect specific brain circuits without interfering with the normal functions of the rest of the brain.*

“We believe this tiny microfabricated device could have tremendous impact in understanding brain diseases, as well as providing new ways of delivering biopharmaceuticals and performing biosensing in the brain,” says Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and one of the senior authors of an open-access paper that appears in the Jan. 24 issue of Science Translational Medicine.**
Miniaturized neural drug delivery system (MiNDS). Top: Miniaturized delivery needle with multiple fluidic channels for delivering different drugs. Bottom: scanning electron microscope image of cannula tip for delivering a drug or optogenetic light (to stimulate neurons) and a tungsten electrode (yellow dotted area — magnified view in inset) for detecting neural activity. (credit: Dagdeviren et al., Sci. Transl. Med., adapted by KurzweilAI)

The researchers used state-of-the-art microfabrication techniques to construct cannulas (thin tubes) with diameters of about 30 micrometers (width of a fine human hair) and lengths up to 10 centimeters. These cannulas are contained within a stainless steel needle with a diameter of about 150 micrometers. Inside the cannulas are small pumps that can deliver tiny doses (hundreds of nanoliters***) deep into the brains of rats — with very precise control over how much drug is given and where it goes.

In one experiment, they delivered a drug called muscimol to a rat brain region called the substantia nigra, which is located deep within the brain and helps to control movement. Previous studies have shown that muscimol induces symptoms similar to those seen in Parkinson’s disease. The researchers were able to stimulate the rats to continually turn in a clockwise direction. They also could also halt the Parkinsonian behavior by delivering a dose of saline through a different channel to wash the drug away.

“Since the device can be customizable, in the future we can have different channels for different chemicals, or for light, to target tumors or neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s,” says Canan Dagdeviren, the LG Electronics Career Development Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and the lead author of the paper.

This device could also make it easier to deliver potential new treatments for behavioral neurological disorders such as addiction or obsessive compulsive disorder. (These may be caused by specific disruptions in how different parts of the brain communicate with each other.)

Measuring drug response

The researchers also showed that they could incorporate an electrode into the tip of the cannula, which can be used to monitor how neurons’ electrical activity changes after drug treatment. They are now working on adapting the device so it can also be used to measure chemical or mechanical changes that occur in the brain following drug treatment.

The cannulas can be fabricated in nearly any length or thickness, making it possible to adapt them for use in brains of different sizes, including the human brain, the researchers say.

“This study provides proof-of-concept experiments, in large animal models, that a small, miniaturized device can be safely implanted in the brain and provide miniaturized control of the electrical activity and function of single neurons or small groups of neurons. The impact of this could be significant in focal diseases of the brain, such as Parkinson’s disease,” says Antonio Chiocca, neurosurgeon-in-chief and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who was not involved in the research.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

* To treat brain disorders, drugs (such as l-dopa, a dopamine precursor used to treat Parkinson’s disease, and Prozac, used to boost serotonin levels in patients with depression) often interact with brain chemicals called neurotransmitters (or the cell receptors interact with neurotransmitters) — creating side effects throughout the brain.

** Michael Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, is also a senior author of the paper.

*** It would take one billion nanoliter drops to fill 4 cups.

Abstract of Miniaturized neural system for chronic, local intracerebral drug delivery

Recent advances in medications for neurodegenerative disorders are expanding opportunities for improving the debilitating symptoms suffered by patients. Existing pharmacologic treatments, however, often rely on systemic drug administration, which result in broad drug distribution and consequent increased risk for toxicity. Given that many key neural circuitries have sub–cubic millimeter volumes and cell-specific characteristics, small-volume drug administration into affected brain areas with minimal diffusion and leakage is essential. We report the development of an implantable, remotely controllable, miniaturized neural drug delivery system permitting dynamic adjustment of therapy with pinpoint spatial accuracy. We demonstrate that this device can chemically modulate local neuronal activity in small (rodent) and large (nonhuman primate) animal models, while simultaneously allowing the recording of neural activity to enable feedback control.

