DOwnload your brain - never Die

MoeHawk

Just look at this,

2050 - and immortality is within our grasp

Britain's leading thinker on the future offers an extraordinary vision of life in the next 45 years

David Smith, technology correspondent
Sunday May 22, 2005
The Observer

Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good morning before being eaten and human consciousness will be stored on supercomputers, promising immortality for all - though it will help to be rich.

These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a crystal ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT.

'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. '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. 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, 44, has formed his mind-boggling vision of the future after graduating in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, spending four years working in missile design and the past 20 years working in optical networks, broadband network evolution and cybernetics in BT's laboratories. He admits his prophecies are both 'very exciting' and 'very scary'.

He believes that today's youngsters may never have to die, and points to the rapid advances in computing power demonstrated last week, when Sony released the first details of its PlayStation 3. It is 35 times more powerful than previous games consoles. 'The new PlayStation is 1 per cent as powerful as a human brain,' he said. 'It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain.'

The world's fastest computer, IBM's BlueGene, can perform 70.72 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) and is accelerating all the time. But anyone who believes in the uniqueness of consciousness or the soul will find Pearson's next suggestion hard to swallow. 'We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could possibly become conscious. There are quite a lot of us now who believe it's entirely feasible.

'We don't know how to do it yet but we've begun looking in the same directions, for example at the techniques we think that consciousness is based on: information comes in from the outside world but also from other parts of your brain and each part processes it on an internal sensing basis. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that's what we're trying to design in a computer. Not everyone agrees, but it's my conclusion that it is possible to make a conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence before 2020.'

He continued: 'It would definitely have emotions - that's one of the primary reasons for doing it. If I'm on an aeroplane I want the computer to be more terrified of crashing than I am so it does everything to stay in the air until it's supposed to be on the ground.

'You can also start automating an awful lots of jobs. Instead of phoning up a call centre and getting a machine that says, "Type 1 for this and 2 for that and 3 for the other," if you had machine personalities you could have any number of call staff, so you can be dealt with without ever waiting in a queue at a call centre again.'

Pearson, from Whitehaven in Cumbria, collaborates on technology with some developers and keeps a watching brief on advances around the world. He concedes the need to debate the implications of progress. 'You need a completely global debate. Whether we should be building machines as smart as people is a really big one. Whether we should be allowed to modify bacteria to assemble electronic circuitry and make themselves smart is already being researched.

'We can already use DNA, for example, to make electronic circuits so it's possible to think of a smart yoghurt some time after 2020 or 2025, where the yoghurt has got a whole stack of electronics in every single bacterium. You could have a conversation with your strawberry yogurt before you eat it.'

In the shorter term, Pearson identifies the next phase of progress as 'ambient intelligence': chips with everything. He explained: 'For example, if you have a pollen count sensor in your car you take some antihistamine before you get out. Chips will come small enough that you can start impregnating them into the skin. We're talking about video tattoos as very, very thin sheets of polymer that you just literally stick on to the skin and they stay there for several days. You could even build in cellphones and connect it to the network, use it as a video phone and download videos or receive emails.'

Philips, the electronics giant, is developing the world's first rollable display which is just a millimetre thick and has a 12.5cm screen which can be wrapped around the arm. It expects to start production within two years.

The next age, he predicts, will be that of 'simplicity' in around 2013-2015. 'This is where the IT has actually become mature enough that people will be able to drive it without having to go on a training course.

'Forget this notion that you have to have one single chip in the computer which does everything. Why not just get a stack of little self-organising chips in a box and they'll hook up and do it themselves. It won't be able to get any viruses because most of the operating system will be stored in hardware which the hackers can't write to. If your machine starts going wrong, you just push a button and it's reset to the factory setting.'

Pearson's third age is 'virtual worlds' in around 2020. 'We will spend a lot of time in virtual space, using high quality, 3D, immersive, computer generated environments to socialise and do business in. 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.

seo-ireland

:eek: :eek: :eek:

It'll happen though. I believe that this century is the last where people will actually 'die'. Maybe we will just miss the boat

Trojan

sf authors always talk about downloading brain contents, backing up, immortality, etc.

I am not the contents of my brain. I am a stream of consiousness [1]. If this physical brain dies, and another has those contents installed, then the result is someone who may think they're me, but who is not.

article wrote:

'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem,'

Maybe not for my employer, but I'll be pretty upset about it.

1. Ignoring sleep and unconsiousness for sake of simplicity.

impr0v

I don't know about him but I wouldn't like the clusterfuks in BT's administration department to be looking after my consciousness, it would be preferably to die in one piece.

