This is your Captain Speaking

The other night i was at home, fairly tired after a long day, watching a late night comedic television program. Suddenly realizing i had to pee, i stood up, went into the bathroom and began to evacuate my bulging bladder. Not thinking anything. Simply enjoying urination. The next thing i know, im face to face with my mirror self brushing his teeth. What the? I had no thought or plan to do so. I wasn't even going to bed just yet. It was as if my brain was on autopilot, hinting that it wanted to go to bed. Bed before our Moment of Zen? What an idiot. 

Fascinated by my brains ability to control my body without my expressed written consent, i googled "brain autopilot" with one super interesting result. In 2004, Science Daily published an article about a literal Brain Autopilot experiment. This idea immediately made me imagine an oversized brain wearing a pilot's cap, standing in front of the cockpit, thanking the departing passengers for flying JetBlue next to a cute stewardess curtly saying "BuhBye". But thats neither here nor there. 

The article describes an experiment held by scientist Thomas DeMarse at the University of Florida. He created a "brain" comprised of a living network of rat brain neurons to help study the brain at the cellular level. "If we can extract the rules of how these neural networks are doing computations like pattern recognition, we can apply that to creating novel computing systems." Basically, he wanted to learn why and how the brain is able to be so fast and flexible, easily processing tasks that a computer is incapable of doing. 

He put these neurons in a petri dish, connected them to electrodes, and they eventually form a living network. He then connected this "brain" to a flight simulator. The simulator reacts to the brain the same way our bodies would, by receiving and interpreting signals. The neurons were given info about proper flight conditions. When they connected the brain to the simulator, it obviously didnt know what to do at first. But as the plane flies off kilter the data is read by the brain and it sends different signals out, processing the feedback. Over time it slowly corrects the flight pattern and gradually learns to fly. 

All of this is on a very basic level, and any serious thought of using this technology is years away. But the article was written in 2004, so they may have already made some more progress. Either way, this is all very interesting dont you think?