The strange neuroscience of immortality
July 30, 2012
Kenneth Hayworth with his Automatic Tape-collecting Lathe Ultramicrotome (ATLUM) device (credit: Kenneth Hayworth)
Neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth believes that he can live forever, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. But first he has to die.
“The human race is on a beeline to mind uploading: We will preserve a brain, slice it up, simulate it on a computer, and hook it up to a robot body,” he says.
He wants that brain to be his brain. He wants his 100 billion neurons and more than 100 trillion synapses to be encased in a block of transparent, amber-colored resin — before he dies of natural causes.
The connectome grand theory
To understand why Hayworth wants to plastinate his own brain you have to understand his field — connectomics, a new branch of neuroscience. A connectome is a complete map of a brain’s neural circuitry. Hayworth looks at the growth of connectomics — especially advances in brain preservation, tissue imaging, and computer simulations of neural networks — and sees a cure for death.
Among some connectomics scholars, there is a grand theory: We are our connectomes. Our unique selves — the way we think, act, feel — is etched into the wiring of our brains. Unlike genomes, which never change, connectomes are forever being molded and remolded by life experience.
A human connectome would be the most complicated map the world has ever seen. Yet it could be a reality before the end of the century, if not sooner, thanks to new technologies that “automate the process of seeing smaller,” as Sebastian Seung puts it in his new book, Connectome: How The Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are.
Hayworth looks at the growth of connectomics — especially advances in brain preservation, tissue imaging, and computer simulations of neural networks — and sees something else: a cure for death. In a new paper in the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, he argues that mind uploading is an “enormous engineering challenge” but one that can be accomplished without “radically new science and technologies.”
Hayworth has founded the Brain Preservation Foundation, which offer a cash prize for the first individual or team to preserve the connectome of a large mammal. A dependable brain-preservation protocol is possible within five years, Hayworth says. “We might have a whole mouse brain preserved very soon.”
The foundation has published a Brain Preservation Bill of Rights on its Web site. ”It is our individual unalienable right to choose death, or to choose the possibility of further life for our memories or identity, as desired,” the document declares.
Hayworth’s brain-preservation and mind-uploading protocol
Before becoming “very sick or very old,” he’ll opt for an “early ‘retirement’ to the future,” he writes. There will be a send-off party with friends and family, followed by a trip to the hospital. After Hayworth is placed under anesthesia, a cocktail of toxic chemicals will be perfused through his still-functioning vascular system, fixing every protein and lipid in his brain into place, preventing decay, and killing him instantly.
Preserved in amber resin (Credit: Bad Robot/Fringe)
Then he will be injected with heavy-metal staining solutions to make his cell membranes visible under a microscope. All of the water will then be drained from his brain and spinal cord, replaced by pure plastic resin.
Every neuron and synapse in his central nervous system will be protected down to the nanometer level, Hayworth says, “the most perfectly preserved fossil imaginable.”
Using a ultramicrotome (like one developed by Hayworth, with a grant by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience), his plastic-embedded preserved brain will eventually be cut into strips, and then imaged in an electron microscope. The physical brain will be destroyed, but in its place will be a precise map of his connectome.
In 100 years or so, Hayworth says, scientists will be able to determine the function of each neuron and synapse and build a computer simulation of the mind. And because the plastination process will have preserved his spinal nerves, the computer-generated mind can be connected to a robot body.
“This isn’t cryonics, where maybe you have a .001 percent chance of surviving,” he said. “We’ve got a good scientific case for brain preservation and mind uploading.”
Comments (70)
by renemf
What most people presumably are looking for is not congruency but identity. That may, as some contend, just be an illusion anyway. The first impulse is to look for reassurance that the copy feels like “me” before agreeing to discard the original. But even if it doesn’t, if it’s “just” a new person with most or all my memories, who’s there left to care ?