References:

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Anthropocentrism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anthropocentrism (/ˌænθroʊpoʊˈsɛntrɪzəm/; from Greek Ancient Greek: ἄνθρωπος, ánthrōpos, "human being"; and Ancient Greek: κέντρον, kéntron, "center") is the belief that human beings are the most significant entity of the universe. Anthropocentrism interprets or regards the world in terms of human values and experiences. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. Anthropocentrism is considered to be profoundly embedded in many modern human cultures and conscious acts. It is a major concept in the field of environmental ethics and environmental philosophy, where it is often considered to be the root cause of problems created by human action within the ecosphere.

However, many proponents of anthropocentrism state that this is not necessarily the case: they argue that a sound long-term view acknowledges that a healthy, sustainable environment is necessary for humans and that the real issue is shallow anthropocentrism.

Environmental philosophy

Anthropocentrism, also known as homocentricism or human supremacism,[5] has been posited by some environmentalists, in such books as Confessions of an Eco-Warrior by Dave Foreman and Green Rage by Christopher Manes, as the underlying (if unstated) reason why humanity dominates and sees the need to "develop" most of the Earth. Anthropocentrism is believed by some to be the central problematic concept in environmental philosophy, where it is used to draw attention claims of a systematic bias in traditional Western attitudes to the non-human world.[6] Val Plumwood has argued[7][8] that anthropocentrism plays an analogous role in green theory to androcentrism in feminist theory and ethnocentrism in anti-racist theory. Plumwood calls human-centredness "anthrocentrism" to emphasise this parallel.

One of the first extended philosophical essays addressing environmental ethics, John Passmore's Man's Responsibility for Nature[9] has been criticised by defenders of deep ecology because of its anthropocentrism, often claimed to be constitutive of traditional Western moral thought.[10] Indeed, defenders of anthropocentrism concerned with the ecological crisis contend that the maintenance of a healthy, sustainable environment is necessary for human well-being as opposed to for its own sake. The problem with a "shallow" viewpoint is not that it is human-centred but that according to William Grey: "What's wrong with shallow views is not their concern about the well-being of humans, but that they do not really consider enough in what that well-being consists. According to this view, we need to develop an enriched, fortified anthropocentric notion of human interest to replace the dominant short-term, sectional and self-regarding conception."[11] In turn, Plumwood in Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason argued that Grey's anthropocentrism is inadequate.[12]

It is important to take note that many devoted environmentalists encompass a somewhat anthropocentric-based philosophical view supporting the fact that they will argue in favor of saving the environment for the sake of human populations. Grey writes: "We should be concerned to promote a rich, diverse, and vibrant biosphere. Human flourishing may certainly be included as a legitimate part of such a flourishing."[13] Such a concern for human flourishing amidst the flourishing of life as a whole, however, is said to be indistinguishible from that of deep ecology and biocentrism, which has been proposed as both an antithesis of anthropocentrism.[14] and as a generalised form of anthropocentrism.[15]

Judeo-Christian tradition

Maimonides, a scholar of the Torah who lived in the 12th century AD, was noted for being decidedly anti-anthropocentric. Maimonides called man "a mere 'drop of the bucket’" and "not 'the axle of the world'".[16] He also claimed that anthropocentric thinking is what causes humans to think that evil things exist in nature.[17] According to Rabbi Norman Lamm, Maimonides "thus deflate[d] man's extravagant notions of his own importance and urge[d] us to abandon these illusions."[16]

In the 1985 CBC series "A Planet For the Taking", Dr. David Suzuki explored the Old Testament roots of anthropocentrism and how it shaped our view of non-human animals. Some Christian proponents of anthropocentrism base their belief on the Bible, such as the verse 1:26 in the Book of Genesis:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
The use of the word "dominion" in the Genesis is controversial. Many Biblical scholars, especially Roman Catholic and other non-Protestant Christians, consider this to be a flawed translation of a word meaning "stewardship", which would indicate that mankind should take care of the earth and its various forms of life.

