The scientist planning to upload his brain to a COMPUTER

[Santaman]

Could you backup a brain and in the future reload it back?

The error you make is that you assume that the brain and the rest of your body are seperate entities, they are not, without a body the brain is nothing, and vice versa, its one very complicated system, the brain receives and handles a constant stream of stimuli from the body, central nerve center and so on and it acts on that, it NEEDS the body to provide specific hormones and so on and it needs it in perfect doses.
If haywired your emotions will run wild, lose all stimuli and your brain will shut down, you will cease to be a human, its beyond being deaf and blind, there won't be ANY sensation.

So no, you can't backup a brain.

 

[Metryq]

So no, you can't backup a brain.

Agreed. Although, why would an individual wish to backup their brain? Many stories have addressed this subject, sometimes as a means of immortality. But duplicating a person in their entirety (body and mind) or merely dumping a backup of their mind into an available body does nothing to help the individual escape death. All it does is produce a copy who believes they are the dead person. And one day, the copy will experience death, too, while another copy takes their place.

The one decent episode from DOLLHOUSE touched on this, and one of my favorite "atmospheric" treatments of the idea is THE SKY CRAWLERS.

 

[Amaris]

So no, you can't backup a brain.

Agreed. Although, why would an individual wish to backup their brain? Many stories have addressed this subject, sometimes as a means of immortality. But duplicating a person in their entirety (body and mind) or merely dumping a backup of their mind into an available body does nothing to help the individual escape death. All it does is produce a copy who believes they are the dead person. And one day, the copy will experience death, too, while another copy takes their place.

The one decent episode from DOLLHOUSE touched on this, and one of my favorite "atmospheric" treatments of the idea is THE SKY CRAWLERS.

I've had this same general thought for a long time as well. If you backup your brain, and you die, you are dead. The copy of you, however, will live on, and while others will still think you're alive, the you that made the backup is dead.

Short of finding a way to make the human body repair itself faster and more efficiently, as well as making it more impervious to the harsh realities of the universe, true immortality is quite beyond our reach.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

So no, you can't backup a brain.

Agreed. Although, why would an individual wish to backup their brain? Many stories have addressed this subject, sometimes as a means of immortality. But duplicating a person in their entirety (body and mind) or merely dumping a backup of their mind into an available body does nothing to help the individual escape death. All it does is produce a copy who believes they are the dead person. And one day, the copy will experience death, too, while another copy takes their place.

The one decent episode from DOLLHOUSE touched on this, and one of my favorite "atmospheric" treatments of the idea is THE SKY CRAWLERS.

I've had this same general thought for a long time as well. If you backup your brain, and you die, you are dead. The copy of you, however, will live on, and while others will still think you're alive, the you that made the backup is dead.

Short of finding a way to make the human body repair itself faster and more efficiently, as well as making it more impervious to the harsh realities of the universe, true immortality is quite beyond our reach.

This.

It is the same thing with the fictional thought of transportation. If we could make an exact copy of you at another location (transportation) it would be more like a twin than an entity that could be called "you".

It is conceivable that such a transportation could occur without destroying the original. In such a case you could stand there staring eye to eye with your transported copy. If someone asked you if you would be okay if they killed you right then and there simply because your copy would live on, would you be okay with that? If so, you have some explaining to do. If not, how is this any different than a brain back up to remote system?

 

[Awesome Possum]

Agreed. Although, why would an individual wish to backup their brain? Many stories have addressed this subject, sometimes as a means of immortality. But duplicating a person in their entirety (body and mind) or merely dumping a backup of their mind into an available body does nothing to help the individual escape death. All it does is produce a copy who believes they are the dead person. And one day, the copy will experience death, too, while another copy takes their place.

The one decent episode from DOLLHOUSE touched on this, and one of my favorite "atmospheric" treatments of the idea is THE SKY CRAWLERS.

I've had this same general thought for a long time as well. If you backup your brain, and you die, you are dead. The copy of you, however, will live on, and while others will still think you're alive, the you that made the backup is dead.

Short of finding a way to make the human body repair itself faster and more efficiently, as well as making it more impervious to the harsh realities of the universe, true immortality is quite beyond our reach.

This.

