Elon Musk  

re Mind Uploading and Colonizing Mars

Dear Elon,


All my life (I am 65 now) I have wanted to explore the rest of the known Universe - to do this I knew I would need a greatly extended life span. I worked in BioMedical Research and then in IT and might still complete a PhD in computer simulations of Population Genetics of Threatened Species.

When I could no longer ignore increasing physical decrepitude, I investigated and became actively involved in Cryonics. Later, with signs of cognitive decline (my father died last year from Alzheimer's at age 89), I decided that information preservation was more important than cell viability, so I set up the Neural Archives Foundation. NAF has been in existence for nearly nine years and has frozen more than one brain per year - including those of both my parents last year.

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Now, in addition to my own health issues, the planet also has rapidly increasing environmental health problems - with the potential for Abrupt Climate Change and concomitant, large-scale ecological collapses. For these reasons I am convinced that I need to become a virtual person (via mind uploading) sooner rather than later - and lots of other people should too - "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."!

Since your PayPal days I have been following your ventures with great interest (I have even paid the deposit on the purchase of the Model 3 Tesla) and I also think that the world would not be in the parlous state that it is now if we had had more corporate leaders like you.

I have a proposition for you, and, with a lot of luck and a very large amount of commitment and investment of resources, we might be able to help each other. A successful result would be that I would get to explore the Universe for as long as I found life interesting and exciting and, with the help of my virtual self, you would have a much better chance of successfully colonizing Mars. Your current SpaceX and Tesla projects are part of the bigger picture and your new 'Neural Lace' development is a very big part of it.

Sending virtual people to Mars solves lots of your "hairless apes in tin cans with air, food and water" problems - the more virtual people with synthetic bodies you have on the trips, the more successful colonisation is likely to be - particularly in the initial stages.

Let me know if you want to chat.

Sincerely,

Philip Rhoades

By  Philip Rhoades	Embed
Philip Rhoades is an Executive Officer at the  Cryonics Association of Australasia (http://cryonics.org.au), Executive Director, Neural Archives Foundation (http://neuralarchivesfoundation.org) as well as a member of the LifeBoat Foundation (http://lifeboat.com)

Artificial Intelligence  

David Cox gave a talk about current work in neuroscience and computer science at the World Economic Forum, that points to a variety of implications including brain uploading and the development of advanced artificial intelligence based on biology.

At the recent World Economic Forum, David Cox gave a talk about current work in neuroscience and computer science that points to a variety of implications including brain uploading and the development of advanced artificial intelligence based on biology.

Image Source: World Economic Forum / Walter Duerst

"The only reason we can have this conversation today, is that there are two fields that are exploding right now, and are on a collision course with one another."

The fast-advancing fields of neuroscience and computer science are converging explains Cox. "The only reason we can have this conversation today, is that there are two fields that are exploding right now, and are on a collision course with one another."

"It might seem weird to connect technology and neuroscience," states Cox, "but is actually something we have been doing for a very long time." Cox points that through history, we have always used metaphors for our mind, like pneumatic power, steam power, and today's technology of the computer. "Now computers are the lens through which we see our brains."

Computer science does give us a new model for looking at our brains. There is an equivalence. "If we understand the algorithms of the brain, we can think about running that on other hardware that we have [like] silicon," Cox says.

Within the last five years alone, there has been a tectonic shift in the world of artificial intelligence Cox claims. However, "we are not quite there yet."

Cox is working on studying the brain to figure out what is missing in artificial intelligence so far

Despite significant progress in developing AI algorithms and machine learning over the past few years, today’s AI systems do not generalize well. In contrast, the brain is able to robustly separate and categorize signals in the presence of significant noise and non-linear transformations, and can extrapolate from single examples to entire classes of stimuli. This performance gap between software and wetware persists despite some correspondence between the architecture of the leading machine learning algorithms and their biological counterparts in the brain.

Cox's lab is working with others to reverse engineer how brains learn, starting with rats. By shedding light on what our machine learning algorithms are currently missing, this work promises to improve the capabilities of robots – with implications for jobs, laws and ethics.

To this end Cox is at work on the IARPA project, Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS). This neuroscience project is slated to take place over the next five years, and according to Cox, it is equivalent in scale to the Human Genome project.