Human rights

Anthropocentrism is the grounding for some naturalistic concepts of human rights. Defenders of anthropocentrism argue that it is the necessary fundamental premise to defend universal human rights, since what matters morally is simply being human. For example, noted philosopher Mortimer J. Adler wrote, "Those who oppose injurious discrimination on the moral ground that all human beings, being equal in their humanity, should be treated equally in all those respects that concern their common humanity, would have no solid basis in fact to support their normative principle." Adler is stating here, that denying what is now called human exceptionalism could lead to tyranny, writing that if we ever came to believe that humans do not possess a unique moral status, the intellectual foundation of our liberties collapses: "Why, then, should not groups of superior men be able to justify their enslavement, exploitation, or even genocide of inferior human groups on factual and moral grounds akin to those we now rely on to justify our treatment of the animals we harness as beasts of burden, that we butcher for food and clothing, or that we destroy as disease-bearing pests or as dangerous predators?"[18]

Author and anthropocentrism defender Wesley J. Smith from the Discovery Institute has written that human exceptionalism is what gives rise to human duties to each other, the natural world, and to treat animals humanely. Writing in A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy, a critique of animal rights ideology, "Because we are unquestionably a unique species—the only species capable of even contemplating ethical issues and assuming responsibilities—we uniquely are capable of apprehending the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, proper and improper conduct toward animals. Or to put it more succinctly if being human isn't what requires us to treat animals humanely, what in the world does?"[19]

Cognitive psychology

In cognitive psychology, anthropocentric thinking can be defined as "the tendency to reason about unfamiliar biological species or processes by analogy to humans".[20] Reasoning by analogy is an attractive thinking strategy, and it can be tempting to apply our own experience of being human to other biological systems. For example, because death is commonly felt to be undesirable, it may be tempting to form the misconception that death at a cellular level or elsewhere in nature is similarly undesirable (whereas in reality programmed cell death is an essential physiological phenomenon, and ecosystems also rely on death).[20] Conversely, anthropocentric thinking can also lead people to underattribute human characteristics to other organisms. For instance, it may be tempting to wrongly assume that an animal that is very different from humans, such as an insect, will not share particular biological characteristics, such as reproduction or blood circulation.[20]

Anthropocentric thinking has predominantly been studied in young children (mostly up to the age of 10) by developmental psychologists interested in its relevance to biology education. Although relatively little is known about its persistence at a later age, evidence exists that this pattern of human exceptionalist thinking can continue through young adulthood, even among students who have been increasingly educated in biology.[21]

The notion that anthropocentric thinking is an innate human characteristic has been challenged by study of American children raised in urban environments, among whom it appears to emerge between the ages of 3 and 5 years as an acquired perspective.[22] Children's recourse to anthropocentric thinking seems to vary with experience and cultural assumptions about the place of humans in the natural world.[20] Children raised in rural environments appear to use it less than their urban counterparts because of their greater familiarity with different species of animals and plants.[20] Studies involving children from some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas have found little use of anthropocentric thinking.[20][23] Study of children among the Wichí people in South America showed a tendency to think of living organisms in terms of their taxonomic or perceived similarities, ecological considerations, and animistic traditions, resulting in a much less anthropocentric view of the natural world than is experienced by many children in Western societies.[23]

In popular culture

In fiction from all eras and societies, there is fiction treating as normal the actions of humans to ride, eat, milk, and otherwise treat animals as separate species. There are occasional exceptions, such as talking animals, but they are generally treated as exceptions, as aberrations to the rule distinguishing people from animals.[citation needed]

In science fiction, humanocentrism is the idea that humans, as both beings and as a species, are the superior sentients. Essentially the equivalent of racial supremacy on a galactic scale, it entails intolerant discrimination against sentient non-humans, much like race supremacists discriminate against those not of their race. A prime example of this concept is utilized as a story element for the Mass Effect series. After humanity's first contact results in a brief war, many humans in the series develop suspicious or even hostile attitudes towards the game's various alien races. By the time of the first game, which takes place several decades after the war, many humans still retain such sentiments in addition to forming 'pro-human' organizations.

