Posted on 03/03/2012 12:53:29 PM PST by RoosterRedux
At the recent Global Future 2045 International Congress held in Moscow, 31-year-old media mogul Dmitry Itskov told attendees how he plans to create exactly that kind of immortality, first by creating a robot controlled by the human brain, then by actually transplanting a human brain into a humanoid robot, and then by replacing the surgical transplant with a method for simply uploading a person’s consciousness into a surrogate ‘bot. He thinks he can get beyond the first phase--to transplanting a working brain into a robot--in just ten years, putting him on course to achieve his ultimate goal--human consciousness completely disembodied and placed within a holographic host--within 30 years time.
Pushing aside all the extremely difficult technological challenges for a moment, there are a couple of important to considerations tied up in Itskov’s vision. First, while the later phases of his project are so far out as to seem ridiculous, phase one is totally feasible (in fact it’s already being done). From there, the leap to phase two--human brainpower transplanted into a mechanical robot--is a quite a leap. But if we are willing to allow that it might be possible even within the next 30 years, then we have to consider a further possibility: that many people alive today--like the twenty-something author of this piece--could be confronted with this kind of technology in their lifetimes.
Which is terrifying and amazing and disconcerting all at the same time.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Un-human
Good movie.
David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla in the film...and is well cast.
“And I am bringing my cats!;-)”
I’m holding out for a pair of lamb cuddling lions!
The computer download would be temporary until the data could be uploaded to a waiting clone/brain. It does raise issues about what a soul is but that’s what makes it fun to think about imo. I think any ultra evolved alien life forms would have to be immortal this way or another. Any intelligent species would necessarily have to cross this boundary at some point to advance.
The movie has a couple of other assets, and their name is Scarlett Johansson.
≤}B^)
On the one hand yes, it would be a different “person” but IF it could be done, as Erasmus wrote, the new version would not know that. Let's say that in your sleep someone came in, drugged you so that you did not wake up in the process, downloaded your memories, and then uploaded them into an identical body that had whatever was in it's brain wiped clean. This new “you” was placed, sleeping, in an identical bedroom built in lab elsewhere, with curtains drawn exactly the same, etc. For sake of argument “you” sleep alone, without spouse, pet, or roommate in the house. The lab personnel then provide an identical stimulus to wake both versions of “you” at the same time, say a car alarm going off outside. At that time would not both entities feel exactly the same, until such time as the copied “you” found out the bedroom was located in a lab somewhere?
As for Quantum Physics, why does that prohibit copying a mind? If our memories are bits of code in electrical impulses in brain cells, why could they not some day be replicated?
I saw The Prestige, by the way.
Here’s one from The Outer Limits right along those lines. It’s pretty good:
“Captain Cotter McCoy (Lou Diamond Phillips) is the first of a new breed of soldier. As part of a top secret program overseen by Dr. Greg Olander (Robert Joy), General Langston Chase (Dale Wilson), and Cotter’s friend, Colonel Pete Butler (Scott Kraft), the contents of McCoy’s brain can be temporarily transferred into an android version of himself. This process creates a virtually indestructible fighting machine with the smarts and experience of a human being.
“But, one day something goes wrong. During the transfer, the real McCoy’s body is blasted with electricity, stopping his heart, inflicting serious brain damage and leaving Cotter’s mind trapped in the android body...”
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-outer-limits/identity-crisis-21493/
This isn’t immortality.
Even if every memory and personality could be uploaded into a robot, it would still be a robot, and the person from whom the memory and personality were copied would still be the same person. The robot might last longer, but the person would still die.
I also think that, no matter how well the person’s memories and personality were transferred into the robot, the behavior of the robot version of the person would soon start to deviate from that of the original person. It eventually would not behave much like a human being. That would be an unavoidable consequence of development guided by mechanical programming instead of biological processes.
I think it is a silly experiment myself and will go nowhere. But a lot of scientific experimentation produces knowledge and products useful in other unintended applications. Viagra is one example. It was develop to treat hypertension and angina and is now being used to treat altitude sickness and that other ailment discussed by Bob Dole.;-)
As a Christian, I think the whole idea of non-Salvation-based immortality is a non-starter. Yet, as a science buff, I am fascinated by the work being done to extend life dramatically.
Contrary to what the popular culture thinks, I believe old people have much greater capacity to make a contribution to society than younger people. Wisdom and maturity come with age...and the more age, the better.
As for me, I am in my sixties and feel like I am just getting started.
I suspect that the ultimate processes of the brain are mediated by quantum effects. If this is true, then any attempt to "read out" the exact state of the brain would unavoidably scramble those quantum states.
My analogy with the proposed quantum-secure communications is that any attempt to intercept the data stream alters it and renders it undecipherable; in addition, it gives the legitimate receiver indication that there was an attempted interception. The single exception is if the interceptor happens to have chosen the exact correct decoding sequence, which would be astronomically improbable.
You forgot to mention "cunning."
≤}B^)
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