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..