Upload your mind into a computer by 2050?

[Dundasbro]

i'd say the clone once it can prove its not only healthiet stronger and human, the regular man of woman born would be inferior in every capacity except having lived and experienced life longer. if those memories are transported to the clone who can recite the backward 5 times while the original foams at the mouth trying to remember what he ate for breakfast yesterday i think you get your answer.

Therefor eliminating the need for humans

is it fair to be born of a crack head 16 year old with several potential fathers and several foster families? many people are born into this world who can't say that they're better off than persons born of a testube and a knife.

It is inhumane to make feeling people for our purposes, if we create human life through cloning we must be ready to accept the clones as equals, if we make stock of clones to do manual labour as our slaves, then the perfect form of us would revolt surely. They will be stronger, smarter and closer to perfection then any human could be. Either we will rule them or they will rule us. It will be impossible to function together ordinarily.

the clones would have to rally together. what would cause them to do this? if the men of women born were prejudiced against them forcing them to revolt. if however clones are treated the same as any man forced to prove their worth to society before being judged then no, the revolts would remain science fiction.

 

wasn't terminator with robots? about an AI defense net... something probably cooking up at the american NSA or google...

Yes, it was about AI, the AI was better than humans and it took over, whos to say it wont happen for real with clones?

clones revolts in sci-fi occur when the clones are dehumanized treated as slaves, which was meant to jab at real people being held against their wills. the robot twist was tossed in to further dehumanize the captives.

Of course, what are we going to use our clones for exacly?

 

 

the student should exceed the master.

 

only while they outnumber you. if clones are made sterile you've solved a huge part of the problem. the could hump but they wouldn't be able to breed. once the clones are created if you are a fan of gattaca then you know they will be perfect and defect free. this would discount the mirroring and the weirdness but still wouldn't stop them from breeding their perfection into the larger human population.

 

given how fast people breed and how the vain seek the best therapies even those not touched by the perfect DNA would seek it out and try to belong by injecting themselves with it. no one would get sick, few would die, the earth would become eden once more, one over flowing with people, people who didn't express enough of the perfect DNA would not have as high a standing in society and might have to work harder to make a place for themselves, opting perhaps to flee the earth and work elsewhere in sols domain to avoid the shame of having lesser quality DNA.

Humans are not perfect, your theory seeks perfection and eventually the regular human wont be needed, who will become the slave then? When a perfect human is created it will be used to our advantage, but because its perfect it in the end will win, we will lose either way

[alxian]

clones will be used for longevity of human lives.

 

clones will not be that much better than humans.

 

normal humans have tons of characteristics that makes then better than their peers but few stand out. similarly as advanced as a clone might be it too will only measure up if it chooses to do so. if i had sharper focus and a better memory there are a dozen things i'd want to do, but even with those skills i doubt i'd feel compelled to do anything more than earn enough money to get by. it won't be possible to make a superhuman clone able to perform amazing feats of mental caculation AND be able to shatter olympic records AND bed several people per day, all that would be tiring and would cost a fortune to feed that body and keep it healthy. so even if a clone was able to be more than most humans could ever be they would spend more time doing things to impress us (and itself) earn money and very little time entertaining itself. once it realised it can just sit around and do nothing like some people it might opt to just break even as some of us do.

 

i mean its easy to expect a clone to want to become king of men, but as long as its vunerable to a bullet in the head we humans have little to worry about.

 

how then do you judge what is ambition on the part of the clone and what is unfair use of its birthright? should a clone be allowed to assume a position of authority, such as a manager of humans? owner of a store, president? ethically yes they should be able to assume roles that make the best use of their potential, but the normal humans would be stuck with a choice, accept clone overlords or purify their own DNA and give themselves the same advantages or put unfair restrictions on how far in life a clone is allowed to go. the latter being IMO suicide.

[Dundasbro]

What I meant was that if humans choose to make clones, they must be fair and give the clones an equal life oppertunity and not enforce restrictions on them. But in not enforcing restrictions the clones would be stronger, smarter and more efficant than regular humans. This will probebly result in mass creation of clones to do all work for the richer humans, and loss of jobs for a large percentage of the "regular" humans. The clones would gain in numbers and regular humans will die out in poverty.

[alxian]

olympic athletes are stronger and faster than me.

