Download Your Brain 1147
Nicholas Roussos writes "Futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson predicts that death will be avoidable in the year 2050 by downloading your brain to a computer. Unfortunately, he is also predicting that the process will be only available to the wealthy for years after its release. I guess we should all start saving our pennies now."
It's a copy (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
BS (Score:5, Insightful)
He picked those numbers for his theory because he'll be dead by then.
The end.
But that's him, not me... (Score:2, Insightful)
It might do so to the COPY of you (assuming they also solve the problem of bit-rot...)
Not for me (Score:5, Insightful)
self centered (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:download? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Insightful)
He had no evidence that this was possible, no supporting facts. There were lots of people just like you saying it coulnd't be done.
It's a good thing there are dreamers and visionaries. If everyone was like you, we would still be living in caves, running animials off clifs for food.
Yeah, whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
And once you have the chemical composition and the electrical composition, you ALSO need to know the wiring - the wiring between the neurons is unique to an individual, and isn't going to be easy to determine.
Ok, so now you have all of the core information. Is it still useful? Well, no. You now need to know the physical layout of the brain - all the folds, the exact proximity of A to B, that sort of thing.
Ok, is THIS enough? Still no. You still lack information on sensory input. You need to know what the range is on different nerves, because the brain is going to adjust to what the nerves deliver. If you don't know what the nerves deliver, then you don't know what sort of data the brain is expecting.
NOW, is that enough? No. You need to know what the data is that is being fed into the brain. For example, those with tetrochromatic vision will be getting data in a whlly different format from those with trichromatic vision, and both will be different from those with bichromatic vision.
Once you have all of this information, you MAY be able to reconstruct a person's brain well enough to be able to function identically. The keyword is MAY. As technology improves, our knowledge of the brain is improving. It is still seriously incomplete, but it is improving. There is so far no proof that we will ever know enough to actually duplicate the brain, although there is also no proof that we won't. All we have proof of, right now, is that we can't, right now.
It's interesting when someone makes a statement... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Soulless (Score:1, Insightful)
But that's just my own version of faith. Others doubtless have their own beliefs.
Re:It's a copy (Score:5, Insightful)
Xerox it ain't (Score:2, Insightful)
If a perfect copy of yourself was made and placed in a chair across the desk from you it would be as real and soulful and deserving of human rights as you. I'd love to someday be able to have a conversation with myself, narcissistic as it sounds. What we experience, if you want to call it that, is user illusion. It's kind of ironic that science is proving something as mythological as fate to be true.
Of course you can't go on believing the truth on a day to day basis and try to remain free of mental institutions so we (including myself) go on believing in free will and heaven and hell, a soul, god, etc. I think as a species we became smart enough that self delusion evolved as a survial technique because truth is subject to the law of diminishing returns when applied to philosophy.
"The wealthy... (Score:5, Insightful)
The second thing that comes to Senor Programmer, futureologistismo extroadinaires mind is...
Once again those who wait will benefit from the excursions and expense of early adopters. The first thing was tooo involved to type fast and follows with SP's predictions as coda.
Thing the first. Why is it that these arts and letters types, and Ian surely is one, Otherwise he'd be out working on brain loading rather than trying t get his arse in the history books as the prognisticating dude who ripped off my AC comments to
That why the heck is is always "the rich" or "the wealthy" with these A&L futurologists? I'll tell you why. Because it fits their hidden agenda of control through class warfare, that's why. Keep those brain loading researchers in their place by pointing out that they are working for THE MAN and not for the community good. But what does he care? He's a wealthy futurologist. Oh yeh, his position of wealth is both secure and non-suspect if he maintains his position as 'one who knows best' between the evil technocrats, scientists, engineers, and the 'po folk'.
Coda follows as it by definition must.
BZZZZTTTTTTT Ian's full of shit.
First. It's not a matter of 'loading' ones brain into some bit of hardware. It's integration of that hardware into the brain function to the degree that, as has been observed for decades with other prosthetics, the brain ceases to recognize the machine as distinct from itself. As brain function is slowly replaced and integrated there will come a point at which the brain is totally aware of it's self yet that self is totally contained within the hardware which replaced it. WIth the rapidly declining cost of hardware and synthetic diamond for physical interfacing, it's more likely that somone will discover that he has been a machine for many years rather than consciously set out to 'load' his self into that machine. See the machine. Become one with the machine. Be the machine. But in this case, machine becomes you instead.
PS
If anyone is interested in a FOSS hardware-software project that will show up THE MAN and put the first consciousness, I propose a dog because you never know with cats and monkeys tend to toss unpleasant stuff about, in hardware, please let me know. Seriously. Well maybe not the dog part but the ever growing in functionality brain prosthetic would be FUN.