It is the same thing with the fictional thought of transportation. If we could make an exact copy of you at another location (transportation) it would be more like a twin than an entity that could be called "you".

It is conceivable that such a transportation could occur without destroying the original. In such a case you could stand there staring eye to eye with your transported copy. If someone asked you if you would be okay if they killed you right then and there simply because your copy would live on, would you be okay with that? If so, you have some explaining to do. If not, how is this any different than a brain back up to remote system?

It's destroying a person and then reassembling an exact duplicate. It even messes up sometimes and we get an extra Riker running around. Doesn't seem to bother people though, I guess they just get used to it. That might be why religion seems to have died out on Earth in Star Trek.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Possibly not, but it takes researchers like this to do it, rather than people who say it can't be done.

Alchemists researched the transmutation of metals for six centuries and still couldn't figure out how to make it work. That's not because there were naysayers (which there were) it's because Alchemy, like transhumanism, is one part science and three parts fantasy.

Simply put: Brain uploading is NOT going to happen. Neither is kidney uploading or intestine uploading. Brains simply do not work that way.

What MAY happen is science develops an understanding of the function of the human brain well enough to connect certain neural-electrical patterns to specific thoughts and memories, e.g. an fMRI lie detector or computerized telepathy (requiring, of course, a certain amount of calibration on the subject being used on). Direct-brain interfaces are also a possibility, as unlike brain-uploading there is real science being done in this field that has actually achieved real results. Brain-direct interfaces may allow humans to control prosthetics, vehicles or remote devices mentally. AIs will get better at mimicking humans in the mean time, robotics will reach a point where humanoid androids become passable (without also being creepy) and machine speech will become fluid and fluent.

But "Brain uploading" is not a thing that can happen, because "brain" is not a thing that can be uploaded and personality doesn't work that way.

You can't upload anything to a computer, even if you manage to copy anything you will end up with dead data not with a "person" inside a computer since you seem to forget that everything of the human body is interconnected, everything is needed to form a human being.

This. It would be the equivalent of uploading a 3D object into a 2D environment.

Also known as a "photograph." We've been doing that for centuries.

That's what I mean in the above post. We will DEFINITELY gain the ability to scan a human mind and figure out what's going on inside it, and AIs will be smart enough to link specific neural patterns with specific moods and mental states (e.g. the "Crime Coefficient" in Psycho Pass: a cop points a gun at you and the gun immediately scans you and calculates your propensity to break the law).

But the idea that the brain scan would yield an actual working copy OF that brain is a lot like saying you can duplicate a person by videotaping him.

I'm willing to believe you just don't accept the premises involved, which lead to your trite responses. You seem to mainly have a problem with the concept of accelerated/exponential change.

You've been claiming that for years, always with the canard that people who disagree with you simply don't understand the concepts involved.

And yet it's been pointed out to you multiple times that the exponential growth curve is identical to a logistics curve until it reaches a saturation point and then plateaus, after which little or no growth is possible. It's also been pointed out that the growth curve in computer power far outpaces the growth of computer software, to the point that we now have computers that are 10 or 20 times more powerful than they need to be for the software they're running, and the limiting factor in computers is no longer processing power, but the amount of memory available.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Even if you could download all of your memories into a computer and make it respond exactly the same way you would, you'll still die when your number is up. These two events are unrelated. The best proof is that you don't need to die in order to do so. Contrary to what we can see in some misguided sci. fi novel/movies you don't need to empty your brain in order to store its contents into a computer memory. To an external observer, it may sound exactly like you and even affirm that it is you but to you it wouldn't make any difference. You would be dead, all the same.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

^ Yeah this is the exact point I was attempting to make in my last post. You did a better job.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

^ Yeah this is the exact point I was attempting to make in my last post. You did a better job.

Thank you for that, I am not sure I deserve it though.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I've had this same general thought for a long time as well. If you backup your brain, and you die, you are dead. The copy of you, however, will live on, and while others will still think you're alive, the you that made the backup is dead.

Short of finding a way to make the human body repair itself faster and more efficiently, as well as making it more impervious to the harsh realities of the universe, true immortality is quite beyond our reach.

This.

It is the same thing with the fictional thought of transportation. If we could make an exact copy of you at another location (transportation) it would be more like a twin than an entity that could be called "you".