 

i don't think their development should be limited, they are at the center of several industires, and inspire the rest of us to excersize.

 

clones* thus would be born with a similar leg up and would be persons to look up to not to fear.

 

or should the politically correct term be GM human?

 

as long as they do not eclipse me in every capacity then there is nothing wrong with allowing a gattaca like future to happen. you can splice in whatever you can afford.

 

heinlein said that some of the richest entrepreneurs of the next few centuries will be people able to create designer genetic enhancements all they way up to full creatures. such labours will require extreme skill and incredible patience. designing an animal utterly from scratch, all the tubing, nerves tissues and organs and even exotic compounds and fluids that those creatures will use to survive in the wild.

 

one reason why GM animals will take off was hinted at in jurrasic park, we are killing off animal species that could be revived through GM, also long dead animals could be revived.

 

consider how many large predators have gone extinct for lack of prey species. if we could rebuild earth ecosystems with those lost prey species and predators, even plants and hybrids we would undo so much of the evil our species has wrought on our world.

 

could GM creatures terraform some of the more inhospitable realms on earth? make desert lands habitable, reclaim areas submerged land and lay down natural barriers (reafs) against further encroachment?

 

as much as people like to fear new technologies they fail to see the good they could do.

 

cloning man plant or animal is not going to instantly generate a master race that would judge us like gods squashing us under their heels. if we modify ourselves along the way GM creatures wouldn't have an advantage at all.

 

for the purposes of the thread one of the easiest things we could do is digitize our memory, something we already do in the form of online storehouses of knowledge. wikipedia, google and dictionary are three sites that if everyone had instant access too would jump several points on the IQ scale. then we could work on increasing the efficiency of our digestive systems, replacing bones with lighter stronger ceramics, muscles with polymers to increase strength and reduce by orders of magnitude the toxic byproducts of muscle exertion. etc.

[Dundasbro]

Screwing with the ecosystem has rarely ever worked, and fixing it is likely to screw up too. The worlds natural land areas are getting smaller, bringing back extinct animals can only make things worse.

[alxian]

then start with GM fish

 

then GM sea birds

 

entire ecosystems can be built in and around the worlds oceans

[Dundasbro]

Start small, good idea... :lol:

[alxian]

was actually thinking about my ideas for sharkoceros and hippobronccolus.

 

plant beds of rapid growing kelp (floating on the seas surface) with artifical root systems of geothermal (power generating) pipes, that dredge up nutrient rich currents from the ocean bottom.

 

use this GM kelp as habitat for GM fish. and possibly to form a living (purifying) wall between the normal ocean and the GM test beds. within the walls you could have GM reefs also habitats for whole ecosystems of GM creatures.

 

the kelp could be harvest and dumped onto land and allowed to rot like compost to source hydrogen and methane, the residues would make a rich fertilizer.. as long as the sea salt was leached off. GM bacteria would finish the job on the residue that can't be used for compost.

 

this compost then can be spread on fields of GM crops.

 

these GM crops and feed people or animals, not like people seem to interested in GM food products yet, they aren't hungry enough yet.

 

enter sharky and hippo, sharky is 100% muscle, hippo a hydrogen bloated sun soaking hybird creature several times larger than sharky. shary hunts hippo, while hippo grases on the tall GM feed fields. hippo can be turned into a tofu like substance while sharky is kulled for its high protein content.

 

another potential GM creature could be a blimp like whale hybird that floats around the sky, in its belly it ferments the fast growing sea kelp turning it into hydrogen rich... by products.. which it holds onto, it migrates around a set route and finally comes to rest in a man made lake where the hydrogen rich compounds are harvested. the animal is then released all releaved of its load and swims to back to the ocean to "eat". it would then spend a season eating fish and sea kelp. eventually when it was full again it would swim to the surface and go into plant mode where it would metabolize its rich cud into gases and rich residues, the gases being lighter than air it would inflate and eventually float up into the air, it would be designed to maintain neutral bouyancy by absorbing its floatation gases. then for months at a time (or less) it would float around converting its cud into gases and residue before comming into port for "servicing".

 

think about it like the flintstones, using GM animals to replace machines and factories. it might be unethical to some but if the animals are less polluting and more efficient how is it harmful to create life specifically designed for a task we can't do without polluting the environment?

