Video games are often discussed as entertainment, but they can also serve as genuine scientific tools and Minecraft never ceases to prove it.

Recently, a YouTuber stunned his followers and the wider Minecraft community with an unprecedented experiment.

The fan transplanted the brain of a fruit fly into the video game to observe its reactions and test its consciousness within a virtual environment.

A Fly’s Brain Ended Up Inside Minecraft Thanks to an Unusual Scientific Experiment

Science and gaming can go hand in hand, occasionally producing remarkable results. This time, a YouTuber known as Roooney shared the findings of an experiment in which he transplanted the brain of a fruit fly into Minecraft.

To understand the project, it helps to know that it builds on research by Dr. Arie Matsliah, a research scientist at Princeton. He is part of a project that mapped the 54.5 million connections in a fruit fly’s brain and converted them into data available through a public tool that can be freely programmed.

This is not an experiment involving a physical brain (as in RoboCop 2). Rather, all of those neural connections were translated into mathematical data and structure. As the researcher himself notes, the exercise greatly simplifies biophysics but from a data science perspective, it functions as a brain.

Using this tool, Roooney “brought to life” an insect in Minecraft through programming, enabling it to respond to the game’s stimuli. He gave it the capacity for fear, which he considers one of the essential sensations for consciousness and survival.

Minecraft

The Minecraft Fly Responds to Hunger, Though As We Know It in Nature

Roooney then experimented with the sensation of hunger and the insect’s reactions in order to find a solution within Minecraft.

In this phase of the experiment, the YouTuber’s programming proved both successful and fascinating: at a structural level, the Minecraft fly registered a drop in its energy source and determined that it needed to take action to replenish its reserves.

Of course, this is far less complex than what occurs at the neuronal and physiological levels when we experience hunger and our body demands food. In this case, it was a basic relationship but it represents a brain responding to stimuli, processing information, and establishing logic within its environment.

For more news on the gaming and entertainment industries, click here.

Stay tuned to LEVEL UP for continuing updates.