PSS volunteers will be considered in order of descending donor ranking
Re:He's wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not really living. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they will restrict the operation to those who do things to their brain other than try to deaden it and give way to instinct.
As Aldous Huxley said, "An intellectual is someone who has found one thing that's more interesting than sex."
And EMP wipes electronics, but doesn't destroy the contents of hard drives. You would be safe as long as you weren't stupid enough to download your brain to flash memory.
Re:Bunk (Score:3, Insightful)
Forty years ago, there was no plausible way for a machine sitting on a desktop to contain billions of bits of memory and hundreds of millions of logic gates, yet today such machines are commonplace, and even routinely get thrown away.
Naysaying bunk does not debunk bunk (Score:3, Insightful)
(ca. 1880) FUTURIST CLAIMS MANNED FLIGHT WILL BE POSSIBLE BY 1930, though initially cost will limit it to the wealthy.
"There is no plausible way for replicating the structure and billions of individual, minute biological connections present in the wings of a bird. Making such a promise is a good way to garner interest and sell your books and speeches to a gullible public. Particularly, a rich gullible public."
Unlike ones and zeros represented on a medium for a computer's use, there is no steady-state representation for the human mind.
Three points.
1) Quantum computers (and their analogous storage media, if any ever exists) may not require a steady-state representation of the human mind. Certainly the biological computers we call our brains don't require such, yet they manage to store and compute our consciousness in realtime, and reboot our minds at least once a day (we typically call that "waking up").
2) You assume there is no steady state (binary) representation of the human mind. You do not know this for a fact (otherwise, please cite references and evidence). The fact that we may lack the knowledge and technology for captureing such a state today does not mean it is impossible, either theoritecially, or practically given a few decades development.
3) You assume the representation must be binary. That is not necessarilly true. Said computers could be nondigital (either analog hardware in the old sense of the word, or quantum systems manipulating complex waveforms and superpositions), or could represent their data in a non-binary digital format (though the latter would almost certainly decompose into a binary solution).
It may not happen, or it may, but for you to try and "authoritatively" nay-say its possibility demonstrates your own arrogance far more than it does the implausibility of the conjecture. Furthermore, history is littered with literally thousands of naysayers like yourself claiming X is impossible, only to be proven an idiot within a couple of generations.
Re:The obvious question... (Score:2, Insightful)
The technology has existed for millennia. (Score:1, Insightful)
Where am I? (Score:3, Insightful)
And you thought philosophy was no fun. ;-)
Re:It's a copy (Score:3, Insightful)
For reasons that continue to trouble me, the brain seems to be worse at this than Google.
Re:The obvious question... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't know because I'd be a copy. That does not negate the fact that a consciousness was destroyed even though a new one (me) exists. Destroyed meaning that subjective experience would cease, as in death.
When a person his or her subjective viewpoint ceases irrespective if one or more copies exist to take its place. Having copies, each with their own conscious view point, does not negate the death of the original.
Re:He's wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
What I am is what I experience. When I no longer am able to maintain my subjective experience due to death then I no longer exist irrespective of how many copies may exist of me.
"If a copy of me was made, I would still consider that to be "me,""
Yes, it objectively be 'you' and have as much right to call itself WhiplashII as you do. However it has a experience viewpoint that is different than yours and the existance of its viewpoint does not stop the fact that yours would have ended.
Re:It's a copy (Score:5, Insightful)
A sad scientist was once heard to say,
To upload my brain, I have found a way,
But my memory contains
Things not public domain
And I'd violate DMCA.
Hello alcohol, goodbye Karma. 8) Seriously, I just got this image of the RIAA breaking into the lab 'cause the cloned brain remembered the Happy Birthday lyrics.
Re:Not really living. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they will restrict the operation to those who do things to their brain other than try to deaden it and give way to instinct.
As Aldous Huxley said, "An intellectual is someone who has found one thing that's more interesting than sex."
Huxley also thought mescaline was one of those interesting things. Quit being such a knee-jerk prude.
I do not think your parent poster's point requires a belief that drugs and sex are the only pleasures or interesting things in life for it to be valid. It merely requires a belief that both of those things are an integral part of living. Perhaps more broadly taken, the question is whether the computer that stores your brain will be able to engage in the multitude of physical pleasures and interactions we do every day. Would the computer housing your brain be able to go backpacking? Or skydiving, surfing, or driving really fast on a twisty road? The point is, living is more than thinking...it's also doing. Allowing your brain to keep functioning is one thing; to have a life worth living you must also be able to have a beer.
