SCI/TECH: Brain downloads 'possible by 2050'

Ian Pearson, Head of British Telecom's futurology unit believes that it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer by 2050. He bases these assumptions on the release of the new Playstation 3 which is 1% as powerful as the human brain and 35x more powerful than the previous console.



Ian Pearson goes on to say that the new Playstation 3 is 1% as powerful as the human brain and believes Playstation 5 will be as powerful as the human brain. He also believes that brain preserving technology will initially be something exclusively for the rich but the middle and lower class should see this option around 2070.

Pearson also goes on to predict that it will be possible to build a fully conscious computer as early as 2020.

[edit on 5/24/2005 by Simulacra]

[edit on 5/24/2005 by Simulacra]

[edit on 5/24/2005 by Simulacra]

[edit on 5/24/2005 by Simulacra]

ahhhhh... why does Arnold Swartzenegar(sp?) pop into my head????

perhaps Terminator series and that other movie where people can die and DL thier memory into a cyborg or replicated human..

Interesting..

All we goto do is wait now, to see if Demolition man fifulls its proficies, its already 1 for 2..

so if i am alive and i dl my brain, wouldnt that make me 2 different entities? Would we be collective and share one thought or be 2 seperate beings?

Lysergic, I spent a lot of time thinking about this question back in 1980s, and there is no definite answer, except in the Buddhist vein, that we don't really exist in any case.

I would like to comment that Ray Kurzweil has written on this very subject (migrating to a new hardware platform) a while ago, in this book "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which I highly recommend.

He should get all the credit.

If it were possible to download your brain to a supercomputer to achieve immortality. Then what would happen if you a virus attacks the software? I can only assume the result will be much like if a neurological virus attacks the brain, information would get lost, scrambled and possibly impossible to replace. Which then leads me to the conclusion that your brain would have to be 'backed up' in a way to prevent this from happening.

But the puzzle gets even more confusing. If your essence is backed up, then would that enable your brain to hold conversations with your duplicate brain. If so, what new knowledge can be obtained from these conversations? What would be the point?

Simulacra, yeah, they say if you try to talk to yourself during a lucid dream then the conversation will be interesting.

I think Pearson's theory is just plain stupid. He's basing his statements on the technology of the damn Playstation 3?

The human brain will never be "downloaded" or copied in the way that this article is reporting. It is impossible. This guy's an idiot.

Zip

I don't think the human brain can fully downloaded into some type of machine...

However, I think the human brain pattern can be copied into a machine...

For example, can a computer's CPU be downloaded into another machine...?

The human brain is a process of biological electricity. We can't duplicate the human brain any more than we can reanimate the dead, which is a comparable feat in more than one way.

Zip

This sounds like a marketing ploy for the PS3. Still, talking of the concept, it would be feasible, if you could somehow interpret the signals from the brain, transmit them, and decode them again on the other end; similar to the idea of the telephone where you are simply taking information and changing its energy form. What a back-up of your brain won't be able to do is think and to create new ideas from nothing. We don't use the term "divine" to describe "inspiration" for nothing.

Masked Avatar:

Would you mind if i download 1/2 your brain?

I would love to put Republicans in their place a la Masked!

That might work for signals that are live and active and being output to something (i.e., for controlling artificial limbs). What about all of the infinite dormant thoughts and memories in the brain? The brain is not a hard drive. We think by connecting billions of neurons in different patterns, not two "telephone-like" neurons with one line between them.

Simply put, the human brain is too dynamic for this process to occur. Ever.

Zip

I think Pearson's theory is just plain stupid. He's basing his statements on the technology of the damn Playstation 3?

The human brain will never be "downloaded" or copied in the way that this article is reporting. It is impossible. This guy's an idiot.

Oh your an expert are you? Then maybe you should send a copy of your CV off and replace him as his years of experience obviously mean nothing.
If people had gone round and stuck by retarded statements like 'it's impossible' then we would all be living in caves still.
As the Playstation 3 is going to be one of the most powerful in-home devices available very soon, with 2 terraflops of power, it makes a good example.
If it is 35 times more powerful than the PS2 and it will have 1% of the power of the human brain, then in theory the PS4 will have 35% of the power of the human brain and the PS5 will have 1225% of the power, so in theory it will actually be over 10x faster. Gaming consoles appear to be on the forefront of computer technology and at a relatively low price, so they are an ideal example and somthing that everyone can relate with.
That, of course, would be if it closely followed the current trend.

The most difficult thing to overcome that I can forsee is some form of non invasive (or at least not damaging) bio interface that is also capable of transferring data and at a high enough speed.

Also the fact that experiemtns have been carried out using living matter in conjunction with standard silicon based electronics, I think that the difference between a chemical coimputer and an electrical computer is not as great as people might think. At least it is becoming less and less so.

