... working on actually discussing this ...
That's an interesting project phase. Why, I think we're working on actually discussing it now! And here you are!
I've participated in a couple of conversations on this topic here. It never gets too far because, well, skynet.
Also network propagation between the "neurons" and some other issues make this idea extremely far-fetched. Not impossible (who the hell knows) just, very improbable.
I think the main problem would be to simulate the neurons. We still don't know 100% about how the brain functions.
We know enough about how individual neurons function. Each way a neuron interacts with other neurons could be quantified(chemical and electrical) so that our emulated neurons act the same way and can communicate the same way over a network. If done properly you could possibly even interface real brain tissue with the network.
I don't think we have to emulate the structure of the brain, just emulating the neurons and let the structure come naturally later. Baby's don't have much of anything going on in their brains right after birth, neural nets are constructed and destroyed all the time until eventually consciousness arises. This is my hope with an artificial intelligence. Giving the network the ability to change itself on the fly.
The only other thing is how do u give this emulated brain input. A consciousness cant grow without input. Like being born with none of the 5 senses. I think input would possibly have to come later and the AI would have to learn to use it. Possibly a modified client that gives the AI access to the internet or a webcam or a Roomba remote body. lol
The problem with letting it interact with the real world is how slowly it processes. Say you give it control of a Roomba and the block time is 30seconds. That's 30 seconds per cycle of the emulated neurons being able to talk to one another, to put that into perspective our brain nearly instantly communicates between neurons, I would say instant but the Einstein says that's impossible. So were talking about an emulated brain that is thousands if not millions of times slower than our brain but functions in the same fashion.
To solve this we could change the block time but this would cause more orphans, this isnt a worry as the working memory block chain doesnt necessarly pay out, the transaction block chain does. By doing it this way we could drop the working memory block chain down to 5 seconds per block.
I'm thinking you could combine how its mined, the miner does what a miner does normally but with 2 block chains simultaneously. The wallet would have the option to run the emulated neurons on the cpu so a miner could run both. This would mean anyone with a wallet is part of the emulated brain and the miners just process all of the communication between all of the wallets whether it be transaction data or neuron communication.