It is conceivable that such a transportation could occur without destroying the original. In such a case you could stand there staring eye to eye with your transported copy. If someone asked you if you would be okay if they killed you right then and there simply because your copy would live on, would you be okay with that? If so, you have some explaining to do. If not, how is this any different than a brain back up to remote system?

It's destroying a person and then reassembling an exact duplicate. It even messes up sometimes and we get an extra Riker running around. Doesn't seem to bother people though, I guess they just get used to it. That might be why religion seems to have died out on Earth in Star Trek.

I am not sure it's even possible that religion dies out. I think it's like radioactivity. It appears spontaneously in atoms without any external influence, but it can also be stimulated by the proximity of other atoms and sometimes you get critical mass and everything explodes. The point being that you can't eliminate religion because it's a natural phenomenon. Otherwise it wouldn't be present in absolutely every culture in the world, including atheistic cultures.

 

[Awesome Possum]

This.

It is the same thing with the fictional thought of transportation. If we could make an exact copy of you at another location (transportation) it would be more like a twin than an entity that could be called "you".

It is conceivable that such a transportation could occur without destroying the original. In such a case you could stand there staring eye to eye with your transported copy. If someone asked you if you would be okay if they killed you right then and there simply because your copy would live on, would you be okay with that? If so, you have some explaining to do. If not, how is this any different than a brain back up to remote system?

It's destroying a person and then reassembling an exact duplicate. It even messes up sometimes and we get an extra Riker running around. Doesn't seem to bother people though, I guess they just get used to it. That might be why religion seems to have died out on Earth in Star Trek.

I am not sure it's even possible that religion dies out. I think it's like radioactivity. It appears spontaneously in atoms without any external influence, but it can also be stimulated by the proximity of other atoms and sometimes you get critical mass and everything explodes. The point being that you can't eliminate religion because it's a natural phenomenon. Otherwise it wouldn't be present in absolutely every culture in the world, including atheistic cultures.

I always found that odd on Trek, by the 24th Century religion seems to have died out completely. Even if the majority of the Earth population is non-religious, you'd expect a few holdouts. There are people who still worship Thor. It might have shown more diversity among the humans on the various shows. But what are you going to do. Probably not upload your brain anytime soon.


I'll never get to ride a lightcycle through the internet and actually Google something myself.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

It's destroying a person and then reassembling an exact duplicate. It even messes up sometimes and we get an extra Riker running around. Doesn't seem to bother people though, I guess they just get used to it. That might be why religion seems to have died out on Earth in Star Trek.

I am not sure it's even possible that religion dies out. I think it's like radioactivity. It appears spontaneously in atoms without any external influence, but it can also be stimulated by the proximity of other atoms and sometimes you get critical mass and everything explodes. The point being that you can't eliminate religion because it's a natural phenomenon. Otherwise it wouldn't be present in absolutely every culture in the world, including atheistic cultures.

I always found that odd on Trek, by the 24th Century religion seems to have died out completely. Even if the majority of the Earth population is non-religious, you'd expect a few holdouts. There are people who still worship Thor. It might have shown more diversity among the humans on the various shows. But what are you going to do. Probably not upload your brain anytime soon.


I'll never get to ride a lightcycle through the internet and actually Google something myself.

Well, maybe it will be so subdued that at some point it will seem like there's no religion at all.

 

[Metryq]

I'll never get to ride a lightcycle through the internet and actually Google something myself.

You might. The brilliance of the original TRON is that it can be interpreted both literally and figuratively. Was Flynn really digitized and drawn into the computer, or did he merely "go in" and battle the computer from the keyboard the way any hacker might?

There are first generation VR systems that might give you an exciting ride on a lightcycle. Or a direct brain interface, like those mentioned above, may provide a more realistic experience—as well as allow you to Google something, like the "cyberbrains" in GHOST IN THE SHELL and other sci-fi stories. (Scalzi's OLD MAN'S WAR called it a Brain Pal.)

Isn't that a twist? Instead of a person uploading their "brain" into a computer, a computer gets loaded into a person's brain!

 

[Awesome Possum]

I'll never get to ride a lightcycle through the internet and actually Google something myself.