[edit on 26-5-2005 by AgentSmith]

The human brain is a process of biological electricity. We can't duplicate the human brain any more than we can reanimate the dead, which is a comparable feat in more than one way.

I'm sorry but it is not really comparable if you are implying reanimating a corpse, once the brain has dyed then the cells will degrade and will be obviously damaged far beyond repair, both in the brain and the rest of the body.
The blood will be clotting and you will be left with a lump of rotten meat.

What is being proposed here is to make a copy of the electrical pathways in your brain. When your brain 'programs' anything in like a memory, a reaction to stimuli, etc it forms a neural pathway which basically stays the same. Like a computer program. Data goes in, data comes out. All the computer is doing is making a copy of this.

This cannot be compared to reanimating corpses.. sorry.

can i download info. into my brain???

this is what i want...

AgentSmith:

What is being proposed here is to make a copy of the electrical pathways in your brain. When your brain 'programs' anything in like a memory, a reaction to stimuli, etc it forms a neural pathway which basically stays the same. Like a computer program. Data goes in, data comes out. All the computer is doing is making a copy of this.

I agree with you on this. The copy of the person's brain pattern is more likely than and actual download...

However, there may be some ethical issues. what happened when the organic version and the robotic version of that same person interact with each other...instant Deja Vu!

Interfacing with electrical signals is completely different from the "downloading" that Pearson is talking about. This verbiage speaks of reproducing a brain electronically, which cannot happen, because, even though we are talking about making a reproduction, we are still talking about inciting artificial intelligence.

Though I have always contended that the only way we can create a computing unit capable of demonstrating artificial intelligence is by modeling it after the human brain, this is still not possible using 1s and 0s (ons and offs), or even, in my opinion, quantum computing.

I say again, the human brain operates with dynamics that cannot be reproduced by man, even though we can create implants for artificial ears and all kinds of wonders like that. A faster, more powerful computer does not equal faster, more powerful understanding of neurological processes, theories about life and the universe, and et cetera.

The brain is not a network of connections. There is more to the electrical connections in the brain than just ons and offs - neurons have sensitivity levels which constantly change. Neural pathways, as well, constantly change, so even if this were possible, the brain you download is different from that same brain two seconds later. Processing power will not reproduce the ability of the brain to be so dynamic and constantly changing. Ever.

Zip

EDIT: I'd like to add that the man knows about brains, and maybe he knows about computers, but his ideas are fantastic and to be able to proclaim what he is proclaiming, he must have intricate understanding of all frontiers of modern technology, electronics, computing, and neurology, and that is too much for one man. This is the work of an institution.

I call him an idiot because I can. I call everyone idiots.


[edit on 26-5-2005 by Zipdot]

[edit on 26-5-2005 by Zipdot]

I doubt that we will download our minds anytime soon. Basing this off of a PS3 doesn't seem to lend to credibility. I mean we have supercomputers that are quite possibly thousands of times more powerful than a PS3 and we don't have people downloading their minds.

I don't think that this will be about sheer power in a computer. I think it has to do with inovation. Power is nothing for a computer if it can't use it. I think it's mostly a matter of copying a persons electrical signals and memories. However what happens if a hacker downloads himself? Couldn't his computer "clone" (I use that term lightly) in theory hack entire nations or something?

Of course just imagine the ability to in practicality search your inner thoughts simply by asking the computer. This could in theory be one of the worlds most potend psycological tools. On the other hand I wonder, would it be possible for these copies to "evolve" like the human mind? Who's to say that your computer couldn't change personalities? You could in theory be talking to your dark side given time. I can only imagine what would happen if I were downloaded and given access to the internet.

And for some reason Ghost in the Shell: SAC comes to mind.

[edit on 5/26/2005 by cyberdude78]

This is already being discussed. Please see this thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Qwas
This is already being discussed. Please see this thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

You can have a thread on ATS as well as ATSNN regarding the same topic.

We may well get to the point where a readily available computer has the capability to contain all the memory of an individual. What we don't have are sensors with fine enough resolution to distinguish precise patterns of brain activity and until such sensors are also available then any thought of a brain "download" is just wishful thinking. Bear in mind that any computer containing all the data in any human mind would also be just as prone to mistakes as a human mind.

Also bear in mind that thought & memories are stored as chemical, not electrical reactions. True, when the neuron fires its output can be detected electrically, but when it isn't firing it can only be replicated chemically.

Moreover, as someone pointed out earlier, our brain cells have the ability to change the makeup of their chemical concoctions. Unless one had the ability to take a complete snapshot (if you will) of all the current electrical activity inside a brain and to repeat that snapshot extremely rapidly over a sustained period of time, then all one would have would be a snapshot of what a particular brain was doing at the time of the snapshot.

[edit on 27-5-2005 by Astronomer68]

[edit on 27-5-2005 by Astronomer68]