Re:The Outer Limits, cryonics, Alcor, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, so you missed the whole point. The story deals with the person whose job it is to kill the original, not with the copying technology. I, for one, hadn't considered it before. It's worth thinking about.
You see, I have a contract with Alcor to have my brain vitrified in liquid nitrogen until I am able to be revived. I hope to awaken in a future where uploading is available as an option for superlong life and space travel....
How are they going to prevent ice crystal formation in your brain tissue? The ice crystals will break the dendrite connections - it's only those connections that define who you are as opposed to who I am.
And why are you so afraid of death?
Re:It's a copy (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, to really look at the problem you have to leave the supernatural at the door - I don't know what a "soul" is, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the physical universe and everything to do with the wishful thinking of humans. Your body is you. Nothing in the entire universe that I've ever heard of points to any part of "you" being anything other than a part of your physical body. When your body is destroyed, your "consciousness", memories, etc are also destroyed.
As far as I can tell, the basic idea of copying an individual's brain is theoretically sound - if you had the technology to make an atom per atom perfect copy of a human, I see no reason why that human would fail to function. According to physical theory, atoms are interchangable.
To take it further, I doubt that the copy would even have to be perfect at an atomic level. From what we know so far, human memories are stored as connections in a network of neurons. This includes "how to use a fork", "how to speak" and reminiscences about childhood. Where did you think the knowledge about how to control your body in order to get food into your mouth is stored? Babies can't do that - they have to reconnect neurons in order to both understand and respond to the rest of the world. All of that information is in your nervous system.
So, assuming that you can read the important features of the brain's neural network, and assuming that you can reconstruct it (most likely as a simulation) it's probably going to work. The first thing it will probably say is, "What the... Oh shit, I'm the copy!"
As for de-valuing humanity, that's just something we're going to deal with. It shook things up a bit when we realized that we were animals (I don't even think that it has had time to really sink in yet) and now we realize that we and all other animals are just machines. Does that change the value of human life? That is up to us to determine.
Re:You Can't Copy Consciousness (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need to know exactly how something works in order to duplicate it. Example: "cp
And when you find out what it is, you'll realize that it can be neither copied, nor created, nor destroyed.
And your scientific basis for this is?
Ok, I'll take this one... (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is not possible to understand why a rose is beautiful through any materialistic philosophy."
There are a few things wrong with this line of reasoning. First, the thinking is absolute. As if one way of knowing is any more important than another. Second, a rose only exists for you to ponder its beauty because of material processes. Its DNA design has no inherent beauty code. Beauty is a judgement made by the viewer. Third, is the assumption that the experience of feeling beauty isn't something that could be given to a machine. The experience of beauty is very likely to be simple reaction. The "qualia" of an observed thing definitely depends on many factors inherent in the design of the brain. And the design of the brain has been evolved through millions of years of evolution. A fly probably doesn't have the same qualia from a flower as it does road kill.
Now, I have a real problem with anyone who tries to discount "materialism" as being outright wrong. Most of the people who do have a very hard time understanding the interconnectedness of physical and electrical systems. Many people who talk about the mind being some kind of spiritual energy have no idea of what they are talking about. Spiritual energy of what? What is that energy measured in, and what are the opposites which bring about this manifested energy? And how does this energy interact with physical systems? I say BS. Most of the people you've mentioned and the books you've stated are all from armchair philosophers who have very little knowledge of the world. Their understanding of the world is from a fairytale perspective that predicts nothing, and doesn't change our state of existance one iota.
We humans are animals. We have arms, legs, hair, ears, eyes, a nose, and a mouth. We belch, have sex, and eat. There is nothing that makes us any more special than a baboon except some skills with our vocal cords and hands. It is completely disingenuous to create some kind of fluffy comfy chair world where we can fly around in our heads and withdraw into a state of self denial.
Get real. Wake up and smell the coffee. Learn how to perform some integral calculus or Laplace transforms. Definitely learn some engineering and computer programming. Then and only then will I give my time for debate with overzealous flunkies like Casey and Silva.
Re:It's a copy (Score:4, Insightful)
How would he/I know which was the copy?
If you're going to investigate personal identity via gedankenexperiments involving copying "minds", you have to consider cases where someone might be unknowingly copied.
Consider: some dark stormy night, a stranger who looks a lot like you shows up at your front door, explaining how while you were under general anaesthesia getting your wisdom teeth out a few years ago, they made a copy - you - and sent the original off on a top-secret mission...
(This would be especially interesting if you were someone who held the belief that a "copy" isn't really a person, or is not personally-identical to the person before the copy.)
