Nanofibers are tiny wires. They conduct electricity really well. Neurons are tiny cells. They conduct electricity really well.

“… nanotubes may already have been around for more than a century. A US patent granted in 1889 to two British men reveals how to make them using marsh gas better known these days as methane. The method is essentially the same as that used in industrial processes today, and produced “hair-like carbon filaments” for electric lighting. According to the patent, as well as having useful electrical properties, these filaments “may be bent and twisted into various shapes and will spring back to their original form on being released”

New Scientist

This is a gear-shaft, except it’s atomic tiny. The NASA Ames Research Center ‘used molecular dynamics to investigate the properties and design space of molecular gears fashioned from carbon nanotubes with teeth added via a benzyne reaction known to occur with C60 [Hoke 92]‘

So, Nanotech is basically molecular engineering. Chemical engineering. Really small machines. With really small gears and stuff. You can also simulate the function of molecules.

I think you could make Artificial Neurons with Nanotech. With Artificial Neurons conducting electricity you could make an Artificial Brain.

Then you could Scan every single Neuron in the brain and Copy and Paste them into an Artificial Brain.

One approach to designing intelligent computers will be to copy the human brain, so these machines will seem very human. And through nanotechnology, which is the ability to create physical objects atom by atom, they will have humanlike—albeit greatly enhanced—bodies as well. Having human origins, they will claim to be human, and to have human feelings. And being immensely intelligent, they’ll be very convincing when they tell us these things. But are these feelings “real,” or just apparently real? I will discuss this subtle but vital distinction below. First it is important to understand the nature of nonbiological intelligence, and how it will emerge.

Keep in mind that this is not an alien invasion of intelligent machines. It is emerging from within our human-machine civilization.

kurzweilAI.net

Physiology of a Nerve Impulse
Neural Anatomy
Nanotech Images
New Scientist Nanotechnology Section

Posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2003 in Cognitive Science, Computers, Nanotechnology, Networks, Tech.