mind uploading
In plain wordsThe idea of moving a person's mind out of their biological brain and into a computer, so that they could go on living as software.
The hypothetical transfer or copying of an individual's mind, including memories, personality and, on some views, consciousness, from a biological brain to a computational substrate, usually by whole brain emulationwhole brain emulation, n.: Copying a particular person's brain into a computer in such detail, down to individual neurons and their connections, that the simulation would think and behave like that person.. Proposed methods differ: destructive scan-and-copy, in which a preserved brain is sectioned and imaged; and gradual replacement, as in Hans Moravec's scenario of a robot surgeon that scans the brain layer by layer, substituting a simulation for each part while the person stays conscious. Uploading raises philosophical questions that engineering cannot settle: whether a simulation would be conscious at all (substrate independencesubstrate independence, n.: The idea that a mind depends only on the pattern of information processing, not on the material doing it, so a mind could in principle run on silicon as well as on neurons.), whether the upload would be the same person or a copy, especially if several copies run at once, and what rights such digital mindsdigital mind, n.: A mind that exists as software running on computers — such as a sufficiently advanced AI or a digital copy of a human brain — especially when considering its moral and social standing. would have. It is a central aspiration of transhumanismtranshumanism, n.: A movement holding that people should use technology, such as genetic engineering, brain implants or AI, to overcome human limits like aging, disease and death, and become more than human.; in AI-safety discussions uploads appear both as a possible route to superintelligence and as a way for humans to keep pace with AI.
If the scan destroys the brain, is mind uploading survival or a very expensive way to die?
Origin
Science fiction explored the idea from the mid-20th century. The biogerontologist George M. Martin proposed it in 1971 as an interim route to immortality; Hans Moravec described a surgical procedure in 1979 and again in Mind Children (1988), which called it transmigration. Earliest use of 'uploading' in this sense not established; the word was current among transhumanists by the early 1990s, and Joe Strout's Mind Uploading Home Page dates from 1993.
Related
- whole brain emulationwhole brain emulation, n.: Copying a particular person's brain into a computer in such detail, down to individual neurons and their connections, that the simulation would think and behave like that person.
- digital minddigital mind, n.: A mind that exists as software running on computers — such as a sufficiently advanced AI or a digital copy of a human brain — especially when considering its moral and social standing.
- substrate independencesubstrate independence, n.: The idea that a mind depends only on the pattern of information processing, not on the material doing it, so a mind could in principle run on silicon as well as on neurons.
- transhumanismtranshumanism, n.: A movement holding that people should use technology, such as genetic engineering, brain implants or AI, to overcome human limits like aging, disease and death, and become more than human.
- AI personhoodAI personhood, n.: The idea of treating an AI system as a 'person' in law or ethics, with rights or duties of its own — for example, to own property, to be sued, or not to be deleted.
- Hans MoravecHans Moravec, prop. n.: An Austrian-born roboticist who observed that skills humans find effortless, like seeing and moving, are the hardest for machines, and who forecast when computers would match the brain.
Mentioned in
Ray KurzweilRay Kurzweil, prop. n.: An American inventor of reading machines and speech technology who became the best-known prophet of the 'singularity', predicting human-level AI by 2029., connectomeconnectome, n.: A full chart of how a nervous system is wired: which nerve cells, or which brain regions, are linked to which others., digital minddigital mind, n.: A mind that exists as software running on computers — such as a sufficiently advanced AI or a digital copy of a human brain — especially when considering its moral and social standing., Hans MoravecHans Moravec, prop. n.: An Austrian-born roboticist who observed that skills humans find effortless, like seeing and moving, are the hardest for machines, and who forecast when computers would match the brain., substrate independencesubstrate independence, n.: The idea that a mind depends only on the pattern of information processing, not on the material doing it, so a mind could in principle run on silicon as well as on neurons., transhumanismtranshumanism, n.: A movement holding that people should use technology, such as genetic engineering, brain implants or AI, to overcome human limits like aging, disease and death, and become more than human., whole brain emulationwhole brain emulation, n.: Copying a particular person's brain into a computer in such detail, down to individual neurons and their connections, that the simulation would think and behave like that person.