Daelus

I don't want my brain to be downloaded! What's the point in that? Immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be, I hear.

And yes, it wouldn't be me, it would be a copy of my mind. What's the point? Unless it's some supergenius who can keep inventing new things after they're dead. But even that would be expoitative.

It's kind of morbid, too. And people who cared about you wouldn't want to be near this copy of your mind. Too painful.

Also, I don't want to talk to my strawberry yoghurt before I eat it!
"Hello, sir, good day to you, no, no, no, aaagh! Get off me! No!" Not my ideal way of eating.

1 User Name

I think there has to be a point in time where someone has to die. circle of life and what about the afterlife?? I know i'm getting a bit philisophical (sp?) but i wouldn't be too keen on the idea of immortality.

mp3guy

Not 2050, maybe 2100. I still have a magazine from i think 2000 that said there'd be videos phones everywhere by 2005, sure there is.

fade2black

Ah Ross had this theory in friends years ago....

ando

Hmm, good idea. Imagine you were an ugly git and you wanted a new body. you could kidnap some good looking chap, erase his mind and upload your mind to his host body. Now, where is Brad Pit these days.....

funky penguin

If I did that (and if I had the money, I would), I bet you anything that someone would accidently delete me.

ixoy

I'd recommend people read David Brin's "Kil'n People" which goes into some detail about backing up your memories into other bodies and the whole concept of who the "real" you is as a result. Pretty good book.

pwd

imo:
the "real" you as a continuing entity is an illusion. You are not who you were 5 years ago, you are something that evolved form that person, and you are as transient as s/he was.

By that rationale cloning your mind onto a computer, before dying, is the same as if you continued living, since neither the person you are in 5 years or the computer will actually be 'you': You, as you are now, will die soon either way.

Kazaanova

Even if the PS3 was one percent as powerful as the human brain, which it isnt, and we build a computer by 2050 that was as powerful as the human brain, which we wont, its still not as simple as hooking up your head to a PC.

I'm pretty sure when they say "as powerful as a human brain", they mean that it can carry out the same number of operations a second that the brain can. The brain isnt just like a really fast computer. What they're talking about here would be extremely difficult if not impossible.

funky penguin

Kazaanova wrote:

What they're talking about here would be extremely difficult if not impossible.

They said that about flight aswell.

tinkerbell

Pretty cool! Heh, I wanna be immortal

However, I doubt it'll happen Remember in the late 80s / early 90s, everyone thought that by the year 2000, we'd be living in a world like the Jetsons - that so didn't happen

I wanna live in a world like the Jetsons!!

4Xcut

Firstly, do you have any idea how horrible it would be to be immortal not to mention being trapped in a machine? Without being morbid death is great. It is a beautiful thing that make every moment we live unique. The very essence of what it is to be human is to be a finite being that has physical limitations.

Secondly the physical limitations are immeasurable It’s not just as we say "Right so then lads, 45677 billion GHz, here Seamus stick this plug in your ear, ha your immortal didn't expect that, didja."

The ethical implications are also of great concern, the emotions of your loved ones. A person is mind, body and soul, all three. This brings me on to my final point. Without getting in to a religious debate (mostly because I would never force my religious beliefs on someone else) but many people would believe in some form of an afterlife or something. What happens does your soul just turn to you and say “I’ll be out the back havin' a smoke, let me know when your dead."

The sheer madness of such a heresy to the human being and the human spirit is horrifying at best. I for one would rather die now than live for ever.

Pet

Unless you find some way of making the databanks indestructable, then you're not going to be "immortal". War is always going to be present, and that'll see to it that you don't live for too long as a machine either. It would be just another lifetime, in a different form.

seo-ireland

Pet wrote:

Unless you find some way of making the databanks indestructable, then you're not going to be "immortal".

Ever heard of 'interplanetary backup'. Come to think of it when you can backup, cloning is a breeze. S**t now that's scary. Imagine an army of Bertie Ahern killing machines!

pickarooney

Are those machines who kill Bertie Ahern or machines who kill and look like Bertie Ahern? Just so I know before I invest.

MrPinK

Why accept the limitations of biology, I say. Time to shuffle off this mortal coil.

1 User Name wrote:

and what about the afterlife??

How foolish will you feel if you die and nothing happens though. You'll wish you had gone for the computer option.

