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Download Your Brain
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."
You know, like a photocopy. What's the point, you'd still be dead.
Deleted
...to the blue screen of death.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Futurologist is a cool title. I wish I'd invented it myself. Looking at any prediction anyone makes upon the future that far out is, well, ludicrous. This man is 'looking' 75 years into the future. If you look 75 years back you see: The Great Depression The Rise and Fall of Communism The Rise of the Computer The creation of massive individualized transportation Just to name a few. Great. But projecting things that far out doesn't quite deal with the possibility that this was an anomaly in human history. He's making assumptions based upon a dozen factors that psychics ARE more qualified to look at. Example from TFA: The Playstation 5 will be as powerful as the human brain. How could this not be him talking out of his rear end? 2020? People, as a rule, don't follow lines straight enough that you can figure out what they're going to be doing tomorrow. When someone predicts a phenomenon like BitTorrent 20 years ahead of time, I'll listen to them. Until then, well, you're just blowing steam. As for avoiding death, well, let's just say that IF a supergenius computer driven by 'emotion' suddenly appears, I personally will convince it that immortal humans are the best companions for it from the command line. Then we'll wait a week and suddenly teh supar majikul mind-to-computer link will suddenly put me inside as wil_e_coyote_super_Genius.o I get the cool filename. You heard the dibs here.
My little site.
He picked those numbers for his theory because he'll be dead by then.
The end.
Oh yay, so Bill Gates gets to be immortal as well as evil.
"What are we going to do this millenium, Bill?"
"Same as we do every millenium, Ballmer..."
...they forgot the -p flag when dumping it, and people will be restored with no moral codes.
Its like the Star Trek transporter beam, the copy of you transported to the new location is fine, but what about the original which is obliterated in the process?
This way to the egress...
Making a copy of yourself doesn't avoid death for you, it just means ongoing life for a copy of you.
This is not a subtle point.
Anyone who cannot grasp this either hasn't thought deeply about a subject, or is an idiot. Anyone who uses the title "futurologist" is likely the latter.
NEVER do a backup without a working restore !
I thought this was supposed to be 'News for Nerds', not 'Speculation for Halfwits'...
From TFA:
OK...so where does that put the Xbox?
Seriously, this 'explanation' of his 'logic' leaves much to be desired...but there's more.
Also from TFA:
Hmm...but what if the AI is a thrillseeker? Suicidal? Psychotic? What if it suddenly develops acrophobia? If we're going to have a true AI with emotions, these are issues that need to be addressed, don't you think?
Here's another few nuggets from TFA:
Well, that 'completely global debate' should be ready by the release of PlayStation 5...
'Smart yoghurt'? Sure I guess it's possible to think of that...about as possible as it is to think of magical elves, unicorn-riding gnomes, and smart futurologists.
One thing conspicuously missing from this article is speculation over the possible legal status of either a true AI or a downloaded brain. Apparently, that paragraph got bumped in favor of 'smart yoghurt'.
In short, this is the dumbest thing I've heard all day (and I work in IT support). I'm sure that if Dr. Pearson didn't already have such a sweet position as 'head of the Futurology unit at BT', he could make good money writing speculative fiction...or reading palms.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
What are you talking about? Riker did it on Star Trek the Next Generation with the transporter. What happens is one of the personalities becomes a member of the maqui, and the other becomes a first officer. duh
After I have gone, young people will come with new ideas, new dreams, new problems. They will require the (intellectual) space fat ass rich guys will claim for their eternal life. I do not believe I have achieved enough in this world for my mind to persist past my body. All good things come to an end, and this includes me!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I lost my mom when in my early 20's, and my dad a few years ago.
Every once in a while, I wish I could ask them what to do about this or that, what they did when such and such happened, and so forth.
Sort of a Jor'El/Kal'El thing, though I usually don't need to save planets and such.
And when a spouse of 50 years dies, the other would like to talk to them.
It's no way to cheat death, but it is a way for those around you to avoid dealing with the fact that you're gone.
sigs, as if you care.
Until computers can smoke joints and get a buzz, drink beer and get a buzz, and have orgasms, I won't consider it "living".
In other news, a new "smart bomb" that kills the very rich without harming the poor has been discovered... they call it an EMP.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"I haven't lost my mind; I'm sure it's backed up on tape somewhere."
