Mind Uploading

The ability to be able to copy or upload the mind has been discussed much in science fiction, and increasingly in science in recent years. Today we will examine many additional uses of Mind Uploading, along with how it works and some of its implications for concepts like Consciousness, Identity, and Individuality.

Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap

SFIA Recommended Books:

Listen or Download the audio of this episode from Soundcloud: Episode's Audio-only version:

Credits:

Writers:
Isaac Arthur

Editors:
Jerry Guern
Keith Blockus
Mark Warburton
Sigmund Kopperud

Producer:
Isaac Arthur

Cover Artist:

Graphics Team:
Jarred Eagley
Jeremy Jozwik
Ken York
Kristijan Tavar

Narrator
Isaac Arthur
Dennis E. Taylor

Music Manager:

Music:

[Alexis-hxyd]

Arthurs' Paradox is the apparent paradox that occurs in relation to Causality on a popular Youtube channel.. Arthur Isaacs' subscribers will always press the thumbs up even before they have watched the new episode. This is because they know with absolute certainty that it will be awesome. They are never wrong. Scientists are at the moment confounded how effect is preceding cause but believe it is due to a hypothetical time travelling particle called the Arthurino.

[TitanicDwarf]

As an aspiring author of science fiction this was an especially great episode. The insight from Dennis Taylor about modern science fiction was so true. People have so much access to information, it can make it hard to write a story that people can suspend their disbelief of if you don't get the science plausible. This channel is a great resource in that regard. Thank you Isaac for what yo do.

[empireempire]

"I think I'd have no trouble finding one thousand candidates from my audience". Consider me signed. All aboard the Isaac-train... ship... err... vehicle?

[mattpelzek]

As long as the paperwork says it's the ship of Theseus, it's the ship of Theseus.

[mazelme]

I really shouldn't be here now. All my daughter asked me was to wait for her to get home form school so we could watch this together. Damn. That's 5 hours from now. This is gonna be hard, but I gotta leave now. But not before I hit 'like'... I mean it goes without saying this is gonna rock, even without watching I know that much! Happy Arthursday!!!!

[RoySchl]

protip: don't simulate a brain on it's own... always include the hormonal system, that stuff works like a coarse meta software on the brain... things get wonky if you try it without

[Killuminati]

Really great videos, much better than those "half-scientific" documentaries on those topics you can often find on Youtube.
greetings from Germany

[shockwavecity]

I swear your speech is getting better every episode. Not that it was problematic before, but I can really hear the improvement!

[eclipsenow]

Brash and Daring, Thoughtful and Diplomatic, Confrontational and Ethically Grey. Fantastic summary of these captains!

[Lyozar]

This mind uploading reminds me of Destiny 2

The Exos where humanities way of immortality through uploading your mind in a robotic body.
- The first stage of Exos would lead to people going insane as they can't deal with being in an Exo body like a file not being in the correct format but uploading it anyway.
- Eventually Exos where built with many humanisms for the mind to cope, needing to eat, drink, sleep, feel pain, look like your original body ect.
- There are also resets on memories and an Exos number to their name is how many times they where reset like Cayde-6, Banshee-44, & Saint-14.
- However to become one requires a scan that kills you and copies your mind.

[jpotter]

How timely! I was just pondering last week, after hearing a cryogenics advocate admit (finally) hat frozen brains are unlikely to be thawed and their goal was to someday scan and emulate those brains instead), how it might be possible to "really" extend life via continual wet/hardware replacement. I settled on the need to keep the processes running, while shifting them onto new platforms over time. First augmenting a brain, giving it new platforms to run on, expand onto, and over the course of multiple procedures and years, gradually/eventually transfer away from the original biological platform. The goal would be to keep the same consciousness viable, by keeping its supporting processes online.

I also finally settled for myself that yep, every time someone in Trek is transported, that instance of them dies. For all appearances, it's the same person to everyone else, but it is a new instance of that consciousness. Creepy.

Thanks (again) for the awesome channel.

[ianyboo]

For the many of us who have been under a general anesthesia for an operation we know exactly what it's like to have our Consciousness interrupted. It definitely feels like I'm still me, but I could be wrong :)

Edit: I don't think sleep quite gets us there since there is still a tiny bit of awareness going on. Dreams, a sense of the passage of time and things like that.

[thomdilling]

God i love having Thursdays off work. Got my blanket and cereal on the couch with Isaac Arthur playing. This is the life.

[Keith_Rothwell]

The Singularity Trap product placement was amazing.

[FumblingDylan]

0:59 whatever you've been doing to improve your speech since you started the channel is working fantastically. "deserved a primary focus" would have been a minefield but you crushed it.

[mjk]

Sign me up for your ship Isaac! Love the Bobiverse series. Literally my favorite book series of all time. I'm really looking forward to getting into the Singularity Trap right after I finish Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark in a couple of days. I never really thought a lot about mind uploading until I read the Bobiverse series, but I'm fascinated with the idea of it now. Keep up the great work Isaac and thanks to everyone who helps Isaac put out these great videos.

[Frosty]

**Plays 2005 Doctor Who Theme**

Sweet! Time to enjoy yet another fantastic video by you and your great team!

[DrShaym]

Is it really necessary to emulate every single neuron? A lot, if not most, of your brain's processing power is devoted to controlling unconscious bodily functions such as pupil dilation. You won't need those if your mind is in a computer.

[ThomasSorensen]

Oh I'm excited for this one! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for converting my mind to digital via a Theseus' Ship kind of process. I figure my best shot at imortality is upgrading aspects of my brain over time until it's sufficiently non-biological for it to never kill me faster than it can be repaired or moved into a new body.

[timothymclean]

As a student of evolutionary biology who's read too much Creationist/ID claptrap, I cringe whenever people refer to the results of evolution as random...and doubly so when they refer to, say, the human brain as a random pile of junk assembled at random (which is close to a common introduction for "irreducible complexity" arguments). Evolution is not random, as Mr. Arthur noted before his cringe-inducing line; it's merely _unguided, _ and the distinction is critical. The shape a pile of rocks makes is unguided, but is the opposite of random. The same is true of crystalline structures, tectonic activity, and the water cycle. Understanding that unguided activity is *not* random and *can* produce complex yet consistent results is important to understanding many things, including biology—not just for evolution, but also for ecology, behavior of packs/flocks, and even how various organs, chemicals, and whatnot interact within a single organism.
Sorry, Isaac Arthur just walked into my metaphorical wheelhouse to borrow some tools and stepped on one of my pet peeves.