L&D 2020: Shaping change in learning
Brain & Mind
Brain download
Programmes are available that enable individuals to share each others’ experiences via a computer link – ‘seeing’ another person’s experiences in your own mind’s eye. Imagine sharing a friend’s real time holiday experiences virtually – you would never need to get on an airplane again.
Test subjects at the research labs of the ‘Total Recall Company’ have reported tasting curry and touching a cat’s fur being as real as if they were doing it themselves. Eventually, futurologists predict, external computer links will no longer be necessary to share experiences with another person. Instead, our brains will be installed with the necessary nanobots to create mind-sharing capabilities.
Supercomputers have been around since the turn of the millennium that simulate the human brain’s power. But now it is possible to actually transfer a human mind to an artificial substrate, such as a detailed computer simulation of an individual’s brain1.
Researchers have been able to scan the brains of monkeys and, more recently humans, and ‘download’ them into a neural computer. Predictions suggest our carbon-based bodies will soon be obsolete: "You could run your virtual personality on a network of computers. It's going to be difficult to determine where one person ends and another person starts."2
Several new technologies, far beyond old integrated circuits, are being used to support brain downloading and mind transfer, such as optical neural networks based on the silicon-photonic chip3, 3-dimensional computers based on carbon nanotubes5 and the quantum computer5, which facilitates the protein structure prediction critical to correctly emulating intracellular neural processes.
For terminally ill patients, researchers are having some success with mind uploading from their organic brain to an inorganic medium using cyborging1. In this technique neurons are replaced individually while the patient’s consciousness remains intact. Once the brain is mapped, it is replaced piece-by-piece with nanobots performing the same function.
After substitution, the patient regains consciousness to validate their subjective experience of reality. At this point, their brain is immediately re-mapped and another piece replaced, until the personality exists on a purely hardware medium and the patient’s mind can be safely extricated from their body.
In cases where the body has ceased to function, such as following severe trauma or disease, the patient is artificially resuscitated while the brain is placed in cryosleep in preparation for the brain download.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_transfer
2. http://www.eetimes.com/special/special_issues/1998/timespeople98/kurzweil.html
3. http://topdawgtech.blogspot.com/2005/04/ride-light-silicon-photonic-chip.html
4. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/darkest_material/ 10/08
5. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/quantum-computer.htm
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