You might. The brilliance of the original TRON is that it can be interpreted both literally and figuratively. Was Flynn really digitized and drawn into the computer, or did he merely "go in" and battle the computer from the keyboard the way any hacker might?

There are first generation VR systems that might give you an exciting ride on a lightcycle. Or a direct brain interface, like those mentioned above, may provide a more realistic experience—as well as allow you to Google something, like the "cyberbrains" in GHOST IN THE SHELL and other sci-fi stories. (Scalzi's OLD MAN'S WAR called it a Brain Pal.)

Isn't that a twist? Instead of a person uploading their "brain" into a computer, a computer gets loaded into a person's brain!

They can already stick this device on your head that allows you to send thoughts to another person's brain over the Internet. We're probably going to have a smart hat that connects our brains to the Internet, you'll need the impacts to keep your thoughts private. That's how they'll get everyone to sign up.

 

[RAMA]

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.

Some examples of neuroscientists working on brain emulation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Markram

http://www.brainpreservation.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project

The established neuroscientific consensus is that the human mind is largely an emergent property of the information processing of this neural network.

Importantly, neuroscientists have stated that important functions performed by the mind, such as learning, memory, and consciousness, are due to purely physical and electrochemical processes in the brain and are governed by applicable laws. For example, Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi wrote in IEEE Spectrum:

"Consciousness is part of the natural world. It depends, we believe, only on mathematics and logic and on the imperfectly known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology; it does not arise from some magical or otherworldly quality."[7]
​

The concept of mind uploading is based on this mechanistic view of the mind, and denies the vitalist view of human life and consciousness.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

So, in other words... At best, a brain can be copied by imitating the electrical impulses in the brain, which can be done easily by sticking a needle into each and every brain cell and measuring their interactions, creating a digital model that the RAM of no computer in the world can hold. At worst, you also need to emulate an unknown number of chemical, biological and physical interactions that nobody is sure about.

Sounds like something that is right around the corner.

 

[RAMA]

Possibly not, but it takes researchers like this to do it, rather than people who say it can't be done.

Alchemists researched the transmutation of metals for six centuries and still couldn't figure out how to make it work. That's not because there were naysayers (which there were) it's because Alchemy, like transhumanism, is one part science and three parts fantasy.

Simply put: Brain uploading is NOT going to happen. Neither is kidney uploading or intestine uploading. Brains simply do not work that way.

What MAY happen is science develops an understanding of the function of the human brain well enough to connect certain neural-electrical patterns to specific thoughts and memories, e.g. an fMRI lie detector or computerized telepathy (requiring, of course, a certain amount of calibration on the subject being used on). Direct-brain interfaces are also a possibility, as unlike brain-uploading there is real science being done in this field that has actually achieved real results. Brain-direct interfaces may allow humans to control prosthetics, vehicles or remote devices mentally. AIs will get better at mimicking humans in the mean time, robotics will reach a point where humanoid androids become passable (without also being creepy) and machine speech will become fluid and fluent.

But "Brain uploading" is not a thing that can happen, because "brain" is not a thing that can be uploaded and personality doesn't work that way.

This. It would be the equivalent of uploading a 3D object into a 2D environment.

Also known as a "photograph." We've been doing that for centuries.

That's what I mean in the above post. We will DEFINITELY gain the ability to scan a human mind and figure out what's going on inside it, and AIs will be smart enough to link specific neural patterns with specific moods and mental states (e.g. the "Crime Coefficient" in Psycho Pass: a cop points a gun at you and the gun immediately scans you and calculates your propensity to break the law).

But the idea that the brain scan would yield an actual working copy OF that brain is a lot like saying you can duplicate a person by videotaping him.

I'm willing to believe you just don't accept the premises involved, which lead to your trite responses. You seem to mainly have a problem with the concept of accelerated/exponential change.

You've been claiming that for years, always with the canard that people who disagree with you simply don't understand the concepts involved.

And yet it's been pointed out to you multiple times that the exponential growth curve is identical to a logistics curve until it reaches a saturation point and then plateaus, after which little or no growth is possible. It's also been pointed out that the growth curve in computer power far outpaces the growth of computer software, to the point that we now have computers that are 10 or 20 times more powerful than they need to be for the software they're running, and the limiting factor in computers is no longer processing power, but the amount of memory available.