If the “connect” in connectome only refers to intercellular (or even only to interneuronal) connections, we may be just creaming off the surface of the the pool of data that determine whot we are.
by Gus
Before drinking hemlock and hoping to see another tomorrow. I hope that there will be tons of animal testing. But better than that. I would like to see the developement of a machine / device that can record every thought and memory inside a person noggen without the messy part of killing them too. Then a copy of those memories could be downloaded into a synthetic body, be it mechanical or some blend of biology and mechanics. Or my favorite. Download the idvidual thought pattern or matrix into a cyber world where anything is possible. Kind of like the Matrix was in that great sci-fi movie. Also years before the Matrix there was a sci-fi novel written titled The Met. It had a similar electronic construct where copies of everyone’s memories were deposited. But it was a completely different story. If I ever am able to, I plan to re-write it. Maybe the next time I wont destroy the manuscript. But then I am some what twisted and a little insane too.
by Mike
#1, I hope we first learn how to effectively use the brains we have. Our ability to remember the events of our lives is terrible. How many days/weeks/months did you experience that you have no current recollection of? And all the mis-remembered things. We think we know and remember what our senses told us, until we learn from external sources that what we thought we knew was wrong. What kind of copy can you make of such a disorganized mental state? If the solution involves copying our memories, then how about a “defrag” option as well?
#2, while I’m curious enough about the world to want to stick around indefinitely to see a lot more, I think the world can get along fine without me. So if the solution to indefinite life extension merely makes an external copy of me that “I” don’t inhabit, then I’d opt out.
by Optimus6128
Interesting! And crazy also. It’s like creating a save state (as in emulators :)) for the brain!
by Ha
Really? No Ghost in the Shell references.
by jeff_davis
I admired Dr. Hayworth’s vision, intelligence, and guts right up until he said:
“This isn’t cryonics, where maybe you have a .001 percent chance of surviving,” he said.
Sadly after that I can only admire his guts.
Those of us who have hashed this over for years know that such “probability” estimates cannot be based on evidence. The data points in this experiment lie in the future. The .001 percent guess is an opinion: the conventional it’ll-never-work opinion of the visionless in their echo chamber. Sorry to put it so rudely.
If you go back to the fundamentals, what you can say with some confidence is that: (1) ultra-low-temperature storage provably achieves indefinite long term preservation — the Arrhenius equation, (2) biological synthesis at the cellular level — the ribosome et al — are a proof-of-principle of the feasibility of precise nano-scale manipulation — replacement or repair — of bio-molecules, and (3) the open-ended nature of progress in science and technology suggests that whatever can be done, that is of value, will first become crudely feasible at significant expense, and then progressively easier and less expensive, until eventually it becomes universally trivial and cheap. Making fire was once Shamanistic magic, now we have matches and lighters.
Consequently, even with today’s crappy suspension techniques, my guess is, that the success of the cryonics experiment — the successful recovery of self from long-term, ultra-low temperature storage — is a near certainty.
by Bill
Hayworth, if you see this, why not a hemispherectomy? Have you considered that option? Have your cake and eat it too!
by paul marsh
There are many things in this article I take exception to, but I’ll limit myself to one. The word ‘immortality’ is being used incorrectly and thoughtlessly. To be immortal means that you can’t die ever – period. I believe that true immortality is unimaginable, and that if you think you can imagine it, you’ve made a mistake in your thinking. No matter what form you are in, there will always be something that can destroy that form. For example, what form can be imagined that wouldn’t be destroyed by a supernova explosion. Writers should stop throwing around the word ‘immortality’ and use something like the term ‘unlimited longevity.’ Indescriminate use of the word ‘immortality’ is an immediate indicator of sloppy, unclear thinking.
by Giulio Prisco
@Paul – the politically correct term, often used, is “indefinite lifespan.”
But that is what we really mean by “immortality.” We don’t want to have a fixed expiration date, and we want the option to stay alive a couple more years.
by kaune
Definitions are not wrong or right; they are useful or not useful. The authors are using the term differently than are you, and not in an uncommon or unacceptable way. I think you are right to point out that as we begin to have real discussions of extending our — what? — awareness beyond our average life span, it might be time to define our terms more rigorously. The same will hold true for conceptual and operational definitions of “life” and “death” (neither of which are defined very clearly even now).
by BJ
Well you can’t attract much reader if your titles are not sensational.