MICrONS seeks to revolutionize machine learning by reverse-engineering the algorithms of the brain. The program is expressly designed as a dialogue between data science and neuroscience. Over the course of the program, participants will use their improving understanding of the representations, transformations, and learning rules employed by the brain to create ever more capable neurally derived machine learning algorithms. Some of the ultimate goals for MICrONS include the ability to perform complex information processing tasks such as one-shot learning, unsupervised clustering, and scene parsing, aiming towards human-like proficiency.

The project involves creating connectome of a rat's brain, which amount to about two petabytes of data. Cox admits that the project he is a part of actually does conjure up the ambition of brain uploading.

"What I can tell you is that way before humans upload their brain, it's going to be rats that get their brains up into the cloud first," says Cox.

If you are excited about this idea, Cox shares good news, bad news and neutral news. The good news is that there is nothing in principle that makes mind uploading impossible. "It could happen, I'm just going to put that out there," he says. The bad news is we have no idea how to do this yet. The work so far is these are just the first steps.

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• Researchers Intend To Map Connectomes at Unprecedented Scale as a Path to Artificial Intelligence 
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As far as neutral news, Cox says that the work his team and others around the world is leading already to even greater strides in machine learning and robots. "I would submit that the brain power of a rat, properly implemented is enough to drive a car," he says as an example.

Cox is an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Computer Science at Harvard University. His research spans across neuroscience and computer science, with the goal of understanding how brains process sensory information; employs a variety of experimental techniques to measure brain function and uses this biological information to build advanced machine learning algorithms. Actively engaged in innovation in online learning, particularly at the intersection of machine intelligence and education.

Cox also is working on the ARIADNE project—a multi-university effort to study a living animal brain like never before to figure out how it learns. This project will create some of the largest neuroscience datasets ever collected, and could give computers new abilities to learn and perceive the way our brains do.

SOURCE  World Economic Forum

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Futurology  

For Robin Hanson history is important and interesting to study, but the future is also important – plausibly, more important, because we can actually do something about the future. He takes his varied background studying physics, philosophy, artificial intelligence and social science to the study of the potential future of brain emulations in his new book, "The Age of Em."

“What happens when a first-rate economist applies his rigor, breadth, and curiosity to the sci-fi topic of whole brain emulations?" asks Andrew McAfee, co-author of the Race Against the Machine. The answer for McAfee is Robin Hanson's new book, The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth.

Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. Hanson also has master’s degrees in physics and philosophy from the University of Chicago, nine years’ experience in artificial intelligence research at Lockheed and NASA, a doctorate in social science from California Institute of Technology. He has long been writing on his blog, Overcoming Bias, as well.

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• Robin Hanson Envisions a Future Robot Society 
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"The Age of Em" is Hanson's in-depth analysis of the idea that uploaded brains will be able to multiply exponentially, and will dramatically shape the future. Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or ems. Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human.

 Hanson defines an em as, the result of taking a particular human brain, scanning it to record its particular cell features and connections, and then building a computer model that processes signals according to those same features and connections. "A good enough em has close to the same overall input-output signal behavior as the original human. One might talk with it, and convince it to do useful jobs," he writes.

Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times: an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace humans in most jobs. Also, Hanson projects that ems will be able to run much faster than human speeds. In this new economic era, the world economy may double in size every few weeks.

A brain emulation, or “em,” results from taking a particular human brain, scanning it to record its particular cell features and connections, and then building a computer model that processes signals in the same way. Ems will probably be feasible within about a hundred years. They are psychologically
quite human, and could displace humans in most jobs. If fully utilized, ems could have a monumental impact on all areas of life on Earth.

"A good enough em has close to the same overall input-output signal behavior as the original human. One might talk with it, and convince it to do useful jobs."

The Age of Em shows you just how strange our electronic descendants may be. Read about changes in computer architecture, energy use, mind speeds, body sizes, security strategies, virtual reality, labor market organization, management focus, job training, career paths, wage competition, identity, status relations, co-worker and friend relations, aging, retirement, death, life cycles, reproduction, mating, conversation habits, wealth inequality, city sizes, cooling infrastructure, growth rates, coalition politics, governance, law, and war.

Hanson says, "like a circus side show, my book lets readers see something strange yet familiar in great detail, so they can gawk at what else changes and how when familiar things change. My book is a dwarf, sword swallower, and bearded lady, writ large."

Ambitious and encyclopedic in scope, The Age of Em offers a completely unique window into our future. A must read for those curious about the technological destiny of our planet.

