$LAVE Collective Messageboard :: Download Contents of Your Brain onto a Computer?

Download your brain onto a computer

Thanks for the memory

By Nick Farrell: Monday 23 May 2005, 06:30
A LEADING British futurologist believes that it will be possible to download your brain into a supercomputer, in about 50 years.

Ian Pearson, head of the futurology at BT told the Observer that such technology will be possible for the very rich in about 50 or so years. The rest of us will have to wait, but of course we will have more interesting lives to record.

He said that will mean that when you die it's not a major career problem, you just work from inside the computer rather than having to use a monitor. His rationale is that Sony's new PlayStation 3 is 35 times more powerful than the model it replaced, and in terms of processing is "one per cent as powerful as a human brain".

So if this rate of growth keeps going then in 50 years we should have a computer which can take a brain dump and run like one. This was a notion peddled in the 1970s.

Pearson thinks that the next computing goal would be replicating consciousness. His crystal ball also forecasts that computer systems will be able to feel emotions so that aeroplanes will be programmed to be more terrified of crashing than their passengers, meaning they would do whatever possible to stay airborne.

Of course they might have phobias, or be permanently depressed. So in 50 years we could be living for ever, totally miserable, locked inside a Dell supercomputer bought by our relatives to keep us alive. Suddenly the future does not look so good.

Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23416

Author:	Snuff [ Tue May 24, 2005 4:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Download Contents of Your Brain onto a Computer?
Quote: Download your brain onto a computer Thanks for the memory By Nick Farrell: Monday 23 May 2005, 06:30 A LEADING British futurologist believes that it will be possible to download your brain into a supercomputer, in about 50 years. Ian Pearson, head of the futurology at BT told the Observer that such technology will be possible for the very rich in about 50 or so years. The rest of us will have to wait, but of course we will have more interesting lives to record. He said that will mean that when you die it's not a major career problem, you just work from inside the computer rather than having to use a monitor. His rationale is that Sony's new PlayStation 3 is 35 times more powerful than the model it replaced, and in terms of processing is "one per cent as powerful as a human brain". So if this rate of growth keeps going then in 50 years we should have a computer which can take a brain dump and run like one. This was a notion peddled in the 1970s. Pearson thinks that the next computing goal would be replicating consciousness. His crystal ball also forecasts that computer systems will be able to feel emotions so that aeroplanes will be programmed to be more terrified of crashing than their passengers, meaning they would do whatever possible to stay airborne. Of course they might have phobias, or be permanently depressed. So in 50 years we could be living for ever, totally miserable, locked inside a Dell supercomputer bought by our relatives to keep us alive. Suddenly the future does not look so good. Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23416 Shot, download your memory to a disk and upload it to a clone of yourself... immortality my friends!

Author:	The Immortal Great Potato [ Tue May 24, 2005 7:26 pm ]
Post subject:
It wouldn't be you that would be living forever, though - an exact copy of you would just take up where you leave off. Unless somehow your "soul" gets transferred into the computer along with a copy of your brain, but then if you keep living after a copy of your brain is made, who is the real "you" now?? If they have to take your brain apart to make the downloadable copy, then you might effectively be killing yourself so that another "you" can begin life... (which might be an acceptable option if you're on your deathbed anyway) It sounds very interesting, and also kind of complicated and scary!

Author:	Snuff [ Tue May 24, 2005 11:32 pm ]
Post subject:
You assume your soul is anything more than your memories... Once your body gets to an age whereby it is no longer able to support your brain (it is after all simply a vessel for moving and powering this) you simply replace it with a new version of yourself... eventually you could even make this body free of genetic flaws and modified with technology enabling yourself to have features not native to the human species. Many such upgrades are only probably 10 years away for things like your eyes, enhanced night-vision, zoom functions and even recording options are all possibilities. Many people seem to get freaked out by such concepts but the way I see it is this not a more viable option currently than cyrogenics for long term space travel? Store your memories on the ships onboard computers and when you get there just microwave some fetuses and download the necessary skills that your expedition team would require into them. So long as there aint any Micro$oft software onboard you shouldnt have many probs I wait anxiously to be shot down by Gapp...