I actually enjoy that sensationality/wittiness.
by SpottedMarley
This represents such a naive understanding of so many things.. the brain, consciousness, neurons.. it’s just silly that someone who is obviously very bright, is so confused about the things they are studying. This mechanical approach to understanding human physiology belongs in the dark ages with such ideas as the world being flat.
by Giulio Prisco
@SpottedMarley – so perhaps you can point to some more modern approaches?
By the way why is physiology relevant to this?
by jeff_davis
You disagree, and assert that the author is broadly “naive” in his understanding, and “confused” in what is apparently his area of expertise. Then you say his approach is “mechanical”, by which I take it you mean he is a scientist and a materialist.
Fine. But where is any kind of fact with which to make a case. The absence of any facts upon which to base your point of view suggests to me that you are talking about faith-based mysticism, but are too timid to say so, rightly expecting to be ridiculed for such a view, based as it is on fact-free, evidence-free superstition.
If you have an evidence-based case, make it.
by Spikosauropod
Here is a whole encyclopedia of scholarly papers filled with reasons to doubt Hayworth’s authority in this arena. None of it is faith based.
http://consc.net/online/
Hayworth’s naiveté is beyond dispute.
by jeff_davis
Thanks for the link. I’ve been wanting a resource of this sort, as the question of consciousness is of great interest for me.
Still, “Hayworth’s naiveté is beyond dispute.” is a model of arrogant assertion without proof. You may be right, but the arrogant tone does not help your credibility.
by Kai
Yeah I’ll stick with nanotechnology and bioengineering.
by Jon
@ Kai
Same here. Eventually I would want intelligence amplification via nanobots though, when and if available. In combination with my biological neurons.
And if, at a certain point, my thinking is 99.9% non-biological anyway.. well, then if my body were to die, it wouldn’t be that big a loss at that point.
by niro
I heard of him by wacthing the tv series “through the worm hole. And I highly doute that it be posible to transfer a human consieniouse into a cpu or hard drivey. From his hypothesie, you a merly copying the last state the human mind had before death. One has to think that human cells that operate the human mind have their own quantuum and there holding themself to a univers. I think that even when you are copying a hard drive you are only copying it, not optaining the same orignal version. Sad but try harder cause i for onr want to be around longer. The only way I beleive it posible would be through cyborgism and from there finaly being fullly transformed into robot as the bio-organism slowy decase. Even then I doute it posible. In the end if a humans life experince could be recorded by a cpu and read by the human mind then it should be posible, I conflicted, I for one believe are consience is tied to mater like dna catergorizes a human.
by eldras
I doubt death can be a final state as our computing capacities grows. Resurrection via Quantum Archaeology (google) which some of us have been discussing on the forums and at the suspended Bob Ettinger’s longecity looks pretty unstoppable.
Howeveer any documentation of your lives is probably useful.
by Extropia DaSilva
I am so happy that my nature makes me exempt from this identity paradox that so obsesses human H+ers. What, after all, is the difference between some human pretending to be me and some whole-brain emulation pretending to be me (particularly if that emulation is a detailed functional model of the aformentioned human)? If other people in my social network accept Extropia DaSilva as me (and why not, if the performance is accurate enough) then it IS me.
by Mr.x
If you don’t mind nod perceiving, existing etc anymore, then you are right.
@aus: I think you are right.His uploaded mind could be it’s own entity, not himself.
I also wonder where he gets his numbers from e.g 0.001 for cryonics and 100 years till xy.
by aus
Just another technician who thinks he has everything figured out, but in reality he has deluded himself with his narrow focus. Mind uploading as immortality is an issue of metaphysics, not neuroscience.
by spikosauropod
It will be nice when a handful of brave souls have attempted this and it proves not to work. At least we won’t keep hearing about it, and people won’t be drawing up any more grand environmentalist designs to make everyone else do it as well.
I am all in for indefinite life spans, but in my own brain and ideally in my own body.
by MrFriendly
Agreed.
by PirateRo
Don’t you think it gets boring always being you all the time? I know I’ve known you for the space of your reply and I am already tired of you…
by jeff_davis
Or, when his neural pattern is successfully reactivated, proving you to be without vision or imagination, and he resumes life where he left off, you will be dead and won’t have to worry about hearing about how you were wrong.
by andmar74
You are forgetting the timeline of events here. It is almost certainly easier to create human-level AI, than to do this brain uploading. So we will see super-intelligent AI’s first, and they will be calling the shots.