[Dundasbro]

Good idea, GM animals for our purposes is in theory more ethical than the treatment of animals nowadays.

[Michaelangelica]

Ian Pearson, head of British Telecomunication’s futurology unit, seriously predicts that it will be possible to upload your mind into a computer by about 2050.

 

I believe Moravec is correct in his prediction that sufficiently powerful hardware will exist.

Hype

The human brain is the most complex thing in the universe.

the complexity is stupendous. Just because we have figured out what the genome of the human looks like, we are still light years away from understanding how it expresses itself. If we ever can.

Even if we ever get biological computers, (that they are trying to develop now) it is still a big "if"

We have "maps" of the brain, but 'map' is a poor simile for such a complex organ

Popular science, and the media, loves computer and genetic hype.:edizzy:

[IDMclean]

Ok, I might take the time to read through the rest of this thread latter, but right now I am exhausted and only really interested in getting in my two bits.

 

On technique. I hypothesize that when it comes to the possibility of man versus machine, as done by so many sci-fi authors and popular movies it will be rather anti-climatic in comparision. That is Rather than all out war, I hypothesize that man will become machine, in a sort of designed evolution. This said, what I think will happen in the man-machine interface is that we will integrate mechanicial components into ourselve, most like of exceedingly small components, nano-perhaps, I am hoping for quantum computing or optical, or both. Now if we understand the Bio-physical aspect of the workings of thought, emotion, the psyche and information exchange then we can integrate components which learn our network, and effectively "upload" into our components. Given time and proper technology, we could eventually shead the body and become basically purely energy, or information, however you wish to spin it. There are many variations which can come off of this scheme but ultimately I think it's the most likely with current understanding.

 

This and Geno-engineering and Modification are what I am waiting/hoping for. It's the age, that in some of the stories I've written, which I call the "Age of Design", in which humankind makes something of itself. Sorta like Manifest destiny, but more integrating of the Physical and Metaphysical.

 

 

-I hope that contributes something

MeccaGeno-KickAssClown, the Clown of the future.

[Michaelangelica]

I would just hate to be a Science Fiction writer in the 21st century.

By the time your absurd idea of a book came out some bastard would have done it.

 

Then again perhaps we should't get too cocky:naughty:

and think we will have all the answers.

as the poet said "There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are drempt of in your philosophy."

(And Bird Flu might get us first anyhow:)

[Michaelangelica]

Screwing with the ecosystem has rarely ever worked, and fixing it is likely to screw up too. The worlds natural land areas are getting smaller, bringing back extinct animals can only make things worse.

Ecosystems, ecology and the total macro and micro human and animal environment is where it will be all at in 2050. I hope.

We ignore nature's systems and excruciating intricacy & inter-dependence at our peril

[HydrogenBond]

There are some practical problems that are not taken into account. Computer memory is based on binary memory or on-off switches. The synapses are variable switches like dimmer switches that have many settings controlled via neuro-transmittors. Even if one could take a snap shot of the human memory, it would only be one switch setting at a time. One would also have to alter the switch settings between snap shots. This is made more complex because there are both global and local affects going on at the same time. For example, if one was in a fight-flight response, the working memory is narrowed down to the needs of survival, due to a global altering of the synaptic switch settings, even though the whole brain is still fully functional.

 

Another problem is that computers are based on electrons. While the brain is based on hydrogen protons and the propagation of positive charge. Electrical waves move along a wire at the speed of light. While the positive charge signals are much slower. Recording electron output does not necessarily reflect the propagation of positive charge that is creating the memory making translation to computer memory subject to error.

 

Another technical problem is that right hemisphere memory is spatial or 3-D , while computer logic is 2-D, i.e., cause and affect. An analogy for 3-D memory is a ball, while 2-D memory is a plane. One can approximate a 3-D ball with a range of logic planes at different angles. When 3-D memory interacts, logical planes from different 3-D balls can interact resulting in illogical results in 2-D. For example, the 3-D dynamics of falling in love is not logical yet can lead to a progressive result.

 

Whereas, 2-D memory is cause and affect defined by the X,Y axis on a logical 2-D plane, 3-D memory is X, Y and Z. The Z dimension is something beyond cause and affect. Until computer programming can simulate 3-D memory, data transfer of the 3-D memory will have practical limitations with respect to its correct translation.

