The scientist planning to upload his brain to a COMPUTER: Research could allow us to inhabit virtual worlds and 'live forever'
- Randal Koene hopes to replicate the human brain as a mechanical system
- Would allow people to 'upload' their brain to a computer system
- Could allow us to inhabit virtual worlds and visit other planets
It is a plan taken straight from the pages of a science fiction novel - and potentially a way to exist forever.
A San Francisco inventor has revealed plans for a system to upload his brain to a computer.
He hopes to be able to replicate the human brain as a mechanical system.
Scroll down for video
Randal Koene hopes the brain can be uploaded to a computer, allowing us to inhabit virtual worlds and even visit other planets without having to travel there.
HOW THE (REAL) BRAIN WORKS
Around 85 billion individual neurons make up the human brain.
Each is connected to as many as 10,000 others via branches called axons and dendrites.
Every time a neuron fires, an electrochemical signal jumps from the axon of one neuron to the dendrite of another, across a synapse between them.
These signals encode information and enable the brain to process input, form associations, and execute commands.
The patterns may also hold our memories, emotions, personalities, predilections, even our consciousness, according to some.
Randal Koene says the key to this is the SIM - a 'Substrate-Independent Mind.'
By mapping the brain, reducing its activity to computations, and reproducing those computations in code, Koene argued, humans could live indefinitely, emulated by silicon.
'When I say emulation, you should think of it, for example, in the same sense as emulating a Macintosh on a PC,' he told a recent San Francisco conference.
'It's kind of like platform-independent code.'
The thing that makes all of this possible is a 'Substrate-Independent Mind.'
This, according to Koene, is not merely an artificial intelligence, but a human mind downloaded to a computer.
Neuroscientists are 99.9% percent convinced that the brain is a mechanism, he says.
It is something that computes, something that carries out functions. If you can figure out how it works, you can build a replacement for it.
'The idea that you can take a small piece of the brain and build a replica for it is very mainstream and well understood,' he recently told Vice.
'Why not do that with the whole brain? And then why not upload that to a computer so that we can process more data and store it better, the way a computer does, organizing thoughts into folders that we can access whenever we choose?'
HOW IT WILL WORK
According to Koene's site, :
'The functions of mind that we experience are originally implemented through neurobiological mechanisms, the neural circuitry of our brains.
'If the same functions are implemented in a different operating substrate, populated with parameters and operating such that they produce the same results as they would in the brain, then that mind has become substrate-independent.
'It is a substrate-independent mind (SIM) by being able to function in different operating substrates.
The popular term 'mind uploading' can refer to the process of transfer, moving a specific substrate-independent mind from one operating substrate (e.g., the biological brain) to another.
He believes that, using his system, we will be able to inhabit other worlds, and even virtual ones.
'It would be interesting to inhabit a more virtual world.
'Or perhaps bodies that aren't built to survive in this environment, but somewhere else, like space.'
He has set up an organisation, carboncopies to work on the technical and ethical issues around the project.
'We support practical approaches toward what we descriptively term “advanced substrate-independent minds (ASIM), i.e. transferring mind functions from the biological substrate to another substrate on which those functions can be performed,' it says.
'Carboncopies initially takes a technology agnostic stance.
We organise workshops and conferences where interested parties can exchange ideas, network with others, and keep updated on the latest developments in the field'
Most watched News videos
- Hilarious moment parrot talk turns on the lights using Alexa
- New Orleans venue prepares for Serena Williams wedding
- Married teacher makes students have sex with her for better grades
- Leeann Tweeden: Al Franken 'mashed his lips against my face'
- Plumber shows off amazing set of pipes with Nessun Dorma rendition
- Children's author shows how John Lewis advert 'rips off' his book
- Wheel of Fortune contestants lose out on 1 MILLION DOLLARS
- Frantic biker pushes thief off motorbike in attempted robbery
- Gaia Pope's family believe there's still hope of finding her alive
- Man shot dead by police after holding wife to gunpoint
- Hero forces man off subway after punching woman in the face
- Aerial images reveal devastation of fatal air collision in Bucks