This idea is countered by anti-humanism. At times, this ideal also includes fear of and superiority over strong AIs and cyborgs, downplaying the ideas of integration, cybernetic revolts, machine rule and Tilden's Laws of Robotics.[citation needed]

Mark Twain mocked the belief in human supremacy in Letters from the Earth (written c. 1909, published 1962).[24]

The 2012 documentary The Superior Human? systematically analyzes anthropocentrism and concludes that value is fundamentally an opinion, and since life forms naturally value their own traits, most humans are misled to believe that they are actually more valuable than other species. This natural bias, according to the film, combined with a received sense of comfort and an excuse for exploitation of non-humans cause anthropocentrism to remain in society.
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Superconducting ‘synapse’ could enable powerful future neuromorphic supercomputers

Fires 200 million times faster than human brain, uses one ten-thousandth as much energy
February 7, 2018
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/superconducting-synapse-could-enable-powerful-future-neuromorphic-supercomputers
NIST’s artificial synapse, designed for neuromorphic computing, mimics the operation of switch between two neurons. One artificial synapse is located at the center of each X. This chip is 1 square centimeter in size. (The thick black vertical lines are electrical probes used for testing.) (credit: NIST)

A superconducting “synapse” that “learns” like a biological system, operating like the human brain, has been built by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The NIST switch, described in an open-access paper in Science Advances, provides a missing link for neuromorphic (brain-like) computers, according to the researchers. Such “non-von Neumann architecture” future computers could significantly speed up analysis and decision-making for applications such as self-driving cars and cancer diagnosis.

The research is supported by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Cryogenic Computing Complexity Program, which was launched in 2014 with the goal of paving the way to “a new generation of superconducting supercomputer development beyond the exascale.”*

A synapse is a connection or switch between two neurons, controlling transmission of signals. (credit: NIST)

NIST’s artificial synapse is a metallic cylinder 10 micrometers in diameter — about 10 times larger than a biological synapse. It simulates a real synapse by processing incoming electrical spikes (pulsed current from a neuron) and customizing spiking output signals. The more firing between cells (or processors), the stronger the connection. That process enables both biological and artificial synapses to maintain old circuits and create new ones.

Dramatically faster, lower-energy-required, compared to human synapses

But the NIST synapse has two unique features that the researchers say are superior to human synapses and to other artificial synapses:
  • Operating at 100 GHz, it can fire at a rate that is much faster than the human brain — 1 billion times per second, compared to a brain cell’s rate of about 50 times per second.
  • It uses only about one ten-thousandth as much energy as a human synapse. The spiking energy is less than 1 attojoule** — roughly equivalent to the miniscule chemical energy bonding two atoms in a molecule — compared to the roughly 10 femtojoules (10,000 attojoules) per synaptic event in the human brain. Current neuromorphic platforms are orders of magnitude less efficient than the human brain. “We don’t know of any other artificial synapse that uses less energy,” NIST physicist Mike Schneider said.
Superconducting devices mimicking brain cells and transmission lines have been developed, but until now, efficient synapses — a crucial piece — have been missing. The new Josephson junction-based artificial synapse would be used in neuromorphic computers made of superconducting components (which can transmit electricity without resistance), so they would be more efficient than designs based on semiconductors or software. Data would be transmitted, processed, and stored in units of magnetic flux.

The brain is especially powerful for tasks like image recognition because it processes data both in sequence and simultaneously and it stores memories in synapses all over the system. A conventional computer processes data only in sequence and stores memory in a separate unit.
The new NIST artificial synapses combine small size, superfast spiking signals, and low energy needs, and could be stacked into dense 3D circuits for creating large systems. They could provide a unique route to a far more complex and energy-efficient neuromorphic system than has been demonstrated with other technologies, according to the researchers.

Nature News does raise some concerns about the research, quoting neuromorphic-technology experts: “Millions of synapses would be necessary before a system based on the technology could be used for complex computing; it remains to be seen whether it will be possible to scale it to this level. … The synapses can only operate at temperatures close to absolute zero, and need to be cooled with liquid helium. That this might make the chips impractical for use in small devices, although a large data centre might be able to maintain them. … We don’t yet understand enough about the key properties of the [biological] synapse to know how to use them effectively.”