I for one would rather die now than live for ever

Not dying of natural causes isn't exactly the same as living for ever. You could just Ctrl-Alt-Del after a few hundred years.

seo-ireland

pickarooney wrote:

Are those machines who kill Bertie Ahern or machines who kill and look like Bertie Ahern? Just so I know before I invest.

Does this answer your question?

Repli

The title is a bit misleading "Never die"
What would be created is a copy of you at a particular point in time, (all your memories, etc would be copied over at that point) and then providing the technology is there, you have 2 living beings. You and the copy of you in the computer. Just like having a twin. You both live completely non-connected lives from that point on though. Only difference being, your life ends, the life contained in the computer does not.

pickarooney

If we'd just spent more time studying the humble amoeba, we'd have cracked this clone-yourself-become-immortal business ages ago.

Infini

Who'd want their brain downloaded into a computer. It'd be better to make a younger version of yourself and transfer your consiousness into that. I wouldn't want to live in a computer when somebody could screw with my mind.....

Flukey

We will never get to a time where we can't die. It wouldn't be much fun anyhow. Even a lot of old people now find life hard, because so much of what and who they knew in their lives have gone. Living forever wouldn't be all its cracked up to be.

monkeyfudge

Will it be like the movie TRON? That would be so cool....

SkepticOne

Of course this is just a PR stunt by BT pretending to be a visionary company. Every few years they try something like this and the press lap it up. In 1996 they pretended to have a project called 'Soul Catcher' which was a chip that recorded all your thoughts and emotions.

But it was Dr Chris Winter from British Telecom’s Martlesham Heath Laboratories, near Ipswich who really upped the ante and sent science watchers into a spin last year, when he mentioned BT’s ideas for the ‘Soul Catcher’. A micro-memory chip, designed to be implanted into the human brain to record life as it happens.

‘This is the end of death... By combining this information with a record of the person’s genes, we could recreate a person physically, emotionally and spiritually,’ announced Dr Winter. ‘All we think, all our emotions and creative brain activity will be able to be copied onto silicon. This is immortality in the truest sense - future generations will not die.’

Basically, BT is a monopoly telco and needs to be seen to be at the cutting edge of technology so they put out this sort of thing. In the 60s and 70s (in their state-owned incarnation) they used to have exhibitions demonstrating exciting technologies like videoconferencing and the paperless office. In reality, BT, like Eircom, are very conservative in the way they operate their business and only embrace new technologies (like the Internet and broadband) when existing revenues become threatened.

1 User Name

MrPinK wrote:

How foolish will you feel if you die and nothing happens though. You'll wish you had gone for the computer option.

I won't feel foolish because i'll be dead!! but even so how good would the computer option be?

On a lighter side, every film that gives computers too much power (Terminator) always ends up in disaster!! do people really want computers to be more powerful than the human brain, therefore, making the human brain obselete?

vibe666

movies predicting computers taking over the world always end in disaster because that's what sells, not because that's what's going to happen.

I for one welcome your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

where do I sign?

the othger thing of course is that they put you into a computer and before l;ong they can recreate that computer small enough to have a working cybernetic copy of you ala terminator (only without the camp accent).

or even create a clone from your DNA and stick you back into that until it wears out and then again and again ad infinitum.

although I've also heard about anti-aging and rejuvanating techniques that will prevent our bodies ever wearing out in the first place.

the only reason we get old and die in the first place is a switch in our genes telling us to do so. turn that off and we'll live a lot longer, anything up to 140 years (of active, independant life) from what I've read and by that time they should have figured out how to rejuninate us to whatever age suits us best, say 25-30.

as for the 'not extending life unnaturally' thing, you're already doing it if you're over 30 or so, as that would have been your life expectancy a few thousand years ago. now you+'re quite likely to make it to 80 or more with current medicine and in 50 years who knows what things will be like.

ionapaul

Anyone actually read the posts by Trojan and Repli? THE DOWNLOADED COPY OF YOUR MIND IS NOT YOU. It is only a copy. You will still die when you die, the copy might live on, but that is of no consequence to those wanting immortality. Cloning is equally as misleading - the clone is only an exact copy. If you were cloned on a Tuesday and were hit by a truck on a Wednesday, you are dead. The clone, a completely seperate lifeform, would live on, acting and thinking as you did (at least at first) but what does that matter to you? You're dead.

toiletduck

vibe666 wrote:

although I've also heard about anti-aging and rejuvanating techniques that will prevent our bodies ever wearing out in the first place.

i dont think it's a good idea for everybody to be living forever, we would run outta space! People need to die to make room for the next generation. I for one wouldnt want to be immortal, can you imagine how bored you would be after a few hundered years?