Top Image HABITAT by Till Nowak 

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 Singularity  

A quantum physicist  has determined that consciousness cannot be represented mathematically, and therefore it will be impossible to create or replicate in a computer.

Within some circles in the scientific community, debate rages about whether computers will achieve technological Singularity or strong artificial intelligence—in other words, self-recognition or human consciousness within a computer—within the next few decades.

But a Korean quantum physicist has shown that computers will never be able to duplicate human consciousness or be programmed to do so, because they lack the fundamental . . . well, humanity. And his research may finally answer questions that have long stymied brain science researchers.

In his 2008 paper, "Non-computability of Consciousness," Daegene Song proves human consciousness cannot be computed. Song arrived at his conclusion through quantum computer research in which he showed there is a unique mechanism in human consciousness that no computing device can simulate.

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"Among conscious activities, the unique characteristic of self-observation cannot exist in any type of machine," Song explained. "Human thought has a mechanism that computers cannot compute or be programmed to do."

"Human thought has a mechanism that computers cannot compute or be programmed to do."

And therein lies the kernel of truth that could resolve two problems researchers have until now been unable to resolve: First, that no approach to brain research had ever been able to precisely represent consciousness; and second, that no one actually understood how a network of neurons, also known as the human brain, could somehow give rise to consciousness.

"Non-computability of Consciousness" documents Song's quantum computer research into the Singularity. Song was able to show that in certain situations, a conscious state can be precisely and fully represented in mathematical terms, in much the same manner as an atom or electron can be fully described mathematically. That's important, because the neurobiological and computational approaches to brain research have only ever been able to provide approximations at best. In representing consciousness mathematically, Song shows that consciousness is not compatible with a machine.

Song's work also shows consciousness is not like other physical systems like neurons, atoms or galaxies. "If consciousness cannot be represented in the same way all other physical systems are represented, it may not be something that arises out of a physical system like the brain," said Song. "The brain and consciousness are linked together, but the brain does not produce consciousness. Consciousness is something altogether different and separate. The math doesn't lie."

Song obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oxford and now works at Chungbuk National University in Korea as an assistant professor.




SOURCE  PR Newswire

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 Mind Uploading  

Researchers from the OpenWorm project have successfully mapped all the connections between the a roundworm's 302 neurons simulated them in software that controls a small robot.

For those interested in the Singularity, it has long been understood that there are no physical laws limiting us from taking our connectome, or mind file and duplicating it in another substrate, such as a robot. This technical challenge has just had a proof of concept made by uploading the brain of a roundworm into a robot.

Researchers from the OpenWorm project have successfully mapped all the connections between Caenorhabditis elegans’ 302 neurons and managed to simulate them in software.

Scientists published the first map of the worm's synaptic connections, or connectome, in 1986 and a refined draft in 2006.

The brain of the roundworm has just 1000 cells, of which only 302 are neurons with 7,000 connections or synapses.

In comparison, the human brain has an estimated 86 billion neurons, and over 10¹⁴ synapses.

"We believe brain research must accelerate, we are taking matters into our own hands. If we cannot build a computer model of a worm, the most studied organism in all of biology, we don’t stand a chance to understand something as complex as the human brain."

Experiments like this help accomplish the eventual uploading of more complex organisms, leading towards the post-human goal of uploading a human consciousness. More importantly, this research is helping us better understand how brains work as a system and could lead to more effective treatment, or maybe even a cure, for diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The researchers do note that this is just a first step. The brain simulation still isn’t 100% exact, as the researchers had to simplify the process that triggers an artificial neuron to fire.

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“Because we believe brain research must accelerate, we are taking matters into our own hands. If we cannot build a computer model of a worm, the most studied organism in all of biology, we don’t stand a chance to understand something as complex as the human brain. We must crawl before we can walk!” OpenWorm explains on their website.

On the robot, sensors replace the biological inputs that the animal's brain would receive. Motor neuron simulators in the software, running on an on-board Raspberry Pi computer, then drive the robot’s motors as if they were right and left groups of muscles.

So, without being explicitly programmed to do so, the robot moved back and forth and avoided objects using only a simulated brain. The robot behaves much like a real worm would, given similar sensory inputs. Activating the front sensor stops forward movement and, touching the front and rear sensors makes the robot move forward and back.

You might even say, the robot 'thinks' it is a worm.

