Downloading The Mind

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by Hemos on Sunday October 20, 2002 @11:19PM from the place-it-in-your-databank dept.

bluemug writes "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's popular science radio show Quirks and Quarks aired a piece this weekend about Ray Kurzweil's ideas on downloading human minds to silicon. (The interview is available in MP3 or OGG.) Kurzweil figures we'll have strong AI by 2029 and be able to copy a human mind about a decade after that. Book your appointment now!"

30 of 392 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

I've got a terrible cold.... by irn_bru · 2002-10-20 23:23 · Score: 3, Funny

Download my brain and it'll be the buggiest chip since then pentium
Sure! by Koyaanisqatsi · 2002-10-20 23:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Book your appointment now

Yeah, I'll go check it out on my flying car, while the robot takes care of things at home.
1. Re:Sure! by troc · 2002-10-20 23:30 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Flying car?
  
  That's soooo last decade. Surely you will be using your household teleportation booth?
  
  You could combine it with a trip to the tactile 3D hologram suite.
  
  At least tell me you have a subspace communications port or how else will you download the 1Tb bug updates to Microsoft Windows XXXP with "use this browser or else" Interuniversenet Explorationer?
  
  Not that I am doubting there's enough silicon out there for a few brain dumps, no, of course not. And anyway Skynet will protect us from the Matrix.
  
  Troc
  
  --
  Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
2. Re:Sure! by FridayBob · 2002-10-21 02:30 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Excellent point. However, I thought only Microsoft were in the business of producing billions of lines of code. :-) Anyway, this whole story reminds me of an Omni article that I read almost 20 years ago. In it, someone speculated that "in the future" you'd be able to plant a computer chip onto your cerebral cortex. This chip would be so much faster and more efficient than all those messy neurons that we're always stumbling over, that it would be only natural for your mind to want to migrate to it. Eventually, the chip would be removed after your body started to fail and you could live out the rest of eternity inside a computer. I can only imagine that someone out there has been working hard on this idea for the past 20 years. Normally, I'd be the first in line for one of these, since I've always felt that my brain was in dire need of an upgrade, but this time I feel I should pass the honor onto a certain world leader who seems to have no brain at all.
did I read this right? by chuckychesthair · 2002-10-20 23:25 · Score: 2, Funny

Does this mean that in a few years I can copy my thinking, work from home and have the computer do my work?

Time to invest in a better couch!

CC
After being copied by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-20 23:26 · Score: 4, Funny

All subjects will be forced to spend a day with themselves before they are allowed back in the general population.
Wow! what a new idea! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-20 23:27 · Score: 2, Funny

I wish I had thought of copying an idea out of Neuromancer!
1. Re:Wow! what a new idea! by agentZ · 2002-10-21 00:03 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Eh... you can have the ROM personality construct. I'm still waiting for the chick with the razor blades in her fingertips.
2. Re:Wow! what a new idea! by Psmylie · 2002-10-21 00:29 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I'm still waiting for the chick with the razor blades in her fingertips
  I know a girl like that. The problem is, we were being intimate once, and now they call me "Stumpy"
  
  --
  
  psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
So the idea can be summed up as by Hittite+Creosote · 2002-10-20 23:43 · Score: 1, Funny

Step 1: ?
Step 2: Download mind onto computer
Step 3: Profit.
Well, it makes a change I suppose. But seriously, sentience on a computer is one of those ideas that always seems to be 30 years away.
Floppy minds by Glanz · 2002-10-20 23:44 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, most people I know could put their minds on floppies, and it would still leave enough space for a nice copy of FDISK........... [fmind?]

--
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Brain Dump! by irn_bru · 2002-10-20 23:45 · Score: 5, Funny

Wow. A literal brain dump. Just don't use Eproms or you might loose your mind...
Just my luck by jjohn · 2002-10-20 23:56 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm sure that when I'm copying my mortal soul to the hard drive, that's exactly when the Windows box will blue screen. :-/
I wonder how tech support is going to field that problem?
Re:Eternal life? by FTL · 2002-10-21 00:03 · Score: 4, Funny

> It wouldn't work like that. Imagine that the copy of your mind is uploaded into a new body before you die. Do you think your consciousness would suddenly transfer to the new body? All the copying could do is create a new consciousness in the new body, your old one (ie, you) would still grow old and die in the old body, never to return.
> This is also the argument against Star Trek transporters. You die each time you use one but a new person is created at the other end that thinks it's you. You don't know anything about this, of course, you've just been disintegrated!
I don't have a problem with this. When I go to sleep, my current consciousness is discarded, and when I wake up a new consciousness (with all my memories) is created. This fact doesn't keep me awake at night.
Good night. Sleep well...

--
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
A decade after 2029? by BluBrick · 2002-10-21 00:08 · Score: 5, Funny

But the world ends at GMT 03:14:07, Tuesday, January 19, 2038!

Uhh, pencil me in for the 18th... just in case.

--
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Re:Eternal life? by Washizu · 2002-10-21 00:12 · Score: 5, Funny

None of the atoms present in our bodies right now, were there 10 years ago.

Please explain how tattoos last longer than 10 years.

--
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Old News by BoBaBrain · 2002-10-21 00:18 · Score: 5, Funny

We've been making partial brain dumps for years. They're called "Books".