GeorgeBailey

funky penguin wrote:

If I did that (and if I had the money, I would), I bet you anything that someone would accidently delete me.

So long as CTRL+Z still works in 2050 you'll be alright.

seamus

ionapaul wrote:

Anyone actually read the posts by Trojan and Repli? THE DOWNLOADED COPY OF YOUR MIND IS NOT YOU. It is only a copy. You will still die when you die, the copy might live on, but that is of no consequence to those wanting immortality. Cloning is equally as misleading - the clone is only an exact copy. If you were cloned on a Tuesday and were hit by a truck on a Wednesday, you are dead. The clone, a completely seperate lifeform, would live on, acting and thinking as you did (at least at first) but what does that matter to you? You're dead.

This and cloning are subtley different. Cloning creates a second person using the same genetic code as you, like identical twins, whereas copying your brain is a copy of *you*.

Whether or not this copy will actually be you (i.e. you will be aware) and not just someone/something who thinks, feels and remembers just like you, is a philosophical issue.

I have a belief that space-time and thought/consciousness are inextricably linked. As pwd says, you are not the person you were 5 years ago. In fact, you are not the same person you were 5 seconds ago. If I had stood up and gone to the toilet 2 minutes ago, I wouldn't be here right now typing this. In fact, *me* as a I know me right now wouldn't exist at all. I am the sum of all of my experiences up to this point. That's a very simplistic way of looking at it. It holds up (and actually supports for me) the idea of parallel universes. I'm just one of me, randomly choosing each path each time it comes to it.
My own theory does have *some* trouble with memory loss however. We've all been so drunk that we've forgotten what happened. Yet we're still here. So for me, it can't be just memory that makes up who we are - even if I don't remember being that drunk, the experience has made me who I am now...

ionapaul

Each individual's (even identical twins or clones) brain is physically different, and I believe (as I'm sure most do) that the physical dimension of our mind contributes to the way we think, process data and come to decisions. This physical environment cannot be replicated either by another brain (if we had the technology to download our consiousness from one human brain to another) or by any computer (at least, any technology in the current or near future). Replicating each individual's brain structure, down to the molecular level, in addition to data transfer, would be needed for an exact copy of your mind. Aside from that, as we mentioned above, after downloading (copying rather than transferring data) you are left with two individual minds and not one. No immortality for the original mind.

seamus

ionapaul wrote:

Each individual's (even identical twins or clones) brain is physically different, and I believe (as I'm sure most do) that the physical dimension of our mind contributes to the way we think, process data and come to decisions. This physical environment cannot be replicated either by another brain (if we had the technology to download our consiousness from one human brain to another) or by any computer (at least, any technology in the current or near future). Replicating each individual's brain structure, down to the molecular level, in addition to data transfer, would be needed for an exact copy of your mind. Aside from that, as we mentioned above, after downloading (copying rather than transferring data) you are left with two individual minds and not one. No immortality for the original mind.

Perhaps I'm reading you wrong, but I don't think the physical dimension of our brain necessarily make up who we are. Sure, it does contribute to the way we think, but there are plenty of people who have suffered brain damage or had parts of the brain removed, and found themselves with new abilities, new strengths. Does this make them necessarily not the same person they were before?

(Moving to Humanities)

sleepwalker

this is up there with hover cars and robots in everyones house by 2001 to be honest. interesting to read all the same.

vibe666

hover cars are almost here, and robots in the home aren't far off now either.

http://www.moller.com/
http://asimo.honda.com/

the 21st century is going to be an exciting time to live in.

ionapaul

seamus wrote:

Perhaps I'm reading you wrong, but I don't think the physical dimension of our brain necessarily make up who we are. Sure, it does contribute to the way we think, but there are plenty of people who have suffered brain damage or had parts of the brain removed, and found themselves with new abilities, new strengths. Does this make them necessarily not the same person they were before?

(Moving to Humanities)

The argument is that the actual physical makeup of our brains (incredibly complex and something that will be impossible to exactly replicate for the foreseeable future) actually effects how our mind processes information and comes to decisions - you only think like you because of this unique setup of synapses, etc...in the brain facilitate this manipulation of data. You wouldn't think in the same way you do, if the physical location of the mind was completely different.