By the way, he looks young, so he will probably not die from aging anyway.
by alliwant
Good luck getting medical professionals to take part in killing and preserving a human being. They’ll regard that as the last thing the Hippocratic oath allows. If this ever does take place, it certainly won’t be in a hospital.
by Marcos Marin
Not if he “kills himself” ;-) probably by OD, to follow the models and Hollywood stars’ examples of “suicide”. Probb. not in a hospital, yes. lol
by Steve
What if we find out that consciousness is intimately tied to quantum computation in the brain? (Is this perhaps why up until this point true AI has been so elusive?) Then we have to know quantum state as well as structure. Is that even possible with this method?
Oh, and BTW, quantum state can only be transported, not duplicated (consider it a file “move” rather than a file “copy”). We could possibly measure quantum state and store it in a computer somewhere… but not in such a way that it can be precisely known. We could perhaps preserve the quantum state in a quantum computer — if one existed — (the equivilant of a “mind upload”) that would truly be THE individual. This individual… truly you… could live in a virtual environment, occupy a robot brain, or be moved once again into a biological brain/body.
If this is the way things work, it would solve all the issues associated with multiple copies of you that all claim to be you. It would also throw a major complication into the notion of backing up one’s mind file and restoring if you were killed.
by Giulio Prisco
@Steve – well if consciousness is intimately tied to quantum computation in the brain (I don’t think so, but others do) then we will have to engineer alternative substrates with quantum computation features similar to those in the brain.
Even in this case, the copy of the brain quantum state does not have to be identical (cloning), just good enough for practical purposes of identity preservation. Think of how many things you can forget and still feel like you.
by Axel
Problem 1: You first have to prove quantum computation occurs in the brain. Thus far, while the hypothesis has been suggested, no evidence of it exists.
Problem 2: You have to prove that quantum computation is in any way tied to consciousness. What makes it somehow more significant or important than any other component of the brain?
Remember, just because it’s “quantum” doesn’t suddenly make it some sort of magic.
by anon
You beat me to it. Exactly my thoughts– biological structures utilizing quantum effects in order to function are being discovered in all sorts of plants/animals– I don’t think it’s too far out on a limb to speculate over the (imo quite likely) possibility that the brain utilizes it as well…
I’ll pass on uploading for the moment. Don’t count me out entirely, but I’d want more than a classical-mechanic perfect replica of me.
and yes, the identity problem you allude to is perhaps even construable as evidence for a quantum substrate to consciousness
by GatorALLin
….so…..I am wondering…. Why not make an exact copy of your brain and turn it on…. the test is that if you can be awake and also experience the copy’s consciousness as your own (like having 2 VR headsets on at once….one is your own, the 2nd is the copy), then you have something to bet excited about. Then maybe test it again by being asleep and turning ON the copy to see if you experience through the copy (dreaming?). Then maybe induce a coma of the original you, so you are in theory alive, but brain is not active and then again see if the copy can be turned on and YOU are still you? Of course if the original YOU dies, then your remote viewer may not work, so this is no guarantee that your copy or twin/backup is really YOU as maybe your back up can be fooled into thinking it is the real copy. I guess this thinking is just thinking of lowest common denominators that if you can NOT feel your consciousness through the copy when it is on and acting like you… then it must be separate or just a twin..or just a copy and not the real you. (thus not able for YOU to live forever using this method)
I guess there is some value in creating an avatar or computer program that looks and behaves just like you…that could follow your instinctive decision tree at 99.99% rates, that you could will all your assets to when you die and it could continue on on your behalf, doing things you think were of value for the world. Maybe you create an avatar of your “best self” and give it a set of rules or constitution of sorts (even including the objective to upgrade itself or to keep making money, stay with the singularity and not get out of date, etc..). Then it is a focused meme of you to live on forever. Maybe this then is better than just having a company you made up live on, or writing a book or influencing the world from a past state of being….. a next best legacy for YOU. I guess this could also help protect your family for example if you died unexpectedly and it could get your affairs in order, know your last wishes, or maybe even continue to work or create income, etc..
This movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(film) brings up some interesting dilemmas when a copy of you is made, sent to the moon to work and is fooled it is the real one (finish up a multi year work trip, then return to loving home/family) only to find out it/he is one of dozens of clones…and the work copy (slave to original?) and designed to burn out and die on the moon….one of a never ending cycle of clone copies. (what if you woke up and realized you were the clone to work hard while the original you got to live up the good life instead?).
Lots of fun moral and ethics dilemmas to explore…. what if your clone back up…designed to be turned OFF until your death is turned on by accident ahead of time… trained to be YOU…. then finds YOU and now has a sense of self so strong that it does not want to be put back to sleep, maybe indefinitely now that you can extend your life indefinitely and this copy no longer needed… but fights for its life….even may want to kill you and sneak in as the replacement.
by Don
Read the book: “Kiln People”. Explores a tangent to this idea in great detail.
by Axel
Why would you experience two consciousnesses, or at least be aware of it? Memory and sensation are brain functions. You would not be aware of anything different.
by Cari Tompkins
Why go through all that hassle when the easiest way to immortality is to break the code of the program of life as we know it: be born, grow, mature, age, deteriorate, and die. Why not get a team of biologists and computer programmers to stop the age, say, at 25. Then we would still be ourselves, and the only way we would die would be by trauma or poison, but could exist for centuries and during that time chances are there will be other ways to keep us alive forever if we choose to. I suppose that one problem right now is that most programmers are young and making good money hired by technology companies. There is no incentive to form such a research team.
by Gabor
Cari – This is exactly how it’s happening. But it’s just too boring for most people. How can they argue about philosophical controversies in your scenario… The real scientists would laugh on all the childish carbon copy arguments if they would waste time reading them that is. They are busy figuring out how to extend (rejuvenate) life until we can safely cross the threshold of immortality which of course will be inorganic and substrate independent. Rest assured, young programmers are contributing just as much by making technology ever more efficient and powerful which plays into the researchers hands. Better tools are creating even better tools and causing exponential returns These are exiting times, we are the first generation in Earth’s history that has the potential to see the light…and I’m not talking about the one that you have to die for…
by DrDubious
As others have noted, his copy may live forever, but not his “original”. Can he really come to grips with the fact that he is killing himself so that his duplicate can live?
by MrFriendly
Yuck, I wouldn’t do this even if it were perfected.
Also, it seems most neuroscientists dismiss the idea of brain simulations becoming intelligent or self-aware. You have a few rock stars out there making these bold claims, but it seems like it’s largely regarded as science fiction.
by Giulio Prisco
@MrFriendly – all great scientific ideas on which our technology is based used to be dismissed as science fiction. If it doesn’t sound like science fiction, it is not breakthrough science.
by MrFriendly
True, but there are still limits to what we can understand and do.
For one thing, if we don’t even understand the true nature of matter and the universe, how can we really understand the brain? We are woven into the fabric of a universe we know very little about.
For all we know, consciousness may depend upon quantum processes that haven’t even been discovered, yet. Also, certain chemicals may have to be involved, so a simulation may just be a cartoon of the real thing. I won’t say that it’ll never, ever happen, but I can’t imagine it even becoming possible in this century.
The slowing growth of computing power is going to delay even testing it, too.
by Gabor
This is why people are afraid of uploading. Good thing we don’t have to wait a 100 years for this to work. In 50, we’ll have worked out nano- and picotechnology to the level where we can replace all our cells with synthetic ones without going under and loosing consciousness at all . Now that’s uploading!!!
by Carl Borrowman
Even with an absolutely perfect copy of yourself, it would be someone different, simply because of it being in a different proximity than your original body with a different perspective and experience. Without maintaining the stream of consciousness (whether it be unconscious, conscious, or any level of consciousness within the existing spectrum), this would in effect be a different being coming into existence, albeit with an advanced set of instructions.
