Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

New Brain-Imaging and Modeling Tools.
The first step in reverse engineering the brain is to peer into the brain to 
determine how it works. So far, our tools for doing this have been crude, but that is now changing, as a significant 
number of new scanning technologies feature greatly improved spatial and temporal resolution, price-performance, 
and bandwidth. Simultaneously we are rapidly accumulating data on the precise characteristics and dynamics of the 
constituent parts and systems of the brain, ranging from individual synapses to large regions such as the cerebellum, 
which comprises more than half of the brain's neurons. Extensive databases are methodically cataloging our 
exponentially growing knowledge of the brain.
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Researchers have also shown they can rapidly understand and apply this information by building models and 
working simulations. These simulations of brain regions are based on the mathematical principles of complexity 
theory and chaotic computing and are already providing results that closely match experiments performed on actual 
human and animal brains. 
As noted in chapter 2, the power of the scanning and computational tools needed for the task of reverse 
engineering the brain is accelerating, similar to the acceleration in technology that made the genome project feasible. 
When we get to the nanobot era (see "Scanning Using Nanobots" on p. 163), we will be able to scan from 
inside
the 
brain with exquisitely high spatial and temporal resolution.
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There are no inherent barriers to our being able to reverse 
engineer the operating principles of human intelligence and replicate these capabilities in the more powerful 
computational substrates that will become available in the decades ahead. The human brain is a complex hierarchy of 
complex systems, but it does not represent a level of complexity beyond what we are already capable of handling.