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Posted on Saturday, 3 March, 2012 | 60 comments| News tip by: Still Waters
Image credit: Jiuguang Wang
A Russian entrepreneur is developing a means with which to allow a human to inhabit a robot.
Dmitry Itskov has hired 30 scientists to work on the technology that could see a human mind being 'downloaded' in to a robot where it could theoretically live forever. "This project is leading down the road to immortality," he said. "A person with a perfect Avatar will be able to remain part of society. People don't want to die."
"Itskov's project "Avatar" is similar to the Pentagon's own project "Avatar" which envisions surgically transplanting human consciousness to a robot body."
Sorry about the delay. My daughter's not the only one with medical issues. Darned docs have me loaded up on meds at the moment and the mental haze generated is quite intolerable. Sorry for that bro. And for your daughter. You seem like a very nice guy. On top of thet, you seem really open-minded and that's something I admire from older people (I'm only 26) that often, as far as I know, have been forced to adopt a narrower mind and never question anything as children. Thank you then, to be there discussing with me. I enjoy that. You are a living proof that only the body ages, not the soul and h... [More]
I really can't comprehend how something like this would be possible. I am not a very religous guy but I do believe that there is something intangable in all of us that make us who we are. I cannot see how that could ever be copied or transfered. Sure maybe you can download all your memories and thoughts to a computer or robot. But what about that spark that makes you? What if your sitting there in a chair or bed after the upload staring at your new robot body but your still in your own body? Are you you? Is it you? I think if I was in that situation I sure as hell would be thinking that's me a... [More]
#53 Posted by Mr.Delicious on 18 March, 2012, 8:42
Mind uploading is a very expensive and elaborate suicide ritual. Thats not "you" in that robot, just a copy.
#54 Posted by Mr.Delicious on 18 March, 2012, 8:50
We all have an experation date and we can't dodge that forever. We may be able to slow it down with technology such as artificial organs or biotics but eventually we will die. Or we can just repair the mutations in our mitochondrial DNA like the fine folks at UCLA have demonstrated by piggy-backing therapeutic DNA fixing proteins to mRNA strands that are shuttled inside the mitchondira. Aging isnt "magic", it's the result of the seperate chromosomes that mitchondira posses that are not protected inside the nucleus due to the fact the mitochondria originated from bacteria that were absorbed by ... [More]
#55 Posted by Sevenof Seven on 18 March, 2012, 11:06
Hello Residents of New Caprica! This technology is assuming that you can actually caputure and control a human beings soul, their essence.... I think that this is going to prove more difficult than originally thought. So... do we get to select our own robot type or is someone going to make that decision for us? No doubt all from Japan.... so it's going to be little yappy dogs for everyone!
#56 Posted by Mr.Delicious on 18 March, 2012, 18:07
This technology is assuming that you can actually caputure and control a human beings soul, their essence.... ....... You can make someone shoot their own mother if you apply the right fMRI frequency to correct part of the brain. If you think you have some sort of magical pure soul that is above the physical hardware of your neurons and gilia then you haven't been paying attention to developments in Neuroscience. That said I agree with you that mind uploading wouldn't work because it would just as impossible to seperate your "mind" from it's physical hardware, because they are one in the same.
#57 Posted by Sevenof Seven on 19 March, 2012, 10:42
....... You can make someone shoot their own mother if you apply the right fMRI frequency to correct part of the brain. If you think you have some sort of magical pure soul that is above the physical hardware of your neurons and gilia then you haven't been paying attention to developments in Neuroscience. That said I agree with you that mind uploading wouldn't work because it would just as impossible to seperate your "mind" from it's physical hardware, because they are one in the same. I did not mean controlling in the sense of making it do what you want, I meant contol in the sense of taking ... [More]
You can make someone shoot their own mother if you apply the right fMRI frequency to correct part of the brain. If you think you have some sort of magical pure soul that is above the physical hardware of your neurons and gilia then you haven't been paying attention to developments in Neuroscience. I'll give a hint of what I think of this. I think that our self-awarness or physical consciousness does work with the brain. So yes, affecting how the brain works will alter your physical awarness. But I don't think it's in any way an evidence that our whole, entire mind is purely and only brain-gene... [More]
Here is another aspect of this subject. Let us say that a person's mind has been perfectly downloaded into a robot's computer-brain, and the robot now has the identical mind and consciousness of that human. Now, an experiment is set up in which the human must choose one of two boxes, marked A and B. The robot, as it has the same mind and consciousness as the human, knows beforehand which box the human will choose. This is because they both have identical minds and therefore the robot and the human will always choose the same box, either A or B. Before the human makes his decision, the robot te... [More]
Here is another aspect of this subject. Let us say that a person's mind has been perfectly downloaded into a robot's computer-brain, and the robot now has the identical mind and consciousness of that human. Now, an experiment is set up in which the human must choose one of two boxes, marked A and B. The robot, as it has the same mind and consciousness as the human, knows beforehand which box the human will choose. This is because they both have identical minds and therefore the robot and the human will always choose the same box, either A or B. Before the human makes his decision, the robot te... [More]