Brain of 10,000 Transistors

Giant Computer Rat Brain Taking Over!

But -- has there been mental activity?

The newborn "Blue Brain" surprised the designers with its willfulness from the very first day. It had hardly been fed electrical impulses before strange patterns began to appear on the screen with the lightning-like flashes produced by cells that scientists recognize from actual thought processes. Groups of neurons started becoming attuned to one another until they were firing in rhythm. "It happened entirely on its own," says Markram. "Spontaneously."

A phenomenon arising from the arrangement of a certain set of items put in a certain arrangement. A whole that is greater than its parts. Think of a solar system. A bunch of random dust. Then a few solidifying bodies. Then very few larger bodies circling the giant mass of slowly building and heating at the center. Eventually the center lights up due to the crush of matter and it rains the energy of life onto those smaller bodies which then starts it own chain reaction on the planet...We arise from mass.