 

There are even more advanced features of the brain that would not appear with simple snap shots. There is also a fourth dimensional variable connected to time projection. For example, falling in love only happens for a finite duration of time. The 3-D memory is time projected for a finite duration and then it stops. The result is living software 3+-D, which may not show up during scans unless the software is playing.

 

The way to understand 3+-D, is that neurons can grow and shrink branches and synapses. The time projection creates a growth potential where neurons do what is needed to minimize local potential under the constraints of others potentials that are occurring. It is sort of like a thunder cloud being fed potential by the sun while also trying to lower potential via rain.

[IDMclean]

Don't forget the background chemical component of our mind. Those neuroglia, formerly thought to be mere structure, it has been found in some study or another, that they actually appare to listen in on our neuro-network firing away, and possibly send chemical messages back and forth between themselves.

[CraigD]

Ian Pearson, head of British Telecomunication’s futurology unit, seriously predicts that it will be possible to upload your mind into a computer by about 2050.

 

I believe Moravec is correct in his prediction that sufficiently powerful hardware will exist.

Hype

The human brain is the most complex thing in the universe.

the complexity is stupendous. Just because we have figured out what the genome of the human looks like, we are still light years away from understanding how it expresses itself. If we ever can.

Even if we ever get biological computers, (that they are trying to develop now) it is still a big "if"

We have "maps" of the brain, but 'map' is a poor simile for such a complex organ

Popular science, and the media, loves computer and genetic hype.:eek_big:

 

In defense of Moravec’s predictions, he limits his prediction to the assertion that an electronic computer will have the same information processing capability as a human brain by the 2020s.

 

Note that Moravec is addressing electronic, or possibly photonic (where light is used in place of electric current in some or all parts) computers only. While he supposes that the materials and architecture of these computers may differ radically from current ones, he’s still talking about a Von Neumann machine composed essentially of simple, on-off switches. He’s explicitly not talking about building artificial or modifying natural biological molecules to perform computing tasks, nor is he talking about quantum computers (which some consider to have the potential to perform nearly infinite numbers of computations is short time intervals).

 

To “upload your mind into a computer” requires 2 other significant developments, depending on this technical path is followed (the decision concerning which, if either, is a feasible path also depends on as yet unknown factors):

• Assuming a non-biological emulation is shown to be virtually identical to the brain processes most important to thought and identity
  • A working nearly comprehensive understanding of brain processes
    

  [*]Assuming a biological emulation is required to be virtually identical to the brain

  • A working computer emulation of all the cells in the brain
    

  [*]Brain imaging techniques (destructive or non-destructive) adequate for one or both of the above approaches

Moravec implicitly, and Pearson explicitly, assume that these daunting technical challenges will be resolved, apparently on faith that we clever humans eventually succeed at meeting any technical challenge.

[WhapSumi]

I agree, we’re pretty close or perhaps already there now. Reasonable good limited Turing test-capable programs were running on OTS hardware 10 years ago, and with the current state of voice recognition and synthesizing a computer “matching the intellectual performance of a human being” doing mind-numbingly repetitive tasks like call center work.

 

What Moravec is describing, though, is akin to an unlimited Turing test-capable machine, with general reasoning skills equal or superior to a normal human being. His argument, which he bases on some pretty impressive comparisons of computer programs an animal neurology, and which Pearson draws from, is that practical computer hardware is currently about 100 times too slow to fully emulate human thought.

 

The real barrier to achieving either Moravec or Pearson’s vision is, I believe, our inability to image the functioning human (or animal) brain in high enough detail to

copy it into a computerized simulation without understanding well what it is doing, or

understand what it is doing well enough to create a similar computer program.

 

Although I disagree with them, some very bright folk, such as Roger Penrose, argue that the necessary detail may never be achievable.

 

CraigD

 

I don't think the speed of computer hardware will be the limiting factor nor do you need a brain interface. It will be imaging and storage technology that will do the trick. Once we have the ability to image and store the structure and chemical makeup of a human brain at the resolution of a single neuron (and possibly atom), then we can take a "snap shot" of the brain and store it digitally. You will just be a veeerrrryyy sloooow iinndiviguuuual for a while until the hardware catches up.