Virtual immortality?

[Escape]

London, England -- By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.

Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.

Pearson said the launch last week of Sony's PlayStation 3, a machine 35 times more powerful than the model it replaced, was a sign of things to come.

"The new PlayStation is one percent as powerful as the human brain," Pearson told the Observer. "It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain."

Pearson said that brain-downloading technology would initially be the preserve of the rich, but would become more available over subsequent decades.

"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," he said.

"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 also predicted that it would be possible to build a fully conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence as early as 2020.

IBM's BlueGene computer can already perform 70.72 trillion calculations a second and Pearson said the next computing goal was to replicate consciousness.

"We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could become conscious. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that's what we're trying to design in computer."

Pearson said that computer consciousness would make feasible a whole new sphere of emotional machines, such as airplanes that are afraid of crashing.

By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a "virtual world" of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business.

He said: "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."

But Pearson admitted that the consequences of advancing technologies needed to be considered carefully.

"You need a complete global debate," he said. "Whether we should be building machines as smart as people is a really big one."

Scary possibility or some geek talking bullshit?
I think it's the latter myself, the brain is too complex to be 'uploaded', even within the next 40 years.


If this eventually happens, there're too many moral issues to make it work anyway. Is someone still 'alive' if kept on a hardisk? If you turn off the PC, are you violating their human rights?

More to the point, I don't want to fly on a 'conscious' plane which is scared of crashing! What if the fucker refuses to take off?

Transfering your consciousness online would take MMORPG's to a whole new level! It's too scary to think about


The ultimate direction of this technology will lead to human cloning.
Someone is dying/has an accident > upload their consciouness > clone their body and accellerate the growth > re-install consciouness. Perhaps all the time he's in "stasis", defragment his brain, check for viruses and add/remove memories


I'm glad technology isn't likely to reach that level while I'm still alive.

 

[Cozak]

Sounds like that movie with Tom Cruise, Vanilla Sky.

 

[Tasslehoff]

Sounds like that movie with Tom Cruise, Vanilla Sky.

How so?

 

[Cozak]

Going into a fake "dream" like world I guess.

 

[Ezteq]

pffft could download my brain on to a fisher price Mr. Calculator


on the other hand, i wonder if i could update my memory so that my brain stores everything rather than what it does now which is to sort through everything i know like a rabid housewife going through her husbands desk on a latte fuelled cleaning spree, throw out all the stuff i need and keep all the useless but shiney stuff, and even then put most of it "somewhere safe" yeah right ho, some where sooo damn safe YOU GOT MORE CHANCE OF FINDING NOAHS ARK FIRST!!

<siiiiiiiiiiiiigh>

 

[Aragyn]

Reminds me of that episode of Friends I really, really hope it wont be possible, at least not while i live, eternal life... How could it work? Will you live on? Can they be transfered? Or is it just like a copy of you that keeps on living? So it wont matter to you as you'll still be stone dead?

Ahh well, guess they'll figure it out soon enough

 

[harebear]

Tbh it doesnt really seem that unlikely, the more shit we invent the faster we get newer/better stuff. Weve developed more in the past 100 years that in the 2000 years before that.

 

[Comos]

Or is it just like a copy of you that keeps on living? So it wont matter to you as you'll still be stone dead?

Exactly, won't matter to the person who's brain is copied really. He'll still be dead, there will just be some computer clone of him with all his thoughts left.

But the past has shown us that these people who predict this kinda stuff are always miles off. It's just someone who enjoys a lot of attention obviously. Ofcourse, at the rate computer technology is advancing, we'll probably see things as amazing as downloading your thoughts to a computer in 50 years, but who knows what's gonne be invented...
If you take a look at articles written in the '80s about predictions of how life in the year 2000 will be... almost nothing of it is correct.

 

[Fana]

As some people have said it would be pretty pointless from a personal point of wiew to download your thoughtprocess and memories into a computer since all it would do is create a mental clone of yourself. You would still die, and the clone would live on. I guess its more appropriate to think of the clone as a child of the downloader, and i can see benefits from it for humankind if its used to store scientists etc. I can also see some rather large drawbacks in that it can be used to store religious leaders, tyrants and criminals.

