Can we upload ourselves to a robot brain ?

[UM-Bot]

Neuroscientist Randal Koene envisages a future in which our minds can live forever within a computer.

Stephen Hawking recently warned that humanity may end up being superseded by artificial intelligent machines, however there is another possible future scenario involving a world dominated by computers in which we could still play an important role.

Read More: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/276205/can-we-upload-ourselves-to-a-robot-brain

[+joc]

It is an outright silly idea.

[Harte]

In order for us to control AI in the future, we may have to go there.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

If I were to do this, I'd make sure and tell my future electronic self (in a note or whatever) that if I'm not having fun, then end it.

Harte

[StarMountainKid]

I read a short story, "Learning to be Me", by Greg Egan wherein at birth a computer chip is inserted in the brain. This chip 'learns to be me'. When the person reaches adulthood, he or she can choose to turn off the biological brain and replace its functions with the computer chip.

The hero of the story delays this choice, wondering if he will be completely himself afterward.

I wonder what will inevitably be lost of ourselves in an upload to a robot brain, as there will always be some loss of information in such a procedure.

[Harte]

I don't see what difference it makes, as long as you don't opt for it too soon.

I mean, either way your really dead, right?

Harte

[Leonardo]

"A worm's mind has already been uploaded..."

From the article. This statement is false. The experiment in question was a software simulation of what it is presumed occurs across the 302 neural connections in the roundworms CNS. In other words, the programmers mapped the worm's physical behaviour according to it's neural activity.

This is not the same as saying the 'mind was uploaded' because first - no 'upload' took place and second - we do not know if the worm's physical behaviour is the extent of how it's neural activity expresses itself (i.e. we are not aware if the worm is 'conscious'.)

Edited December 26, 2014 by Leonardo

[spartan max2]

I wouldn't opt for this. I mean it wouldn't be me. It could be an exact copy of my neural connections but my neural connects would die so it would be my copy expierencing it I would be dead

[Aten]

I agree with most of the comments, its the consciousness bit that is the (possible) problem, i.e transferring that bit. Kinda similar to the Beaming of peeps in s.trek - how to 'beam' the consciousness of the person as opposed to just creating a copy.. but hey, maybe 100yrs from now they'll sure be a lot closer imo.

[XenoFish]

This is kind of funny. I had a dream about this last night. That at some point in the future we could transfer our consciousness into something called a cell. These cells were like a test tube filled with a semi-luminous blue fluid. These's cells could then simply be installed into a robotic body or the data/consciousness could be transferred to a clone. It was really strange. An today I read this.

[quiXilver]

I don't see why not...

but then, consciousness is the very fabric of reality in my experience, so really, there's no where and no what that isn't conscious.

[SHaYap]

Cave Johnson thought he had it made too :

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[Cruel_Cahal]

Another idea that ripped off the X-Files. Season 5 episode titled "Kill Switch".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Switch_%28The_X-Files%29

[quiXilver]

Well, whoever had that thought first... it certainly wasn't a 90's tv show...

[Growl]

is that the memories and emotions are not really in the brain but in a different place. The brain is like a player who goes to read a disc already written.

To save the essence of a living beinwg machinery should go read in the place where the brain goes to read his existence.

Given this background, the way they are taking by researchers probably will not give results.

[Frank Merton]

What happens if one's brain is copied to a computer but you stay alive? Are there then two of you?

[Ashyne]

You will not achieve immortality by uploading your mind to a computer. You will simply just be creating an exact copy of your traits, personality and features, but that does not mean that the current, biological YOU will instantly cease to exist just because you have uploaded your mind to a computer.

Instead, what will happen will be that the duplicate mind will function more like an identical twin, and the current YOU will still be in the same state and place.

The only way to achieve self-immortality is not by uploading your mind, but by replacing each brain cell, one at a time with an artificial equivalent, so that the brain can transfer and form new connections based on existing ones (previously held by the biological cell), until the entire biological brain is converted into an artificial, machine one. Then, the machine brain that still houses the current YOU will be capable of immortality by regularly maintaining and repairing broken or aged parts and replacing with new robotic cells (nano-cells).

[Frank Merton]

The idea of copying one's brain to a computer and thereby having another "you" makes the assumption that mind is entirely a matter of brain -- the standard mechanical assumption of the positivists of the early twentieth century. I think nowadays informed objective scientific workers doubt this, although of course they have no alternative to offer.

[northylee123]

What would this achieve if we could? the only way this would benefit people is if it could be used as a family tree way to find out what your pass relatives are like. Other then that your personality bounces around in an internet world of a world that you don't exist any more. is this the way people want to face immortality to be an artificial replica of your personality bouncing around the internet because you haven't done anything amazing in your life to be wrote about and immortalised in a book.

[jmccr8]

In the early 80's I read an article about this in Omni magazine,what their intention was to put the body in cryro so that you could be downloaded back into you body after.Some of the applications would be of greater advantage in the space exploration where lifesupport in flight and atmosphere on other planets

[Scuzzy]

No, it won't be you being uploaded, at best, it will be just a digital copy of you.

[XenoFish]

But it's still you even if it's a copy. If I made a dozen copies of the same movie, it's the same movie, right? It's a rather complicated thing. If all your doing is simply saving your memories to some kind of mind bank. Then it's just memories. If it's your memories and personality it's more you. If it's the elusive soul then it's you entirely, correct?

The only true way to know is successful experimentation. So right now it's just speculation.

[UFO_Monster]

But it's still you even if it's a copy. If I made a dozen copies of the same movie, it's the same movie, right? It's a rather complicated thing. If all your doing is simply saving your memories to some kind of mind bank. Then it's just memories. If it's your memories and personality it's more you. If it's the elusive soul then it's you entirely, correct?

The only true way to know is successful experimentation. So right now it's just speculation.

It all depends on what the definition of "self" is. Ultimately, from my perspective, it wouldn't be me. Because I would not be alive, This machine that has my memories and personality would be like me. But it's still not me. I'm dead. I am no longer there. Movies cannot be alive, they cannot be influenced by external forces. They don't know how to be happy and sad, they can't change their own plot or make the characters do new things. They can come in different formats, and they can suffer from wear and tear like our own bodies, but they're not alive. Unless we learn how to duplicate the "soul," a copy will be the same way. But....if it does manage to carry my soul, then the issue you brought up would raise some interesting questions.

Edited December 27, 2014 by UFO_Monster

[Frank Merton]

It's not terribly different from the problem of some religious groups (I have in mind particularly Jehovah's Witnesses but no doubt there are others) who teach an earthly resurrection where God builds a new body for you and puts "you" in it. The "you" that is resurrected would have all your memories and personality and so on, but is it really "you?"

There are also the transporters of Star Trek, which always seemed to me to present the same issue.

[+joc]

There are computers. There is living human tissue called 'brain'. The two are nothing alike. Not in reality. Computers and all AL is a set of numbers. The brain is not. You simply cannot transfer thought activity into a numbers based program. What you CAN do is take human thought and program a computer with similar thought ...i.e. voice recognition...smell detection...etc. But to upload thought activity is not possible. Not in this current technological reality.

[XenoFish]

Then the question would be, could a human brain be transferred into a robotic body and function? Perhaps at some future point, we'll have discovered many of the mysteries of the self and soul.