Just as that perfect copy would not be you (not to mention that without a human body this is not a perfect copy), and you could not experience both of “you” at the same time (at least not without proper enhancements) if you still existed, it would not be “you” if you died. You would be dead, however your “copy” could still contribute to the world. You do not “die” in your sleep if you wake up conscious with the same organic (or enhanced) brain you fell asleep with. You dream, you rest, and you wake up. There is no “waking up” from this.
At best this is a half measure, which can still represent great progress for the world, or great harm, depending upon the person, their unique set of lifetime knowledge/skills, attitude (if they don’t go insane upon being “born” in a new body), and circumstances. Who knows how we could have benefited or been harmed by a Da Vinci or Einstein copy allowed to live after the original died. Of course, what applies to them could also apply to a Hitler. Both potentials for greater harm or good exist, as is usually the case for technology. Not to say it’s advance will or even should stop.
What can be said is that this is NOT immortality, but rather simply an advanced copy/program of a person’s life which can experience a new consciousness based upon the foundation of an old one. Similarities between this and waking up after a restful night’s sleep end when the original person is killed “instantly” and the brain is plastinated. Be as open minded as you want, the original person is still dead and is not “coming back”.
However, this is a significant step towards true immortality, as the level of preservation, imaging, and copying this implies will be key in regenerative medicine and future enhancements to the mind and body we already have, instead of simply dying and leaving a copy to serve as a replacement.
by rob falgiano
Agreed, even a perfect copy would no longer be ‘you.’
by zack
Welcome to the realization that you die every time you sleep.
by Jon
Yes and no. Perhaps the realization that you ‘reboot’ every time you sleep. The tragedy of death is the permanent (as far as we know) loss of information, and that information pattern’s power to act.
by Christian
I wonder what the scientist ACTUALLY said. There’s no way to fix a human-sized brain in such a way as to preserve all synapses in their true morphology, and also no way to determine the epigenetics and thus the functional parameters of a great majority of synapses from the fixed tissue alone. And any half-f decent neuroscientist knows that.
by NathurS
the prize money the foundation offers is so ridiculously low that nobody will ever try to win it relying on the prize to recoup or reward their efforts
by Starheart
However, such prizes can stimulate interests in the field immensely. That’s just how human psychology functions, because a prize isn’t just the monetary reward, it’s also prestige. That’s how, for example, a relatively modest SpaceX prize resulted in world’s first private spacecraft.
by John
This tech is neat, but why would cryonics be a 0.001 chance? Between these two technologies, i’d choose cryonics with full body preservation as safer option, since much of brain wiring is bound and calibrated to what body looked and worked like. It’s possible that current human presonality is inseparable from body map, so such brain-only map connectome would be too little data.
As for “would it be the same me who wakes up”, yes of course. The “it’s me” feeling is just a thought generated by neural network, so it will be there if the network is the same. That’s the same as the same me wakes up every morning. Or is it different me each time? Anyways, technology gives option not worse than that.
by Giulio Prisco
@John – I think the information encoded in the connectome includes the full specs of the inputs that the neural network expects to receive, so a well preserved brain will permit creating an optimal body (physical or virtual) to ease the psychological transition with a feeling of continuity.
Assuming both options are available, I will choose chemical brain preservation over conventional cryonics, because storing a plastinated brain for decades or centuries seems easier than cryonics storage.
by Bri
It’s the water. When it freezes it expands. If you don’t freeze at the moment of death, the body starts to decay immediately. At three and a haif years old, I knew why I was here. I had known that I lived before, as far back as I can remember. Couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Everybody had all these weird beliefs, so I kept it to my self. Our bodies are vehicles for our souls. You could change vehicles, you just have to get your soul into it. It’s just not so easy to do. Everything dies, even the universe. Trust me, it’s nice over there. Nothing to be afraid of.
by jeff_davis
Souls is a religious faith-based concept. Science is evidence-based. The two coexist, but do not mix very well.