I would think when someone's brain gets damaged, they are obviously the same person but have changed. But transferring / downloading the contents of a brain to a completely different physical location results in a copy that is different from the very second the data transfer is complete, becuase the thought processes, etc...cannot be the same as before. To sum up, I do believe that the physical dimension of the brain is an essential part of who we are, and something that is mind-numbingly (:)) difficult to replicate.

ionapaul

As a short follow on, to go back to your earlier point about the philosophical issue here, it is my belief that unless the physical aspect of the mind is exactly replicated, the copy is not an exact copy. Only with an exact (to the very molecule) copy and with perfect transfer of data from the original mind to the new location, would I begin to consider the philosophical issue (is the 'new' you the same as the old you?)...which I can tell you now I would have much trouble working out!

Catsmokinpot

impr0v wrote:

I don't know about him but I wouldn't like the clusterfuks in BT's administration department to be looking after my consciousness, it would be preferably to die in one piece.

exactly i wouldnt like the same fukwits at bt copying my brain who couldn't even get my broadband order sorted

who would volunteer for such a procedure? they would want to be crazy

Sleepy

I think Trojan is right: that we're all streams of conciousness. I am the sum total of my biological makeup, my environment and my decisions (or those taken for me by parents before I was old enough to make them myself).

Hal1

I agree with Sleepy how can they replicate our exact consciousness, they couldn't co-exist during this process anyway. :eek:

Catsmokinpot

the only way to prove that it is possible would be to get your brain and get ur computer and hook them both up together and do a sort of a "live update" while the person is concious and see if that works, if they lose consciousness at all during the process, then i wouldnt trust it........

Eoghan-psych

MoeHawk wrote:

Pearson, 44, has formed his mind-boggling vision of the future after graduating in applied mathematics and theoretical physics,

If that said "psychology" I'd take it much more seriously.

Yes, the engineers and IT guys might be able to make an electronic person. Yes, a machine may be made which is essentially and electronic human. I don't, however, think there is any chance of this "downloading" malarky.

The brain works in a *fundamentally* different way to normal computers.

The most powerful supercomputers today work at about the same level as profoundly retarded small children. Talking yoghurts? I don't think so.

Ardent

Two words: Vanilla Sky

Eoghan-psych

Pet wrote:

Unless you find some way of making the databanks indestructable, then you're not going to be "immortal". War is always going to be present, and that'll see to it that you don't live for too long as a machine either. It would be just another lifetime, in a different form.

The brain is so far from indestructible as to make MS look stable - the only reason we don't get as many BSoD [Blue Screens of Death] is because of how we are wired up. In the brain, when memory access errors and page faults and 404's happen, it's no big deal - the brain just works around it.

Computers today work like A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K

The brain works more along the lines of:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P
| \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /|
B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q
| \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
C-D-E-F-G-H-I-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S

Ardent

Eoghan-psych wrote:

The brain is so far from indestructible as to make MS look stable - the only reason we don't get as many BSoD [Blue Screens of Death] is because of how we are wired up. In the brain, when memory access errors and page faults and 404's happen, it's no big deal - the brain just works around it.

Computers today work like A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K

The brain works more along the lines of:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P
| \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /|
B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q
| \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
C-D-E-F-G-H-I-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S

Are you a brain scientist or something?

Stark

Neural Nets can be easily simulated in software these days.

There are many alternatives being developed also, all taking ideas from how they think the brain "might work" but implemented at a higher level so it doesn't need to run on a neural net.

Eoghan-psych

Ardent wrote:

Are you a brain scientist or something?

I wish! I'm a psych postgrad with a penchant for neuro stuff.

Eoghan-psych

Stark wrote:

Neural Nets can be easily simulated in software these days.

Absolutely - but they're still only simulations, it is a purely software level net. There hs been some fascinating work on ground-up systems, and in processor design etc to mimic the way the nervous system works [anyone who's interested - SciAm has a really good review piece a few weeks ago if memory serves]. Currently, they can almost make a small retina work sort of a little bit as if it's kind of like a small part of the human retina.

Amazing, exciting, fascinating and rapidly advancing it may be - but all that development in 50 years? Methinks not. Technology does advance at astonishing rates - but not *that* astonishing. Remember all those "what life will be like in 2000" stories?

the_syco

25 years ago, people expected us to live on the moon by 2001:rolleyes:

Also, if you download your brain, it'll be infomation only. In the same way that in the past people wrote what they knew in books. Even if the computer could think, you and it would be "alive" at the same time, thus when you died, you would die. The only around this was if they found a way to hook your brain up to a server, and keep it alive. But you'd only be concious, and people would extract answers from you(proberly find a way to ensure you tell the truth), and then thats it. You wouldn't be alive, as to be alive means you can move, think, feel, etc. You'd be less than someone in a vegetable state.