Author:	gappman [ Wed May 25, 2005 1:01 am ]
Post subject:
I aint gonna shoot you down bro..... i think this is a personal issue really, everyone has their own opinions, and I am gonna share mine... surprise surprise I cant seem to separate a person as memories ideas or thoughts with something else though, and I dont think memories are enough to actually live.... to live you gotta be there and living the moment... not trapped somewhere, a memory, lifeless, on a chip somewhere, that doesn't seem right to me. (reminds me of that song called ONE.... great song.... will be played at my funeral if i die b4 my mother). So I am gonna have to sit on the side of the Potato guy on this one. Also a person very much develops due to their environment, take identical twins as an example.... at birth, they are almost identical genetically, but exposure to different environmental factors as they age actually change their genetic structure slightly....so later oin life they are differnet people genetically..... this could be due to mutation caused by radiation (simply walking down the street with power lines is enough to actually cause this sort of damage, only minor, and there are plenty of other ways to expose as you are all well aware), or what about all the carcinogens and other mutogenic chemicals that we dont know about in our margarine...... Also different environment causes certain genes to be expressed differently. Then there are emotive changes in a humans development that make a person who they are. If I have a point here, cos I am kinda rambling, is that if your memories are placed in a machine, which is a different environment (whether that machine can feel or not), then you won't be the same person. I think we got too many people on the planet now, so preserving more memories, thoughts or whatever, will just make things more messy in the future. Some will say well you dont have to feed a mchaine, there will still be some sort of energy source needed though, as that standsthe way the US, china and india are churning through petrochemicals, there wont be much energy left on the planet to utilise in 50 years..... As for designer shit, well that really is going against natural selection and that will probably come around and bite us in the arse at some point. Now I gotta be careful what I say here cos most of you are aware that I design plants . And as much as I tell you I am not necesarrily doing it for a commercial outcome, some of you will be sceptical which is fair enough, as long as you respect me, I respect you back . I don't like how modern or western medicine is keeping people alive longer. Now that I live in a country where 4-5 yo girls are tarted up for pre school beauty pagents, I seriously think that the world would be crazy to really let people start designing humans..... we need variety in the gene pool..... pure breed animals is an example of what can go wrong... it has happened also in human life, when pumpkin farmer ned started breeding with his pumpkin farmer sister, or you could just look at the history of the british royal family for as good an example, fuckin inbreeds lolololacoaster..... The thing that does scare me though is the point where this technology will be available to the rich. People like Bush and Gates will be preserved first. Do we really want this? i think not. If bush and gates are preserved then i wopuld like to see bin laden and hussan preserved as well..... and some of those asisan leaders for good measure. Actually maybe this would be a good way to settle the worlds problems.... download all the leaders into a big mahine, and let them blow the shit ouyt of each other in cyberspace somewhere..... make them think it is going on in real life..... more ramble..... I guess I am unsure really how far this computer technology can go. i am aware that people are working on artificial intelligence, and making alot of progress. the way thiongs have moved in recent times in this field I find quite scary...... one question though.... why did my first, second and this one, my third computer all have a problem with crashing.... and one of those was a mac...... is this gonna be a problem that plagues computers forever? I know I don't wanna be half way through something important like looking through my farmers catalogue, and have to reboot and run scan disk half way through, especially when I am on vinegar stroke. And if that did happpen, would the memory be saved, or would I have to go back to the beginning of the catalogue and start again lol...... What do you reckon snuff?

Author:	Snuff [ Wed May 25, 2005 1:24 am ]
Post subject:
With the way technology is heading at the moment I personally believe that within say two more generations through the use of technology there will no reason why humans cannot live to say 200+ years... Now, the major issue that I see here is that like all new technologies, only the wealthy elite are able to afford them. So what you will see happening then is the creation of an entirely new caste system, normal 'single life' humans, and 'long life' yoda mother fuckers. So now you will have several generations of people slaving over the single lifetime of their master. Also, what I can see happening in the next 100 years is the creation of 4 distinct sub-groups of humans (kinda) Real Humans Much like how we are today, these will be viewed by themselves as the 'real' people... infact probably not to disimilar how white supremisists see their 'Aryan' race (scarey eh!!!) GE Humans Humans grown in the lab to a spec sheet... no gingas to be seen here! Modded Humans Peeps with chips and shit, computers and all kinds of cool gadgets... Cyborgs essentially. Robots Full blown C3PO kinda milarky, probably will look just like us but with superior calculation skills, strength and shit... So yeah, it'll be all happy pat-on-the-back for a while but then expect a big ass war to happen between these groups, hella Sci-Fi.... hella possible imo! (Oh yeah, all the above is copyright© to me)

$LAVE Collective Messageboard https://www.slave.co.nz/forum/

Download Contents of Your Brain onto a Computer? https://www.slave.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=107	Page 1 of 2

Author:	gappman [ Wed May 25, 2005 2:12 am ]
Post subject:
Is it ironic that we are talking about this freaky stuff as the last of the star wars movies is being shown in theatres? Maybe Lucas had foresight..... What ever happens, if there is some sort of "human nature" thing involved, there will always be war... people love to hate differences in other people or cultures.... personally I love the differences in other people and cultures, I like diversity.....

