105 pages, 15 illustrations, Portuguese version available on Amazon.com

In this monograph, a mathematician and a neurobiologist join forces to address one of the most crucial and controversial scientific questions of our times: can the exquisite capacities of the human brain be simulated by any digital computer? By combining mathematical, computational, neurobiological, and evolutionary arguments, Ronald Cicurel and Miguel Nicolelis refute the possibility that any Turing machine will ever succeed in such a simulation. As part of their argument, the authors propose a new theory for brain function: the Relativistic Brain Theory. This theory accounts for decades of neurophysiological and psychological findings and observations that until now have challenged the dominant dogma in neuroscience. Altogether, this monograph contains the inaugural manifesto of a movement intended to emphasize the uniqueness of human nature while discrediting pseudo-scientific predictions that the replacement of humans by machines is imminent. In the authors' opinion, the misguided and misleading belief that digital machines can emulate all human behaviors defines one of the greatest threats that society faces in the future to preserve our way of life, our human culture, and our freedom.

FROM THE BOOK

The relativistic brain theory is a falsifiable scientific theory, which makes a series of testable predictions (see Appendix 1) about how the brains of mammals, and in particular those of primates and humans, work. The theory also provides novel physiological mechanisms to account for many unexplained experimental findings in animals and neurological observations in human subjects. Moreover, the theory suggests various new research directions at the interface of neuroscience and computer science.

According to the relativistic brain theory, complex central nervous systems like ours generate, process, and store information through the recursive interaction of a hybrid digital- analog computation engine (HDACE). In the HDACE, the digital component is defined by the spikes produced by neural networks distributed all over the brain, whereas the analog component is represented by the superimposition of time-varying, neuronal electromagnetic fields (NEMFs)1, generated by the flow of neuronal electrical signals though the multitude of local and distributed loops of white matter that exist in the mammalian brain.

The relativistic brain theory proposes that the combination of time-varying neuronal NEMFs provides the “physiological glue” for the creation of the neuronal space-time continuum” in higher mammals. This space-time continuum defines what we call the “mental space, the analog neuronal substrate from which all higher brain functions emerge. Figure 2.1 illustrates the operation of this hybrid digital-analog computational engine (HDACE) as a highly recursive system in which NEMFs, generated by neuronal electrical activity, also influence, by induction, the electrical sparking of the very neuronal networks that participated in their creation, pretty much like, but on a different scale, the way a solar magnetic disturbance induces lightning storms on Earth.