Brain downloads 'possible by 2050'

[Carfanman]

http://www.geekinformed.com/content/view/229/2/
Holy crap, this is very interesting, and it makes you think.

Would you be for living forever in a computer?
What about interacting with computers and robots that are smarter than us?

[BumpinTalon]

these guys don't seem to realize, as soon as we invent that superintelligent computer, everything will be discovered at once.

[AllGoNoShow]

Carfanman I;m not doubting you or anything, just curious, do you post scientific shit like this to make yourself seem smart to other members of the board? Or is it because you find it interesting....

[Carfanman]

I find it very interesting. I spend most of time with science. This is my favorite kind of stuff. Why would I post it too try to show off to people who I will probably never meet?

[Super_Geo]

This article is very much like articles in the 1950s that talked about how in the year 2000, we will all have flying cars.

The physical and biological implications are just staggering. To "download" someone's brain onto a computer, you would somehow need to scan it and store all the "connections" that are inside your brain. They are in the billions and billions.

The best way to look at your brain is as a relational database. Thoughts and ideas are linked together, and when one thought is triggered, it 'stimulates' all other neural networks that are connected to it. That's why the smell of a food that you haven't had since you were a child can trigger a flood of memories that you thought you had forgotten.

To get the essense of who you are, then, is to have a complete and accure map of all these interconnectivites. How will you be able to get an accurate map? No one knows.... certain areas of the brain will "light up" with electrical activity when it is being used, but when it's dormant there's really nothing we can do. If we were to use radiation to try and map the brain it would shred it apart.

The article has some interesting "gee whiz" stuff about it, but it's all speculation... and unlikely speculation at that.

By the way, in 2050, we'll all have flying cars. You heard it here first.

[Phy]

Man, we could have flying cars right now. But go take a ride on the Deerfoot again and ask yourself if you want people like that coming at you from above and below, as well as both sides?

Anyway, uploading as a concept has been kicking around for years, but the human mind operates strangely enough that it's probably a really hard thing to do. I've heard talk that even quantum effects at the subatomic level may influence thought.

[/////AMG]

By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.



Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.

Pearson said the launch last week of Sony's PlayStation 3, a machine 35 times more powerful than the model it replaced, was a sign of things to come.

"The new PlayStation is one percent as powerful as the human brain," Pearson told the Observer. "It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain."

Pearson said that brain-downloading technology would initially be the preserve of the rich, but would become more available over subsequent decades.

"If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine," he said.

"We are very serious about it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT."

Pearson also predicted that it would be possible to build a fully conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence as early as 2020.

IBM's BlueGene computer can already perform 70.72 trillion calculations a second and Pearson said the next computing goal was to replicate consciousness.

"We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could become conscious. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that's what we're trying to design in computer."

Pearson said that computer consciousness would make feasible a whole new sphere of emotional machines, such as airplanes that are afraid of crashing.

By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a "virtual world" of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business.

He said: "When technology gives you a life-size 3D image and the links to your nervous system allow you to shake hands, it's like being in the other person's office. It's impossible to believe that won't be the normal way of communicating."

But Pearson admitted that the consequences of advancing technologies needed to be considered carefully.

"You need a complete global debate," he said. "Whether we should be building machines as smart as people is a really big one."

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/brain.download/

[legendboy]

Sounds like the prequel to The Matrix

[brandon]

wow! the terminator is back!! :P

[QuasarCav]

You idiots!!!!

I'm moving to a cabin in Montana the day this happens. Sandbagged in with a few C6's and a taste for robot brains.

[Phy]

Also posted down in General.

I think the guy's blue-skying it a bit. But if it goes through, sign me up. I'll be in my 70s by then and just about ready to upload.

(Aside: How fucking weak is that? It'll only be 2050 when I'm in my 70s! All the good shit happens after 2100!)

[Altezza]

Wow, good luck dealing with plagarism at University in those days. All you have to do is download some smart dude's brain to your Sony PS5 and have it spit out an essay.

[QuasarCav]

Originally posted by Altezza
Wow, good luck dealing with plagarism at University in those days. All you have to do is download some smart dude's brain to your Sony PS5 and have it spit out an essay.

But then it would have a moral problem with that and would report you to the dean of cyber-crime.

[Fluidic]

That's awesome. Can't wait. Too bad it's not sooner.

[BumpinTalon]

I like this idea. but what if your body wasn't dead yet? you could split into two people? would the consciousness on the computer be "you" or would it be the copy? would you perceive things through the computer? or would you still be in your body?

[Xtrema]

Sounds like that Arnold movie filmed in Van City with the clone and all. What is it now........?

Ghost in the Shell which Matrix rip off from also portrait this future.

[Fluidic]

The 6th Day

"There's been a sixth day violation, a human was cloned".

[Fluidic]

Originally posted by BumpinTalon
I like this idea. but what if your body wasn't dead yet? you could split into two people? would the consciousness on the computer be "you" or would it be the copy? would you perceive things through the computer? or would you still be in your body?

Haven't you ever seen the movie Virtuosity starring Russel Crowe and Denzel Washington?

[Carfanman]

Repost, actually.

http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.p...threadid=88469

These two threads should probably be combined. Mods?

[legendboy]

k i merged these two threads