The scientist planning to upload his brain to a COMPUTER

[RAMA]

Neuroscientists are 99.9% percent convinced that the brain is a mechanism, he says. It is something that computes, something that carries out functions. If you can figure out how it works, you can build a replacement for it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...llow-inhabit-virtual-worlds-live-forever.html

Project site:

http://www.carboncopies.org/

http://www.carboncopies.org/intelligence-unbound

 

[Mary Ann]

First and foremost, The Daily Mail isn't exactly a bastion of truthful and ethical journalism (translation: it's a rag) and I'm leery of any story that a more reputable newspaper doesn't bother to cover. Second, who are these neuroscientists who are 99.9% certain about this? I can't find a link to any name, never mind an article or proper scientific paper. Third, I clicked on all the names listed on your third link, and only Koene himself is a neuroscientist. Not one of the other authors is a scientist; they are mostly philosophers and ethicists, so this is not a sci & tech OP so much as a philosophical one.

I'll leave the thread open for now to see if it develops any discussion suitable for this forum, but it's treading a fine line.

As an aside, I see no positives in living forever in any kind of way. Sounds incredibly egotistic to me.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Neuroscientists are 99.9% percent convinced that the brain is a mechanism, he says. It is something that computes, something that carries out functions. If you can figure out how it works, you can build a replacement for it.

I am 100% convinced that the brain is a mechanism. I am also 100% convinced that you can build a replacement for it because it happens every time a person grows. I am also 99.9% convinced that this scientist will not upload his brain to a computer.

 

[{ Emilia }]

. If you can figure out how it works,

See, that's the problem right there. We're nowhere near this point.

 

[Mudd]

Evangelists for this kind of thing usually skip the "figuring out how it works" phase by chanting the magic word Singularity!". Kurzweil is an example.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I think there is a lot of misconception out there about the brain and our personalities.
Most people seem to think "we" are some kind of software that can be transferred to new hardware and run the same.
I really don't think it works that way.
The brain is a mechanism alright, not a flash drive, With our personalities a property of the hardware. Change the brain and the personality changes.
That happens constantly our entire life.

You'd have to copy the brain to the last molecular detail to do this, but by the time you are done the personality would already be in place, cause the copied brain produces it by itself.
It might be possible to build a computer that is capable of running a brain simulation which then produces the same personality. "Same" being a relative term here, cause the simulated brain needs the same input data transmitted to it than the original one via nerve impulses to react to the world in some fashion.

If anything this sounds more like a way to an AI than to uploaded minds to me.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Re: The scientist planning to upload his brain to a COMPU

I think there is a lot of misconception out there about the brain and our personalities.
Most people seem to think "we" are some kind of software that can be transferred to new hardware and run the same.
I really don't think it works that way.
The brain is a mechanism alright, not a flash drive, With our personalities a property of the hardware. Change the brain and the personality changes.
That happens constantly our entire life.

You'd have to copy the brain to the last molecular detail to do this, but by the time you are done the personality would already be in place, cause the copied brain produces it by itself.
It might be possible to build a computer that is capable of running a brain simulation which then produces the same personality. "Same" being a relative term here, cause the simulated brain needs the same input data transmitted to it than the original one via nerve impulses to react to the world in some fashion.

If anything this sounds more like a way to an AI than to uploaded minds to me.

Based on what I've read, the most likely result would a perfect clone of the mind, but only exists on a hard drive. From its POV, it is you. But it wouldn't be like you go to sleep in a body and wake up in a computer like in Tron. You would just have a digital version of yourself.

 

[Mudd]

No one understands what consciousness is, how it works or what it's "for;" the so-called "hard problem." Folks who are convinced for some reason that we're on the verge of what they call machines that are "aware" just cite the rapid growth of processing power and storage and suggest, for no good reason, that at some point conscious intelligence will somehow happen. There's no evidence for that, of course.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Is there a computer with the storage capacity to upload an entire human brain? I was always under the impression that our brains hold an enormous amount of information, far more than could be contained by even a warehouse full of servers.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Is there a computer with the storage capacity to upload an entire human brain? I was always under the impression that our brains hold an enormous amount of information, far more than could be contained by even a warehouse full of servers.

This question cannot be answered. The quantity of information in the brain cannot be measured in any meaningful way. You first need to have a clue on what and how you will be copying – and we don't. The only certain quantity you could estimate is the amount of storage required for a physical simulation of a brain, but those who are keen on copying brains probably rely on the assumption that there are easier ways – and the information in these easier ways is not directly measurable.

Most likely – no. But note that "computer" is also undefined, you can interlink millions of machines with hundreds of terabytes of storage each and then call them a "computer", so technically there might be.

But yeah, we don't know how big our brains are, but we already think we are about to start copying them. That's like asking your mum for a pet Diplodocus as a friend to your pet chicken, without knowing what a Diplodocus is.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Is there a computer with the storage capacity to upload an entire human brain? I was always under the impression that our brains hold an enormous amount of information, far more than could be contained by even a warehouse full of servers.

This question cannot be answered.

But yeah, we don't know how big our brains are, but we already think we are about to start copying them. That's like asking your mum for a pet Diplodocus as a friend to your pet chicken, without knowing what a Diplodocus is.

I would think that we would need to answer that question before moving to the next step.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Actually, I mentioned the upper limit, but I forgot the lower limit. You have 100 to 500 trillion connections in your brain, so the most optimistic brain uploading scenario would need only them to record your personality. That would take a few petabytes.¹ But that would virtually ignore any extra chemical effects in the brain and the like.

¹ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I always find these threads interesting for how efficiently they deconstruct Singularity evangelism. I can think of plenty of reasons why uploading a person's brain might be useful, but it doesn't change the fact that we're nowhere near such a point, and barely even know where to begin. So-called scientists claiming we're on the edge of such a breakthrough are no more credible than religious doomsayers who believe the apocalypse will be upon us any day now.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I always find these threads interesting for how efficiently they deconstruct Singularity evangelism.

The problem is that the original poster doesn't seem to be interested in the actual discussion. So he might just end up posting the same stuff again in a few weeks.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I always find these threads interesting for how efficiently they deconstruct Singularity evangelism.

The problem is that the original poster doesn't seem to be interested in the actual discussion. So he might just end up posting the same stuff again in a few weeks.

RAMA's posts certainly contain a certain quasi-religious enthusiasm.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I always find these threads interesting for how efficiently they deconstruct Singularity evangelism.

The problem is that the original poster doesn't seem to be interested in the actual discussion. So he might just end up posting the same stuff again in a few weeks.

RAMA's posts certainly contain a certain quasi-religious enthusiasm.

Anyone see the Hawking movie? There was a line in the movie about Cosmology being a kind of religion for atheists. While I reject that notion, when I heard it I immediately thought it applied much better to the Kezweil notion of the singularity.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The Singularity has been referred to as the Rapture for nerds, which I find extremely accurate.

 

[JES]

Then again, even if you could upload your mind to a computer, who'd actually want to, when for all you know, the money to build a new body runs out, and your trapped, with no way to eat, drink, or otherwise enjoy your new immortality.
In other words, you'd be sort of imprisoned, and be completely dependent on people maintaining the computer and servers, because if they crash, this time, you die for good.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Well, that would be easy. Just ask to be kept shut down until someone figures how to give you the sensation of eating, if not a new body. The parts would deteriorate and you'd die, unless someone keeps a backup of you, but you'd have much longer survival span in cold storage than you do in a human body.

Then again, getting frozen is probably a better alternative. Chances of revival are still low, but are significantly higher.

 

[Taelon]

Would the end result be a Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System?