Only way to really acheive imortality is likely to replace everything in your body that deteriorates (pretty much everything) piece by piece, cell by cell with artificial substitutes, or introduce nanorobots into your body that will repair it as needed.

 

[Overdriven]

I like the idea. I just don't like the idea of not being able to see what's happening through my own eyes. I want to _live_ in a virtual reality world/machine but still 'feel' (think) I'm still there and be able to do what I'm doing now, through virtual eyes. The equivilance of RolePlaying over MSN, but being able to do it. Seeing it all. 'feeling' it all (in a sense).

Yes, I have a fear of being blind - though I wear glasses. But I'd personally do anything to have my whole brain/reality stuck on a machine so I'd never die. Untill I told them I wanted to be deleted. Virtual Immortality. Perfect.


You see through your own eyes, you wish to see what other people see. Now, you see through your own eyes on a un-living 'server' yet you know, or think you know you're alive one way or another.


Overdriven.

 

[old.Tohtori]

When this comes a reality, i'll be first in line. Finally, i could become the polymorphing space-seal i always dreamed to be.

"You need a complete global debate," he said. "Whether we should be building machines as smart as people is a really big one."

If they build a machine as smart as me, they'd be going back on the technology advancement scale.

If people don't believe this is possible, the download your brain thing, think back 45 years. These normal day items that we have are quite amazing.

 

[Tasslehoff]

Going into a fake "dream" like world I guess.

Hmm... I didn't watch it to the end actually. Got too scary at some point

 

[Natswoo]

Well thinking that the average Human is only capable of using 1% of his brain power it's probably true.
However no computer will ever be able to match humans visual memory and recconition

 

[Brite]

pffft could download my brain on to a fisher price Mr. Calculator

lmao

 

[Job]

'consciousness is just another sense'

that's a bit of a simplification innit, probably the most non-understood and impossible to prove state in th universe, no-one actually knows
the brains processing power anyway these are just pie-in-the-sky guesses, how the hell do you code pain and pleasure or guilt or love, loneliness, greed.

well if it does happen and I'm on some hardrive in a server room

DONT CONNECT ME TO NET!!!!!!

 

[Rediknight]

Imagine what would happen though - someone would muck up some storage unit and a Nun might get a few bytes of a Ninja involved, then when she's "reinstalled" or whatever, she suddenly kicks off, slays half the clergy and then commits Seppuku in front of the Sunday School class...

or something...

 

[Darksword]

stupid idea really, hope it never goes ahead, death is all apart of living, its the big ending, if it never happens, how can you be sure your life ever did?

Humans look into technology and advancements, and see that something is possible. they set a goal and go for it, and once they reach there goal, they usually start to look at how they can harm people with what they have achieved.

I for one dont think humans should be allowed to advance into anything like this, were just not safe/responsible enough to.

 

[Ballard]

To a layman like myself it doesnt seem logically possible to build a computer smarter than humans and if we cant do that we probably cant create one as smart as us that we can be downloaded to. By this i mean computers may have a lot of power but just cause you can multiple 2 by 2 three billion times a second doesnt mean you are smart. You could relate a computers 'smartness' to its programming. For computers/robots to be smarter than us their programming has to be smarter than us. But as we are writing their programming isnt this a paradox? Is it logically possible for someone to write a program as smart or smarter than themselves?

 

[Rediknight]

To a layman like myself it doesnt seem logically possible to build a computer smarter than humans and if we cant do that we probably cant create one as smart as us that we can be downloaded to. By this i mean computers may have a lot of power but just cause you can multiple 2 by 2 three billion times a second doesnt mean you are smart. You could relate a computers 'smartness' to its programming. For computers/robots to be smarter than us their programming has to be smarter than us. But as we are writing their programming isnt this a paradox? Is it logically possible for someone to write a program as smart or smarter than themselves?

I'd see it more along the line of - humans can't travel on foot at 125mph, but stand on something moving at 125mph, and take one step forward, you are, in essence, travelling faster than 125mph. All we have to do is build the computer thats as capable as a human mind, then get it to +1. If an artificial mind can work as fast as a human brain, and it is correctly programmed, then of course a 'puter could beat down a human's head-content.

Then again, you have to program it right... otherwise you're probably not gonna like its answer verymuch, then you'll have to get it to build "Earth"





disclaimer - if you havent read Hitchikers guide, you might not get that one...