The OpenWorm robot seems to show that a stimulated digital brain might behave like a biological brain does.  Conceivably, if we eventually map a human brain with similar resolution and supply it with stimulation in a virtual or physical environment, we would produce a human copy in robotic substrate.




SOURCE  iProgrammer

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 Mind Uploading  

Mind uploading is the process of transferring the contents of an individual’s biological mind, to another substrate.  Dr. Ken Hayworth has now outlined a proposal to achieve this Apollo-scale task in a roadmap.

One of the greatest forever unresolved philosophical questions: What is reality? Will get a whole lot more complex if Ken Hayworth’s interpretation of the logical conclusion to his work is attained. Hayworth’s work: brain mapping. The proposed logical conclusion: mind uploading.

Mind uploading is the process of transferring the contents of an individual’s biological mind, including: memories, consciousness and personality traits…to another substrate, such as a computer.

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There are countless ways human brain mapping will help humanity, notably for understanding and combating neurological disorders. But Hayworth’s ultimate goal of mind uploading pushes the research into the realm of a post-human possibility, a place few scientists have opened their own minds to.

According to Hayworth, "Mind uploading is the logical conclusion of an advanced neuroscience.  If we really understand how the brain works, we will be able to build that brain."

"Mind uploading is the logical conclusion of an advanced neuroscience.  If we really understand how the brain works, we will be able to build that brain."

Hayworth believes that chemical fixation, not cryonics, offers the most promising method for capturing a complete human connectome, which could then be used to recreate a brain digitally. Current methods have only just been able to plasticize a whole mouse brain, but digitizing the connectome is still a huge technological challenge.

Hayworth estimates that in order to capture a human brain, the technology will have to be scaled 100 million-fold. This is a prerequisite to mind uploading.

Several large scale scientific endeavors to better understand the brain are underway; their success or failure could set the tone for the future mainstream acceptance or rejection of Hayworth's roadmap to mind uploading. His 'logical conclusion' is still the stuff of science fiction – for now.


SOURCE  Galactic Public Archives

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 Future of Brain Science  

Recently, neuroscientists John Donoghue and Sheila Nirenberg, computer scientist Michel Maharbiz, and psychologist Gary Marcus discussed the cutting edge of brain-machine interactions in "Cells to Silicon: Your Brain in 2050," part of the Big Ideas series at the 2014 World Science Festival.

At present, our brains are mostly dependent on all the stuff below the neck to turn thought into action. But advances in neuroscience are making it easier than ever to hook machines up to minds.

In the video above, neuroscientists John Donoghue and Sheila Nirenberg, computer scientist Michel Maharbiz, and psychologist Gary Marcus discuss the cutting edge of brain-machine interactions in "Cells to Silicon: Your Brain in 2050."

We are at the dawn of a revolution in neuroscience, with the potential to dramatically expand how the human mind interacts with the world.

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For the most part,  brains still need bodies—vocal cords, hands, eyes—to turn thought into action, but rudimentary mind-to-machine links have already been developed.

The science fiction dream of uploading new skills and memories directly to your mind, might not be far off. Drawing from neuroscience, biology, engineering, genetics, and psychology, we will explore the breakthroughs happening in brain-machine interaction today, and speculate about the enhanced human capabilities of tomorrow.

Donoghue, currently the director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, talks about his work with Cathy Hutchinson, in bringing robotic control to her through a brain implant.

Nirenberg discusses how she is sending representations back into the brain, in her work to bring sight and hearing back to blind and deaf individuals. By recording firing patterns of normal retinas and then sending these patterns to a retinal prosthetic, Nirenberg and her team have achieved success in returning sight to animal models so far.  They have demonstrated that proper code, not resolution is the key to improving this level of neural processing.

"Why couldn't we last forever if our brain were copied and captured?"

The panel goes on to discuss enhancement of the brain.  "I think that the same way the information revolution benefited, the most educated to take a hand in it," says Maharbiz. "I think the brain is going to be like that in the next 100 to 150 years. The best thing you can do is just to educate as many people as you can." Maharbiz is one of the inventors of neural dust, a low-power solution for chronic brain-machine interfaces and untethered neural recording. He also developed the world’s first remotely radio-controlled cyborg insects (beetles), a project named one of the top ten emerging technologies of 2009 by MIT’s Technology Review.

Artificial minds and uploaded minds are also examined by the panel.  "Are you sure that you aren't already a simulation living in a vat?" quips Marcus.