--
I am a Karma Library.
Science Quack! by MrJerryNormandinSir · 2002-10-21 00:36 · Score: 1, Funny

First of all this guy has no clue to how much information our brains hold!

And when I'm gone.. I want to be gone! I don't want to live on earth forever! No Way! When my years are up here, it will be time to move up to bigger and better things.
Re:Thought experiment by Zathruss · 2002-10-21 00:51 · Score: 2, Funny

..." Continuity was never lost, and all that was destroyed was a few neurons at a time"...

I lose neurons every weekend. But that those nano-bots sound like a much better substitute than those beer particles I have been using. Where can I get some? ;)
Re:Kurzweil's Book by MikeFM · 2002-10-21 01:09 · Score: 3, Funny

Myself I plan to have a specialized utility cloud of nano gizmos that I can remotely control as pleases me and take on any shape I please while sitting in a nice secure location mentally being in cyberspace at the same time. If you're going to be immortal you may as well be god too. :)

--
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Anyone got a potato? by The+Famous+Druid · 2002-10-21 01:23 · Score: 4, Funny

By 2039, you'll be able to download what's left of my mind into a potato.

--
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Re:Eternal life? by tuxedo-steve · 2002-10-21 01:52 · Score: 3, Funny

If you can download the mind - will we be able to upload it as well at some point in the future?
Probably the best way to look at it is like a fork statement in a Unix program.

Only on Slashdot... :)

--
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
Theres Just One Problem.... by Bowie+J.+Poag · 2002-10-21 01:53 · Score: 2, Funny

There are only 3 types of people who will have this procedure; People willing to jeopardize their health, people with alot of money, and people with no brains to start with. In other words, people from California... And as everyone knows, people in California are 50% silicon already. Besides, what use is it going to be to have Anna Nicole Smith on a chip? We already have that. Its called the Intel 4004---Slow, dumb, bloated, and easy to use.

I'm either smart, or bitter. Its hard to be one without the other.

--
Bowie J. Poag
ROM Constructs?! by bobaferret · 2002-10-21 02:16 · Score: 2, Funny

Finally I'll be able to get my own dixie flatline equivilent for hacking into the kremlin, or better yet, my own Linus contstruct, for hacking kernel code. Possibly even my own Lessig construct for defending myself fom the MPAA. Cowboy Neal contruct anyone...? The possibilites are just endless.
And just like that by Rumagent · 2002-10-21 02:27 · Score: 4, Funny

Blue screen of Death took on a whole new meaning.
WetCrash? by patrick0brien · 2002-10-21 02:59 · Score: 2, Funny

Dear God.

Please tell me Microsoft will have NOTHING to do with this.
Think of the security issues! The hacking! The crashing!

Ooo. Gives new meaning to the term 'Psychocrash.'

--
-"I ate what?"
The possibilities... by sn0wman3030 · 2002-10-21 03:29 · Score: 1, Funny

This is absolutely incredible! If you could make an image of your brain, there would eventually be peer-to-peer swapping of brain images (mybrain.iso). Plus you could enviably mount your brain's image and add stuff, so you wouldn't have to go to school or go to seminars or workshops; you could just download them and sync the image with your brain. Also, we could create a super-brain, combining all the best elements of the brain, and transfer them to robots to do our bidding, or use them as our processors (imagine Pentium 99999999999999), we would never have to work or do anything, we could create a whole society of super-intelligent beings that far surpass our own abilities in every way. The only draw back is when they create a world to imprison us in to use our bodies for electric energy and call it the matrix :) . We would need regulations and rules to obide by in creating these super beings. So, anyway, yeah, it would be pretty cool to be able to image your brain, back it up (for when you get Alzheimer's Disease), add to it effortlessly, swap your brain for Albert Einstien's brain, and an infinite number of other possibilities, but no matter what, we're going to need to have some regulations on what you can and can't do because otherwise, it'll end up just like the whole cloning situation. Oh, and kudos to CBC for supporting OGG :) .

--
Life is offtopic.
Re:Why not? by Tablizer · 2002-10-21 06:26 · Score: 3, Funny

What makes this particular lump of protein [brain] any different?

According to some researchers, it is the ONLY lump of protein found so far that does not taste like chicken.

There must be something significant to that observation.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:Eternal life? by Daetrin · 2002-10-21 06:47 · Score: 3, Funny

Either you kill the old body and have it's fork of your conciousness die, or you have two of yourself. I'm not sure if the human mind could cope with the trauma of first finding itself in a new body, then seeing its old body die. It sounds simple enough, but it would take quite an adjustment!
You think it's tough for the _copy_?? What about the original?
"Okay, the transfer is complete, we're going to have to kill you now."
"Hey! Wait a minute! It didn't work! I'm still here in this body!"
"Well of course you are, but the copy of you is doing just fine, so you need to die now in order to maintain the illusion of continuity of consciousness."
"But I don't want to die! That's why I signed up for this!"
"Sorry, you should have read the fine print. Now, we have a number of Suicide Packages available for your convience, or for an added fee you can take advantage of our Euthanasia Program."

--
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Re:ARRRRGHHHH!!! by Ultraken · 2002-10-21 10:35 · Score: 2, Funny

I suppose they'd be like matter and antimatter--they'd mutally annihalate yielding a torrent of high-energy flames. :)