The manifestation of personality has substantial material evidence demonstrating its connection to and dependence on material reality. There is no material evidence for the existence of souls.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so the possibility of the existence of souls remains. But grounded as it is in ancient superstition, it has no place in a science-reality-evidence-based discussion.
by Carl Borrowman
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4655035.stm
by glen
““You” cannot live forever. Maybe a copy of your brain can, but what is the use of that?”
if only a slightly better use, than none at all. but better known after trying and doing than not at all.
by D. Watkins
Yes, this seems to have the classic “continuity of consciousness” problem.
by jeff_davis
I suspect you don’t consider the going to sleep at night and then waking up again in the morning to present the same “continuity of consciousness” problem. Not knowing what consciousness is, that’s the problem. II have my notions, I’m sure you have yours. It remains one of the great — maybe the greatest — unanswered questions.
by AT
This has been explored in SciFi (Commonwealth saga for example)
The person is immortal from the exterior point of view – that is – to others he looks the same, behaves the same. But from the INTERIOR from the person herself: there’s no continuity.
However from the new “person” there will be continuity, just like waking up. If the copy is faithful enough who’s to say it’s different from waking up everyday… do WE care, as we wake up, where has our previous self gone when he fell asleep?
by Mortran
Good point!
May be we are all just one day old. we were born this morning when we woke up and we will die tonight when we go to sleep. Tomorrow a new consciousness will take over.
by Jon
@ Timothy
I believe they are a direct function of structure, but I wouldn’t go for this kind of uploading myself.
If the ‘self’ is a direct function of structure, making a copy would result in two separate entities that both think they are the original. There is no ‘true self’, just two minds, that both generate a ‘self’.
The same goes for copying a mind whilst destroying the original. It will be a copy, since the original is dead.
The only solution is for there to be one mind, and for that one mind to be continuous throughout the process.
The replacing-single-neurons-at-a-time approach seems to me the most philosophically sound way to upload. One could even merge two persons this way, resulting in an entity with two distinct sets of memories, but a singular present – and no loss of continuity along the way. I am reasonably sure that this is also what kurzweil envisions.
A case could be made that we possibly ‘reset’ every night, thus what this man wishes to do is no different from sleeping and waking up. Though possible, I would not want to bet on it.
by Timothy
Roeland: I think the assumption is this: by replicating the neuronal and synaptic structures at a fine enough resolution, that “you” will also be reproduced. He’s planning to, in essence, “wake up” after his brain structure is replicated. It’s a gutsy assumption–nobody really knows whether personality, memory, experience, etc are a direct function of structure, but that’s what he’s gambling on.
by Giulio Prisco
@Timothy – I think the analogy with “waking up” after the brain structure is replicated is correct.
I can argue that the person who will wake up in my bed tomorrow morning will be a different person, who happens to share part of my memories. According to this interpretation of self, we die every night when we go to sleep. I can also argue that the toddler who happened to share my name, whom I have vague memories of, died long ago.
But I accept the toddler, and the person who went to sleep in my bed last night, as a valid past, and I know by experience that tomorrow’s me will feel the same. I think identity can be defined by accepting and integrating change. In other words, the person who will wake up in my bed tomorrow morning will be me because he will be able to choose to be me, and he will choose to be me. This definition of identity can easily survive uploading.
by Jon Takacs
So, you may have a connectome, but what about the starting brain state? Alot of one’s consiance is where your brains state is at a given time I.E. the flow of thought. That has a major impact on sanity.
People who’s brains have stopped and recovered might have damage because of the loss of state information. I guess what I am saying is it will be interesting to find if personality is volatile or not.
I feel I’ve heard these things before. No clue if this is relevant.
by Rob Bairos
Its like killing yourself after finding out your mom really had twins, and your secret brother, having lived in a different part of the world all your life should be considered you. How is that extending your life?
by GatorALLin
…..well said…I like this example to help explain these ideas quickly….nice job!
by Roeland
The original brain dies. The uploaded brain is merely a copy.
What would be the use of making a copy of your brain after you have died?
“You” cannot live forever. Maybe a copy of your brain can, but what is the use of that?
by rob falgiano
I think some scientists see the continuity of some part of their intelligence as a form of immortality. But chances are future scientists will be more interested in the extension of themselves, and less interested in intelligences from this era unless you’re talking about a digital copy of Stephen Hawking or someone of that stature.
by Bri
Nighty night!