Can you upload a human mind into a computer? A neuroscientist ponders what’s possible
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Is it possible to download your mind awareness on a computer? Two things, 15 years old, New Delhi, India
Concept, cool but perhaps a little creeping, known as the loading of the mind. Think about it as a way to create a copy of your mind, transfer your mind and your awareness of a computer. There you will live digitally, perhaps forever. You will have awareness of yourself, you will keep your memories and still feel that you are. But you will not have a body.
Within that simulation environment, you can do anything you do in realistic life – eating, driving a car, and exercising. You can also do impossible things in the real world, such as walking across walls, flying like a bird or traveling to other planets. The only limit is what can mimic science realistically.
maybe? Theoretical, download the mind It should be possible. However, you may wonder how it can happen. After all, the researchers have I barely began to understand the brain.
However, science has a busy record in converting theoretical possibilities into reality. Just because the concept seems terrible, it does not mean that it is difficult to imagine it is impossible. Considering that science took humanity to the moon, the human genome sequence and the elimination of smallpox. These things were also unlikely.
As a brain scientist studying perceptionI completely expect to download the mind to one day become a reality. But starting today, we are anywhere near.
Live in a laptop
The brain is often considered A more complicated being in the well -known universe. Repeating all this complexity will be very difficult.
One requirements: The brain that has been loaded needs the same inputs it has always been. In other words, the outside world must be available to it. Even inside a computer, you will need to simulate your senses, multiply the ability to see, hear, smell, touch, feel – as well as move, flash, discover the heart rate, adjust the biological clock rhythm and do thousands of other things.
But why is this? Can’t you only be in a pure mental bubble, inside the computer without sensory entry?
It is known that people are deprived of their senses, such as their position in complete darkness, or in a room without a sound Sensory deprivationAnd that is considered A form of torture. People who face a problem sensing their physical signals – thirst, hunger, pain, itching – It often faces mental health challenges.
For this reason, the mind should be loaded to work, simulate your senses and the digital environment you follow exceptionally accurate. Even minor deformities can have serious mental consequences.
Currently, researchers do not have the power of computing, much less than scientific knowledge, to perform such simulation.
Wip billions of pin heads
The first task of loading a successful mind: wiping, then setting the 3D structure of the human brain. This requires equivalent Unusually advanced MRI machine The brain can separate in an advanced way. Currently, scientists are only in the early stages of brain mapping – including A whole brain of fly and Small parts of the mouse brain.
Within a few decades, a full map of the human mind It may be possible. But even the seizure of everyone’s identities 86 billion nerve cellsThey are all smaller than the head of the pin, in addition to Telecom trillionIt is still not enough. Downloading this information alone in a computer will not achieve much. This is because every cell is nervous He constantly set his workAnd this should be similar, too.
It is difficult to know the number of levels that researchers should go to make the brain simulation. Is it sufficient to stop at the molecular level? Now, no one knows.
2045? 2145? Or later?
knowledge How the brain calculates things It may provide a shortcut. This would allow researchers to simulate the basic parts of the brain only, not all biological privacy. It is easier to manufacture a new car that knows how the car works, compared to trying and repeating an existing car without any knowledge of its internal business.
However, this approach requires scientists to discover how the brain creates ideas – how groups of thousands gather in millions of neurons to make calculations that make the human mind beating life. It is difficult to express how much we stay from this.
Here is another way: replace 86 billion real nerve cells with artificial one, one at the same time. This approach would make the mind a much easier download. Currently, though, scientists cannot replace even one real neuron with artificial ones.
But consider the pace of technology It accelerates greatly. It is reasonable to expect amazing improvements in the power of computing and artificial intelligence in the coming decades.
Another certain thing: Certainly, the mind’s load will not face a problem to find funding. Many billionaires appear Happy to give up many of their money To get a snapshot in living forever.
Although the challenges are enormous and the path forward is uncertain, I think it will one day load the mind a reality. The most optimistic expectations 2045Just 20 years from now. Others say the end of this century.
But in my opinion, each of these predictions may be very optimistic. I will be shocked if loading the mind is running for the next percent. But this may happen in 200 – which means that the first person to live forever can be born in your life.
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This article has been republished from ConversationAn independent, non -profit news organization brings you facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. Written by: Dopmer Rahinvand Georgia Institute of Technology
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Dobromir Rahnev has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Maritime Research Office.