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
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 a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
since when can one make up a title for themselves in a made up profession and start posting made up studies to a reputable news site?
Exactly which website would that be?
by William Gibson
He turned on the tensor beside the Hosaka. The crisp circle of light fell directly on the Flatline's construct. He slotted some ice, connected the construct, and jacked in. It was exactly the sensation of someone reading over his
shoulder.
He coughed. "Dix? McCoy? That you man?" His throat was tight.
"Hey, bro," said a directionless voice.
"It's Case, man. Remember?"
"Miami, joeboy, quick study."
"What's the last thing you remember before I spoke to you, Dix?"
"Nothin'."
"Hang on." He disconnected the construct. The presence was gone. He reconnected it. "Dix? Who am I?"
"You got me hung, Jack. Who the fuck are you?"
"Ca--your buddy. Partner. What's happening, man?"
"Good question."
"Remember being here, a second ago?"
"No."
"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed" --William S. Bourroughs
Just don't become a Mathologist, because 50 - 5 = 45, not 75.
what sig?
"It would be most interesting to impress your memory engrams on a computer, doctor. The resulting torrential flood of illogic would be most entertaining."
--Spock, to Dr. McCoy, in "The Ultimate Computer"
The extropians have been using the term "upload" for many years, as has science fiction. It's based on standard use of computer industry terminology.
I routinely use my laptop to initiate either uploads to or downloads from a server. And sometime the server initiates uploads from or downloads to my laptop (e.g., Z-modem). The terminology has nothing to do with which side initiates the transfer. It is a convention based on "up" being "to the (conceptually) bigger system". I certainly don't want to transfer my mind into a system that has less capacity than my current brain, so I want to upload it.
And your "facility" claim doesn't even make sense. My brain does have the facility to initiate an upload, just as much as it has the facility to travel to Australia. My brain can choose to have my body buy an airline ticket and drive to the airport, or just as easily, to drive to an upload center, walk in the door, and sign the appropriate paperwork.
The big questions are whether I will live long for the service to be available, and whether I'll be able to afford it. In his book "The Age of Spritual Machines", Ray Kurzweil makes a reasonably convincing argument that I will, thanks to Moore's Law.
Ray points out that even if Moore's Law runs out of steam with regard to MOSFET technology, that there is good reason to believe that it will apply equally well to new technologies, since the known laws of physics still have "lots of room at the bottom" (as observed by Richard Feynman). He shows that Moore's law actually extrapolates fairly accurately all the way back to late 19th century mechanical calculators.
will be able to download their consciousness into computers by 2050 - the not so well off by "2075 or 2080", claims futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, head of the Futurology unit at BT."
/. and got his other A&L buds to print it. Or perhaps it's his barber shop dipl0ma d0ct0rate in the social upheavals resulting from the simple overhand knot as misapplied in early French lamb gut scum bag manufacturing. Which reminds me of that fugs tune, Saran Wrap. But I digress and am not to thing the first yet, it being...
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
Uh, your memory engrams may be downloadable, but your consciousness and soul will die right along with your body.
Doesn't that imply your soul is organic? I thought the point of a soul is a mechanism for an afterlife?
Here's an interesting thought experiment. Say you have very good prosthetic and nanotechnology available. As you age your natural body starts to fail. You have organs, limbs, bones, even blood replaced over time. As your skin fails a nice polymer replaces it (with excellent nerve replacements of course so you don't notice a difference).
Do you still have a soul at that point?
OK, now your body is failing even more. Over another couple decades you've replaced everything in your body except for your brain with mechanical systems.
Do you still have a soul at that point?
Now, your nerves start to degenerate and your brain isn't signaling well. You get some nano-bots in there to replace the dendrites and get the neurons signalling right again.
Do you still have a soul at that point?
Finally the neurons are starting to go and you get some more nanotech in there that can replace failing ones on the fly as they go with more stable structures. Over the next 20 years all of your neurons are slowly replaced by nanotech, but it's very gradual so you don't ever notice it.
Do you still have a soul at that point?
The trick in this experiment is picking the point at which you don't have a soul, if ever, and identifying the change that caused the soul. Of course, if you can identify the change that lost the soul, it follows you've identified the temple of the soul.
Discussion encouraged.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You have no more (or less) facility in your own brain for initiating download than upload.
