Next month, IBM is set to activate the most ambitious simulation of a human brain yet conceived. It's a model they say is accurate down to the molecule. No one claims the "Blue Brain" project will be self-aware. But this project, and others like it, use electrical patterns in a silicon brain to simulate the electrical patterns in the human brain -- patterns which are intimately linked to thought. But if computer programs start generating these patterns -- these electrical "thoughts" -- then what separates us from them? Traditionally human beings have reserved words like "reasoning," "self-awareness," and "soul" as their exclusive property. But with the stirring of something akin to electronic consciousness -- some argue that human beings need to give up the ghost, and embrace the machine in all of us.