Marcus goes on to explain the conundrum of how uploads may be copies, not an actual uploaded mind.  "I think you could make a copy, but it would be me at some moment in time, then I would go on learning," says Nirenberg. "Why couldn't we last forever if our brain were copied and captured?"

The recording was made at the Big Ideas series at the 2014 World Science Festival.



SOURCE  World Science Festival

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 Mind Uploading  

In the short film Temma, a neuro-programmer tries to complete a computational model of her own mind while her body succumbs to a degenerative disease.

Temma is a short science fiction film about a neuro-programmer who tries to complete a computational model of her own mind before her body succumbs to a degenerative disease.

Related articles Stephen Hawking Thinks Mind Uploading Possible  The Transhumanist Reader  The Final Moments of Karl Brant

When Temma Baumgarten's condition takes a sudden turn for the worse, her husband Phillip and daughter Alyssa must come to terms with an incomplete electronic version of herself that Temma leaves behind.

With a plot that looks to be similar to the upcoming major release Transcendence, Temma looks at the possibilities for and consequences of mind uploading and the creation of a substrate independent mind.

The entire film recently was released to YouTube.

Temma recently won Best Science Fiction Short at the Berlin Independent Film Festival

The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant and Faculty Selects at Columbia University Graduate Film Program.

Temma stars Karen Young, Richard Bekins, Samantha Bilinkas and was directed by Anya Meksin. Meksin also co-wrote the film with William Gerrard.

Robot Hands was responsible for the visual effects.

Do you think the risks of creating an incomplete upload of a consciousness are worth the risks?

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 Mind Uploading  

Recently Stephen Hawking, in a talk at the premiere of the documentary film about his life, said that brain "could exist outside the body" and like a program, could be copied onto a computer.

Professor Stephen Hawking in a talk at the premiere of the documentary film about his life, said that brain "could exist outside the body" and like a program, could be copied onto a computer.

Speaking at the Cambridge Film Festival, The 71-year-old Professor, author of A Brief History of Time, said that it could be possible for the human brain to exist outside the body, but this is way beyond our present capabilities.

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"I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a computer, so it’s theoretically possible to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after death."

Hawking was cautionary however, noting that the technology is out of our reach for now, "This is way beyond out present capabilities. I think the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark."

Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, and given only a few years to live by doctors has gone on to revolutionize cosmology and physics. Among his quests is work to harmonize quantum physics with Einstein's theory of relativity - a unified theory. His life is the subject of the new documentary, "Hawking."



SOURCE  My Science Academy

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 Transhumanism  

Recently, Singularity Weblog's Nikola Danaylov interviewed Natasha Vita-More and discussed her ideas about Whole Body Prosthetic and Substrate Autonomous, Networked Avatar Bodies by Design.

Dr. Natasha Vita-More has been called “the first female philosopher of transhumanism.” Recently, Singularity Weblog's Nikola Danaylov interviewed her and discussed her ideas about Whole Body Prosthetic and Substrate Autonomous, Networked Avatar Bodies by Design.

During the interview, a variety of interesting topics were covered, such as: her whole body prosthetic project; backing up the body as well as the mind; “back-casting” her vision and ultimate goals; the problem of identity in moving from one substrate to another; the timeline and scientific break-throughs in robotics, artificial intelligence and cognitive neuroscience necessary to make the whole body prosthetic a reality; consciousness and quantum mechanics.

As co-editor of The Transhumanist Reader, Vita-More also talks about dealing with skeptics and whether the world is ready for transhumanism and radical life-extension.

Vita-More, is the founder and creative director of esDESiGN and the producer and host of H+TV online. Her research concerns the design aesthetics of human enhancement and radical life extension, with a focus on emerging and speculative sciences and technologies. Her conceptual future human design “Primo Posthuman” has been featured in Wired, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Net Business, Teleopolis, and Village Voice.

Related articles Videos from Global Futures 2045  The Transhumanist Reader  Prosthetics Becoming More Advanced With Control and Direct Sensory Feedback

She has appeared in over twenty-four televised documentaries on the future and culture, and has exhibited media artworks at National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Brooks Memorial Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Women In Video, Telluride Film Festival, and United States Film Festival and recently “Evolution Haute Couture: Art and Science in the Post-Biological Age” and is the recipient of several awards: First Place Award at Brooks Memorial Museum, Special Recognition at Women in Video, and special recognition for “Futures Podcast Series”.