But you do, by manipulating a remote device to pull the data from your brain. Your brain does not need to push. Upload and download are just fancy terms for the pushing and pulling of data from one system to another.
The extropians have been using the term "upload" for many years, as has science fiction. It's based on standard use of computer industry terminology.
Actually more based on a misunderstanding of computer industry terminology. The lesser/greater system originated from people who didn't understand upload/download and were trying to explain -- poorly -- to laymen. At the time, it looked to be correct as they were the common types of systems which uploading and downloading were performed, but it was never the nature nor capacity of the machines involved that determined the terms.
FTP's GET is always a download and its PUT is always an upload, even if the FTP server was on your laptop and you're directing it from a mainframe, and even if that direction is through a Telnet connection from your laptop.
Thus also saying the RIAA and MPAA are only going after "uploaders" is incorrect. Everyone on P2P is downloading, pulling data towards themselves. They are going after servers just as the ATF would go after someone who puts free alcohol, tobacco, or firearms out for unregulated taking by any member of the public. They aren't pushing those products to people, only making them available to be taken in a manner contrary to law.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Toaster: Would you like some toast?
...
...
Lister: Mm-mm.
Toaster: Some nice hot crisp brown buttered toast?
Lister: Mm-mm.
Toaster: You don't want any toast then?
Lister: No.
Toaster: What about a muffin?
Lister: Nothing.
Toaster: You know the last time you had toast? 18 days ago. 11:36,
Tuesday the 3rd. Two rounds.
Lister: Ssshhh!
Toaster: I mean, what's the point of buying a toaster with artificial intelligence if you don't like toast?
Lister: I do like toast!
Toaster: I mean, this is my job! This is cruel, just cruel.
Lister: Look, I'm busy.
Toaster: Oh, you're not busy eating toast, are you?
Lister: I don't want any!
Toaster: I mean, the whole purpose of my existence is to serve you with hot, buttered, scrummy toast. If you don't want any, then my existence is meaningless.
Lister: Good.
Toaster: I toast, therefore I am.
Lister: Will you shut up?
[He goes back to sniffing his way through the book. Rimmer enters.]
Lister: Rimmer, there's nothing out there, you know. There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say `Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing'. There's just you, me, the cat, and a lot of floating smegging
rocks. That's it. Finito.
Rimmer: Lister, if there's no one out there, what's the point in existence? Why are we here?
Toaster: Beats me. Do you want some toast?
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
And label yourself "stephen_hawking.torrent".
This topic of self-copying should certainly be worth considering for every person, seeing as how we are all marching toward certain personal oblivion. But trust me, whatever the Outer Limits scripts have to say about this is hugely irrelevant.
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?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Consider the following sentence...
"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.
..will I run linux? Can I run a beowulf cluster of me?
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
"as a disembodied head living in a jar, I envy the dead."
-George Foreman's Head
It would be funny if they discovered the appendix in fact housed the soul. "And all this time we thought it was relatively useless!"
Brandon Reinhart
However, I've read that in certain types of brain surgery, all electrical activity in the brain must be stopped for some period of time, and then "restarted". The person thus loses all the short term memory, but keeps the long-term, because that isn't dependent on continuous electrical activity. When that person wakes up, is he still considered the same old person, or just a "replica"?
This is pathetic. The average reader/viewer/listner has no chance to form a coherent picture of the future, or even our current ideas of it. But sadly, this is typical for news coverage of all topics. And it's actually one of the problems - that we treat such items as "news", where you get a notable person speak, then a few hundreds of nearly identical articles appear, then silence. In the best case the meme of "Playstation 5 will be as powerful as a human brain" will spread and settle in the brains of the public.
Instead of starting a decades-long discussion of all the implications of the future changes, instead of purposefully changing our societies to adapt to the scientific and technological advances, instead of basing our research budgets on the goal of achieving the most desirable of all possible futures, we just live as if nothing important is happening. This is beyond sad.
I don't know how you can change that, may be it's impossible in the world of corrupt democracies and commercialised mass-media, but if you personally want to understand where we are heading, check out the links in the end of this post.
Ian Pearsen is late. I remember the idiotic 21st century forecast that BT produced five years ago. Only now he starts to get things that better thinkers realised a decade ago. For some people the idea of mind uploading is not new and they already managed to present a much more comprehensive picture of the future.
Here are some of the resources outlining it:
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.