I've actually countered both those arguments multiple times. Instead of just posting supporting information as I have before, I'll post another video.

Point by point counter to crticisms by Kurzweil:

When one "S" curve finishes, it continues to the next paradigm. Particular attention to "Criticism from Malthus":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPHlPzBK_78

Previous threads where I already discussed this:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=238882

One of the best threads on this BBS ever in my opinion. Looking at it now with updated info I probably could add 1000 footnotes!!

I'm not sure I even mentioned declining crime rates on the violence issue!!

Soujourner was wrong about cloud computing..amongst other things.

I should have mentioned more about the economics..the eventual disappearance of capitalism, universal basic income, etc.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=170590

Ending paradigms!!:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=6257605&postcount=67

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7279492&postcount=174

On the paradigm issue, I continually mentioned the upper limits of exponential growth. I said that it is finite, but didn't find or have the time to post data, so I made a special effort to find it:

Firstly, Intel has changed the years which Moore's law would end, now in the 2020-2030 range..pushing it back several times. Another prediction is 2040. Lawrence Krauss pushed that possible date to 600 years from now based on "rigorous estimation of total information processing capacity of any system in the universe." So as Kurzweil states: "There are limits to the power of information technology, but these limits are vast." He estimates the capacity of matter and energy in the solar system to support computation up to 10^70 cps in one kg of matter. The universe 10^90 cps, which matches independent analysis. He predicts we will reach those limits in the 22nd century. Even if we use a smaller percentage of the total available matter in the solar system, at 1 20th of 1% we still get values that easily allow for the power needed for a Singularity. In other words, we don't need to come close to maxing it out!

A post with the following link relevant to software issues:

A govt report from advisors on the rate of software growth, disproving the software misconception:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/...paign=d926cde8e7-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

An actual study below which states:

We find that both the growth rate as well as the absolute amount of source code is best explained using an exponential model. Given that previous research showed that most open source projects grow at a polynomial rate, we suggest and then verify that the number of open source projects is growing at an exponential rate.

http://dirkriehle.com/publications/2008-2/the-total-growth-of-open-source/

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=9295201&postcount=9

Uploading FAQ how's and why's of uploading. Brain emulation:

http://www.minduploading.org/Home/faq

We've already proved consciousness is derived from the brain, so your statement that personality can't be uploaded is supposition..

 

[Kemaiku]

So, in other words... At best, a brain can be copied by imitating the electrical impulses in the brain, which can be done easily by sticking a needle into each and every brain cell and measuring their interactions, creating a digital model that the RAM of no computer in the world can hold. At worst, you also need to emulate an unknown number of chemical, biological and physical interactions that nobody is sure about.

Exactly, there is a huge 'if' as to whether this is remotely possible, and if so, it will be the undertaking of several generations to achieve something.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

It's true that if people's intellects survive, even if they don't, it could have interesting repercussions. Imagine if Mozart's intellect had continued to exist, the music he could have composed or if Einstein was able to adapt his theories to the new data we've collected... ect. The possibilities are endless.

 

[Metryq]

So, in other words... At best, a brain can be copied by imitating the electrical impulses in the brain, which can be done easily by sticking a needle into each and every brain cell and measuring their interactions, creating a digital model that the RAM of no computer in the world can hold. At worst, you also need to emulate an unknown number of chemical, biological and physical interactions that nobody is sure about.

That last line is the important bit—again assuming the herculean effort described would actually pan out. It was once blithely thought that DNA was a "blueprint" for an organism... then cloned animals, like CC the cat, started turning up radically different in appearance and character to their progenitor. All that other code once dismissed as "junk DNA" turned out to be latent instructions triggered by environmental factors—"epigenetic code." Odds are there's still a long way to go, more to learn.

We've at least dabbled with genetic engineering and medical treatments, while we know nothing about how mind ties in to matter. And yet certain futurists assure us that personalities can be "uploaded" into a computer memory.

Right.

Never say never, but until the science reaches the level of engineering, it's a little hard to promise a return on the investment. (Like commercial fusion power, which was only "10 years away" 50 years ago.)