Dr. Vita-More is a proponent of human rights and ethical means for human enhancement, and is published in Artifact, Technoetic Arts, Nanotechnology Perceptions, Sistemi Intelligenti, Metaverse Creativity, D’ARS, and the Global Spiral. 

SOURCE  Singularity Weblog

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 Singularity  

The Final Moments of Karl Brant is part detective story, part slasher movie, and part theoretical futurism. The short film examines the issue of mind uploading, and the ethics of turning off a recreated consciousness.

Written and directed by award-winning graphic novelist M.F. Wilson, The Final Moments of Karl Brant is part detective story, part slasher movie, and part theoretical futurism.

The film stars Paul Reubens (yes, Pee Wee Herman), as the scientist friend of the eponymous Brant (Pete Cheklava). Brant is working on a way to upload his memories into a computer in order to effectively reconstruct his consciousness in the virtual world.

However, it appears someone wanted him dead for it. Two detectives (Janina Gavankar and Jon Sklaroff) are the ones investigating and the key to solving the case comes from a decidedly non-traditional source. But the question arises: at one point, in this new world, does a person stop being a person?

Related articles Ray Kurzweil On The Computers That Will Live In Our Brains  Ray Kurzweil On The Singularity and a Score of Other Topics  Lew Keiler Draws Out What The Singularity Is

The science behind the story was pioneered in part by Ray Kurzweil, whose books “The Age of Intelligent Machines,” “The Age of Spiritual Machines,” and “The Singularity Is Near” discuss the idea that artificial intelligence will one day be indistinguishable from human intelligence and that our own existence and longevity is tied to machines.

Eventually, what it means to be human will depend on leaving behind physical bodies and existing within the artificial, and seemingly-infinite, virtual space.

Check out this well-made, taught short film above, and let know what you think below in the comments.



SOURCE  Nerdist

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 The Singularity  

Miguel Nicolelis, the neuroscientist whose team was responsible for recently giving rats the ability to sense infrared wavelengths, and for wiring monkeys to play video games and control robots with their minds says computers will never replicate the human brain and that the Singularity is “a bunch of hot air.”

Miguel Nicolelis, the neuroscientist at Duke University, whose team was responsible for recently giving rats the ability to sense infrared wavelengths says computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological Singularity is “a bunch of hot air.”

It is interesting that the man, who in some respects is helping make the Singularity a reality, does not subscribe to the idea; or at  least the mind uploading elements.

"The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it," says Nicolelis, a long-time researcher into brain-machine interfaces.

The Singularity, as 33rd Square readers know, is that moment predicted in the not-to-distant future where exponential technology leads to a greater-than-human self-improving artificial intelligence.

Ray Kurzweil, recently hired on at Google as a director of engineering, is the greatest promoter of the Singularity and believes that once machine intelligence exceed our own people will also be able to upload their thoughts and memories into computers.

Nicolelis calls that idea total bunk. “Downloads will never happen,” Nicolelis said during remarks made at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston recently.

“There are a lot of people selling the idea that you can mimic the brain with a computer.” The debate over whether the brain is a kind of computer has been running for decades.

Although many scientists remain in the camp that mind uploading will not be possible, there has been a growing scientific and academic acceptance of the possibility.  Last year, the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, put out a special issue on the subject.

Also, neuroscientist Sebastian Seung does not discount the idea in his book, Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are.  He writes that we are our connectomes. Our unique selves—the way we think, act, feel—is etched into the wiring of our brains. Capturing the connectome and simulating it in a computer might therefore be an avenue to mind uploading.

Kurzweil delves into the idea of “reverse-engineering” the brain in his latest book, How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, in which he writes that even though the human brain may be immensely complex, “the fact that it contains many billions of cells and trillions of connections does not necessarily make its primary method complex.”

However, Nicolelis thinks that human consciousness simply can’t be replicated in silicon. That’s because its most important features are the result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions between billions of cells, Nicolelis says.

“You can’t predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you can’t compute it,” he says. “You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t create a consciousness.”

The neuroscientist, originally from Brazil, instead thinks that humans will increasingly subsume machines (an idea, incidentally, that’s also part of Kurzweil’s predictions). His study giving rats the extra sense is one example of this.

• Researcher Rewires Rat Brains To Sense Infrared Spectrum and Promises Much More

SOURCE  TEDxTalks, MIT Technology Review

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