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Down Load The Brain?

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  • Down Load The Brain?

    Humans, if you hadn't already noticed, have stopped evolving. As David Attenborough recently reminded us, our species is the first—by our free will—to remove itself from the process of natural selection, therefore stunting evolution. That, accompanied by Steven Hawking and Elon Musk's theories that robots will supersede human intelligence and become our biggest existential threat, paints a pretty bleak vision of the future.

    Neuroscientist Randal Koene has the answer. Instead of allowing robots to become our cold, lifeless overlords, why don't we just become partially robotic ourselves? Koene is currently working on whole brain emulation, the process of being able to upload our minds to a computer. By mapping the brain, figuring out its mechanisms and replicating this activity in code, humans could—theoretically—live on indefinitely.
    http://www.vice.com/read/randal-koen...-uploading-438


    What I find interesting is, if free will does in fact exist can that also be down loaded?
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

  • #2
    I eagerly await discussion.
    Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

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    • #3
      I'm not trying to be picky (it comes naturally) but are you trying to say something by saying down load instead of download?
      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

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      • #4
        I used to down load a lot of cow manure to the honey wagon on my dear old Uncle Al's dairy farm.

        Fun time!

        K54

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        • #5
          Originally posted by klaus54 View Post
          I used to down load a lot of cow manure to the honey wagon on my dear old Uncle Al's dairy farm.

          Fun time!

          K54
          fond memories, indeed
          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

          Comment


          • #6
            I'm wondering if I should unsubscribe. If I don't might not my brain deteriorate from following this thread too far? Nothing to download! [Running, ducking, for cover.]
            The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

            [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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            • #7
              I don't believe in free will as we commonly think of it ... but ... if brain patterns give rise to the mind, there is no reason why any mind characteristic would be missing from the download. After all, the physical nature of our bodies is in constant flux with new atoms and molecules taking the place of old ones. We are literally entirely different physical organisms than what we were 10 years ago and yet we 'feel' the same mentally. Transferring consciousness to a machine seems only a matter of degree.

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              • #8
                Interestingly, others have observed that the human species is young and still in the process of quite rapid evolution.

                http://www.wired.com/2007/12/humans-evolving/

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
                  I'm wondering if I should unsubscribe. If I don't might not my brain deteriorate from following this thread too far? Nothing to download! [Running, ducking, for cover.]
                  Ah, grow up Augustine2004!

                  Geesh...

                  K54

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by seer View Post
                    http://www.vice.com/read/randal-koen...-uploading-438


                    What I find interesting is, if free will does in fact exist can that also be down loaded?
                    Just hope they come up with faster than a USB 3.0 device. Might take awhile to download everything (well for some of us anyway).
                    "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                    GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by phank View Post
                      Interestingly, others have observed that the human species is young and still in the process of quite rapid evolution.

                      http://www.wired.com/2007/12/humans-evolving/
                      Even if it's not rapid, we are still evolving. We haven't managed to remove ourselves from the environment, after all.
                      I'm not here anymore.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by pancreasman View Post
                        I don't believe in free will as we commonly think of it ... but ... if brain patterns give rise to the mind, there is no reason why any mind characteristic would be missing from the download. After all, the physical nature of our bodies is in constant flux with new atoms and molecules taking the place of old ones. We are literally entirely different physical organisms than what we were 10 years ago and yet we 'feel' the same mentally. Transferring consciousness to a machine seems only a matter of degree.
                        Yes, in fact transferring consciousness to a machine seems not only a matter of degree but also only a matter of time if the pundits are to be believed. It's inevitable.

                        Already we are able to enhance our abilities beyond normal human limitations by artificial elements built into the body. Or by the addition of artificial components to replace failed organs or limbs such as bionic liver machines, intelligent leg prosthesis', implantable insulin pumps, implanted drug delivery systems and portable dialysis machines to name a few. It is a relatively small step from there to dispense with our organic bodies altogether in favour of totally bionic entities - including artificially enhanced downloaded intelligences.
                        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by seer View Post
                          What I find interesting is, if free will does in fact exist can that also be down loaded?
                          You are your brain. But your brain is embodied so you would not be able to copy yourself in a machine unless that machine was in contact with the world in much the same way that you are. Consider, for example, how you would feel if you did not breathe. Also, a copy of you even if it is identical, is not you because it will quickly diverge along its own experiential path. Any other brain, organic or electro-mechanical, is someone else. I do not see why a machine could not have the same sort of free will that we seem to have.
                          “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                          “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                          “not all there” - you know who you are

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                            You are your brain. But your brain is embodied so you would not be able to copy yourself in a machine unless that machine was in contact with the world in much the same way that you are. Consider, for example, how you would feel if you did not breathe. Also, a copy of you even if it is identical, is not you because it will quickly diverge along its own experiential path. Any other brain, organic or electro-mechanical, is someone else. I do not see why a machine could not have the same sort of free will that we seem to have.
                            Hey, ff, I agree with this.
                            Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              not only what FF said, but the brain works on the quantum level and trying to download all that and getting it to work would take much more processor power than any computer today or in the foreseeable future can handle. And even if you could map every single synapse, our brains continually create and change pathways, and merely copying a brain in software would have to take that into account or it would just be static.

                              We also don't know nearly enough about how the brain works to emulate it in software. copying the physical structure would probably just end up with a dead copy. What initiates thoughts? how do we decide what to think about, how do we search for various memories? And as FF pointed out, a large part of our brain is sensory to deal with the world, like touch, sight, smell, and depend on the rest of our bodies and nerves to feed it information.

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