The other day, I highlighted the article by neuroscientist Kenneth Miller on the possibility of mind uploading. Miller saw it as possible, but thought it might be thousands or maybe even millions of years before we could do it. Here’s a take by another neuroscientist, David Eagleman, being a bit more optimistic, and discussing the simulation hypothesis.
It’s worth noting that both of these guys see the timeline envisioned by singularity enthusiasts (that it will happen in the next 20 years or so) as untenable, although Eagleman’s idea of when it might happen is much closer to the singularity timeline than Miller’s.
Eagleman also highlights an aspect of this discussion that I think is worth noting, the effect this capability would likely have on space exploration. Currently, our robots are all over the solar system, and a few have even left it and entered interstellar space. But humans, after a brief sojourn to the moon, have basically stayed just above Earth’s atmosphere.
Our society has long discussions about gathering the political will for human space exploration, but the lack of a viable economic incentive has pretty much kept it to just that. Robots pretty much own space, and I often tend to think that’s unlikely to change. So, a solar system spanning civilization, and later an interstellar spanning one, is likely to be a robotic one. It might only be a human one if we can figure out a way to make humanity transcend our biology.
Remember that ‘The Martian’ is primarily about the challenges a biological human faces in surviving in a Martian environment. While an exciting story, it highlights the chief problem for humans in space, that we’re essentially fish leaving the ocean of our biosphere, with the necessity of bringing enough of that ocean with us to survive. Imagine if we didn’t need to bring any of it.