Your use of the word "just" reflects an unwarranted value judgement. If I am a machine, it follows that machines can be pretty damn wonderful. (I'm sure that using the word "machine" in that sense of "something that follows the `laws' of physics" is useful or informative - there would be nothing material that wasn't a machine.)
Re:It's a copy (Score:5, Insightful)
While I don't consider myself religious by any means, I don't see any reason to disbelieve that Jesus, Achilles, or Buddha were real people. While there's not enough evidence to give me overwhelming reason to believe in their existence, as there is with, for example, Napoleon, there's not enough evidence to disbelieve them either.
This is history we're dealing with here, not science. Things in history, especially ancient history, don't need to be proven with overwhelming evidence, simply because such evidence just isn't available. What's important is to be aware of the facts surrounding any historical evidence, and keep in mind that it may not be completely accurate.
I believe that a lot of mythological things came from true happenings. Things happen, and people talk about them. Since we're dealing with ancient times, and primitive, uneducated people, they don't retell the stories very accurately, and the stories aren't written down immediately. Over time, reality turns into myth. For instance, Achilles may well have been a real Greek warrior, but certainly not with any supernatural powers. But he was so proficient that common people thought he had them. Over time, various stories are written down, and a guy who was just a great warrior turns into a demigod. Perhaps the reality of Jesus is similar.
We won't know the real truth about these people until someone invents a device which allows us to watch the past on a TV screen (check out Arthur C. Clarke's "Light of Other Days"). But this doesn't mean we should just discount that they ever existed in any form just because we don't have Achilles' diary in a museum.
Re:It's a copy (Score:3, Insightful)
You are taking this way too personally. Are you sure you aren't a copy? We tend to value originals more than a copy...this is the nature of things. You take better care of your brand new cd more than a copy a friend gave you...cause hey, you can just make more right? So it is not surprising to have the word "just" associated with a copy. While I agree that these new copies should be treated as humans, you know they will be segregated...particularly by religious people because that really messed up their whole belief structure.
Yeah, machines can be pretty darn wonderful...particularly my gaming systems. Oh wait, you are talking about humans...I sometimes question how wonderful we really are. We are fairly destructive...so machines can be horrible as well. Now we have a bunch of machines capable of thinking at high levels but not afraid of death. Now that is really scary. Think Grand Theft Auto scary. I don't care if I get killed anymore in a shootout because my copy will just activate somewhere else.
The problem with copying a brain also is that our mood is effected by the chemicals in our body. Yeah, our brain helps kick off a lot of those reactions but if the body is not a perfect copy, then it seems fairly certain that the body would react differently...like more testosterone would be produced with the new body than the old one. This will cause people to be sort of the same, but have subtle personailty differences. Think if we removed those all together. They probably would lack a lot of the emotions...this could make them excellent people since they will always be even tempered...of they could become cold, careless killers. So much we don't know...but I hope I live long enough to see it happen...army of killer androids or no.
Bravo. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for posting that comment. Now, if we could just get more people to realize the simple truth of your statement.
Re:It's a copy (Score:3, Insightful)
"Nothing in the entire universe that I've ever heard of points to any part of 'you' being anything other than a part of your physical body."
How about what it's like to see the color blue?
I'm not being facetious. This -- the mind-body problem -- is actually a hot-button philosophical and scientific issue nowadays, and there is no easy answer to it. The physicalist explanation of consciousness is still full of holes. See:
http://consc.net/online.html [consc.net]Re:It's a copy (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you be worried if someone made a copy of you, and then killed the copy, leaving you alive? I think if that bothers you, then you simply have an ethical concern about conciousnesses equal to yours being ended. But if that wouldn't bother you, then you are disagreeing with the premise that the perfect physical copy is indeed a perfect copy, the same in every way, and in doing so positing that there's something more to conciousness than physical processes, which I disagree with.
I think it's fun to imagine a bunch of SNES ROMs having this discussion, while being halted, saved, restored, copied, and destroyed throughout by nerds like us.
Re:The Outer Limits, cryonics, Alcor, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most living things are afraid of death. Even an ant will quickly try to scurry away if your thumb misses it the first time. That's what keeps us alive. Sure, we can be trained not to fear death.. we have religion to give us a nice warm fuzzy about it, as one of the other posters noted indirectly by insinuating that the grandparent was afraid of hell rather than death. But it's a biological imperative that we fear death. We don't reproduce quite as fast as lemmings, so there's not much else keeping us alive as a species.
Some people accept old age and death gracefully. I have no problem with that; that's fine for them. Some of us enjoy the experience of life, and can think of things we'd like do with more time.