Author:	Rob [ Wed May 25, 2005 4:14 am ]
Post subject:
ok I' m really drunk ok???? 1. snuff dude I don't know if I missed yor point but you cannot pssibly be the same person if your memorys are passed to a new being,you have the same past but you do not continue as an ego. Surley you should get this because( Sardaukar hehehe) Herbert constantly went on about this with the creation of the Duncans and Tleilaxu. 2. You...Gapp are too brainy for me to argue with! 3.Lusas ripped everyone....but that doesn't mean I don't love StarWars fuck tiat shit.I live.I die.Just like all normal things.Who is gonna pay for your electric/gas/food/whatever?just another way for $lavery to continue...soon it will be clones are worth less that citizens....you know the drill! UI cant wait to die in some respects. Permement retirement.Problem is no beer or sex!and I supose metal either.

Author:	The Immortal Great Potato [ Wed May 25, 2005 4:57 am ]
Post subject:
Edit: Point #1 in Thrushbeard's post above pretty much covers the same ground this post does - I started typing before Thrushbeard posted (I'm not a "speed poster" by any stretch!) If, for argument's sake, a human consciouness could be perfectly copied and reproduced within a computer or another human body, I'm not convinced that the life of the original human that this consciousness has been copied from is actually continuing. If a perfect reproduction of myself, for example, was to turn around and take my life and then pose as me, the rest of the world might never notice the difference, and have no reason to suspect I'm not the same Steve (or Potato) I've always been (whoo hoo - lucky world ). But as far as I was concerned, I would have died at the hand of my treacherous double. With improvements in technology, it is conceivable that completely identical "doubles" of people could eventually be produced in the real world or simulated within a computer. These doubles may even believe themselves to be continuations of the lives of the originals that they were copied from, just "waking up one day" in an identical but copied body, with all of the memories and abilities of their original. The original, however, may have died in some horrific accident, or may still be alive but imprisoned in some top secret government interrogation complex... Hopefully the future isn't as nightmarish as that however - as long as no one makes a clone army of Jake the Musses to enforce the Imperial will on us all, that's a step in the right direction!!

Author:	Rob [ Wed May 25, 2005 5:02 am ]
Post subject:
yip,I got you there,my point exactlly.You as a clone or whatever may think your the same but the original would still cease to be (if dieing or whatever)You go to sleep and another wakes up but just cos you've got the same memories doesn't mean you can be in the others head...I'm making ti worse I think....

Author:	Rob [ Wed May 25, 2005 5:13 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: No, you're pretty much saying what I did - just more quickly! you want a fight eh? I'll swing and miss you, you sober standing 8foot tall target you!

Author:	Rob [ Wed May 25, 2005 5:19 am ]
Post subject:
yeah,so says your left hand!haha,hey thats not such a......

Author:	gappman [ Wed May 25, 2005 6:49 am ]
Post subject:
I dont think there is ever a concievable way, a machine could be the same as an organism of any description, that had its brain/memeroy/thoughts downloaded onto a chip. Nature is just way too complex for us to really copmprehend. Then throw in emotion and spirituality on top of pure nature and it all gets really pear shaped. People are studying biology still because we do not understand it completely yet. I predict man will never fully understand nature completely, and it would be a fool to say that they did understand nature completly and unequivocally.... it is just tooo complex. Way more complex than physics, math or binary code. these physical sciences are based on equations, where as biology is often idea based, and those ideas often change (ideas is a poor chiceof word bt cant for the life of me think of anything better). Bascially with physical science, thereis an end point or a yes and no answer. In biology there is also a maybe, sometimes and depends arguement to go with that answer.

Author:	Rob [ Wed May 25, 2005 7:12 am ]
Post subject:
Fuck dude were you ever on Universaty Challange?You should have been!!!! You should get a body like Crang to ride around in (you'd have to cut your body off first or is it you head from your body(laugh along thoughs in the know!)) As I said earlier tonight to some drunkin' monkey fucks, My old Audio Engineering tutors reckoned MIDI ports in the next few years in your head!!!!!Cool,bad techno wherever I go!!!

Page 1 of 2	All times are UTC+12:00
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group https://www.phpbb.com/