Inside a superconducting synapse 
The NIST synapse is a customized Josephson junction***, long used in NIST voltage standards. These junctions are a sandwich of superconducting materials with an insulator as a filling. When an electrical current through the junction exceeds a level called the critical current, voltage spikes are produced.

Illustration showing the basic operation of NIST’s artificial synapse, based on a Josephson junction. Very weak electrical current pulses are used to control the number of nanoclusters (green) pointing in the same direction. Shown here: a “magnetically disordered state” (left) vs. “magnetically ordered state” (right). (credit: NIST)

Each artificial synapse uses standard niobium electrodes but has a unique filling made of nanoscale clusters (“nanoclusters”) of manganese in a silicon matrix. The nanoclusters — about 20,000 per square micrometer — act like tiny bar magnets with “spins” that can be oriented either randomly or in a coordinated manner. The number of nanoclusters pointing in the same direction can be controlled, which affects the superconducting properties of the junction.

Diagram of circuit used in the simulation. The blue and red areas represent pre- and post-synapse neurons, respectively. The X symbol represents the Josephson junction. (credit: Michael L. Schneider et al./Science Advances)

The synapse rests in a superconducting state, except when it’s activated by incoming current and starts producing voltage spikes. Researchers apply current pulses in a magnetic field to boost the magnetic ordering — that is, the number of nanoclusters pointing in the same direction.

This magnetic effect progressively reduces the critical current level, making it easier to create a normal conductor and produce voltage spikes. The critical current is the lowest when all the nanoclusters are aligned. The process is also reversible: Pulses are applied without a magnetic field to reduce the magnetic ordering and raise the critical current. This design, in which different inputs alter the spin alignment and resulting output signals, is similar to how the brain operates.

Synapse behavior can also be tuned by changing how the device is made and its operating temperature. By making the nanoclusters smaller, researchers can reduce the pulse energy needed to raise or lower the magnetic order of the device. Raising the operating temperature slightly from minus 271.15 degrees C (minus 456.07 degrees F) to minus 269.15 degrees C (minus 452.47 degrees F), for example, results in more and higher voltage spikes.
* Future exascale supercomputers would run at 1018 exaflops (“flops” = floating point operations per second) or more. The current fastest supercomputer — the Sunway TaihuLight — operates at about 0.1 exaflops; zettascale computers, the next step beyond exascale, would run 10,000 times faster than that.

** An attojoule is 10-18 joule, a unit of energy, and is one-thousandth of a femtojoule.

*** The Josephson effect is the phenomenon of supercurrent — i.e., a current that flows indefinitely long without any voltage applied — across a device known as a Josephson junction, which consists of two superconductors coupled by a weak link. — Wikipedia

Abstract of Ultralow power artificial synapses using nanotextured magnetic Josephson junctions

Neuromorphic computing promises to markedly improve the efficiency of certain computational tasks, such as perception and decision-making. Although software and specialized hardware implementations of neural networks have made tremendous accomplishments, both implementations are still many orders of magnitude less energy efficient than the human brain. We demonstrate a new form of artificial synapse based on dynamically reconfigurable superconducting Josephson junctions with magnetic nanoclusters in the barrier. The spiking energy per pulse varies with the magnetic configuration, but in our demonstration devices, the spiking energy is always less than 1 aJ. This compares very favorably with the roughly 10 fJ per synaptic event in the human brain. Each artificial synapse is composed of a Si barrier containing Mn nanoclusters with superconducting Nb electrodes. The critical current of each synapse junction, which is analogous to the synaptic weight, can be tuned using input voltage spikes that change the spin alignment of Mn nanoclusters. We demonstrate synaptic weight training with electrical pulses as small as 3 aJ. Further, the Josephson plasma frequencies of the devices, which determine the dynamical time scales, all exceed 100 GHz. These new artificial synapses provide a significant step toward a neuromorphic platform that is faster, more energy-efficient, and thus can attain far greater complexity than has been demonstrated with other technologies.

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Entropy (information theory)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) In info...

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