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In many ways this news article demonstrates the gap between sci-fi and reality. Cyberpunk imagined a world in which human minds could be uploaded to machines, and humans, as immortal cyborgs, could live alongside androids who performed ‘the work’. Medical science has made incredible leaps – with his titanium chest Edward Evans (further) illustrates William’s and Bendelow’s (1998, pp. 79-85) claim that humans have become increasingly plastic and bionic. However, through scientific enhancement, Evans gains a ‘normal’ life rather than superhuman/transhuman superiority. The ethical complexity is therefore diminished; technologies which ‘equalize’ opportunity are accompanied by far less fear than technologies which promise superhuman performances for the few that can afford them (if/when the technologies are developed).

The same tension exists within digital technologies and education. If the market alone is allowed to determine what technologies are developed, there’s every chance that the privileged few will be given access to more tools to increase their in opportunities, rather than tools which increase opportunity for all. Of course, this is a simplistic reading though, in which technology is still viewed as a tool rather than part of the sociocultural fabric of life.

 

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The immortalist: Uploading the mind to a computer – BBC News

Tags: edc17, immortality, cyborg, neuroscience, scifi, mind uploading
February 06, 2017 at 03:41AM

 

Commentary:

This BBC article from 2016 provides interesting perspectives on the possibility of cyborg futures:

The millionaire (Dmitry Itskov) funding research into uploading human minds to computers: “For the next few centuries I envision having multiple bodies, one somewhere in space, another hologram-like, my consciousness just moving from one to another.”

The neuroscientist (Dr Randal Koene) working with/for the millionaire: “All of the evidence seems to say in theory it’s possible – it’s extremely difficult, but it’s possible.”

A neuroscientist (Dr Ken Hayworth) involved in mapping tiny parts of mice brains, and who has no ethical objections to the notion of mind-uploading: “The idea of mapping a whole human brain with the existing technology that we have today is simply impossible.”

A neurobiologist (Prof Rafael Yuste) who has ethical concerns:  “The pathway that leads with the new neural technologies to our understanding of the brain is the same pathway that could lead, theoretically, to the possibility of mind uploading. Scientists that are involved in these methods have the responsibility to think ahead. If you could replicate the mind and upload it into a different material, you can in principle clone minds. These are complicated issues because they deal with the core of defining what is a person.”

Visionaries or mad people? The quest for immortality through cyborg lives persists..