Mind uploading

Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate a person's mental state in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information processing, such that it would respond in essentially the same way as the original brain and have a sentient conscious mind.

Substantial mainstream research in related areas is being conducted in neuroscience and computer science, including animal brain mapping and simulation, development of faster supercomputers, virtual reality, brain–computer interfaces, connectomics, and information extraction from dynamically functioning brains. Supporters say many of the tools and ideas needed to achieve mind uploading already exist or are under active development, but they admit that others are as yet very speculative, though still in the realm of engineering possibility.

Mind uploading may be accomplished by either of two methods: copy-and-upload or copy-and-delete by gradual replacement of neurons (which can be considered gradual destructive uploading) until the original organic brain no longer exists and a computer program emulating it takes control of the body. In the former method, mind uploading would be achieved by scanning and mapping the salient features of a biological brain and then storing and copying that information into a computer system or another computational device. The biological brain may not survive the copying process or may be deliberately destroyed during it. The simulated mind could be in a virtual reality or simulated world, supported by an anatomic 3D body simulation model. Alternatively, the simulated mind could reside in a computer inside—or either connected to or remotely controlled by—a (not necessarily humanoid) robot, biological, or cybernetic body.

Among some futurists and within part of transhumanist movement, mind uploading is treated as an important proposed life extension or immortality technology (known as "digital immortality"). Some believe mind uploading is the best way to preserve the human species, as opposed to cryonics. Another aim of mind uploading is to provide a permanent backup to our "mind-file", to enable interstellar space travel, and to be a means for human culture to survive a global disaster by making a functional copy of a human society in a computing device. Some futurists consider whole-brain emulation a "logical endpoint" of computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics, both of which study brain simulation for medical research purposes. It is discussed in artificial intelligence research publications as an approach to strong AI (artificial general intelligence) and to at least weak superintelligence. Another approach is seed AI, which is not based on existing brains. Computer-based intelligence, such as an upload, could think much faster than a biological human, even if it were no more intelligent. A large-scale society of uploads might, according to futurists, give rise to a technological singularity: an exponential development of technology that exceeds human control and becomes unpredictable. Mind uploading is a central conceptual feature of numerous science fiction novels, films, and games.

Many neuroscientists believe that the human mind is largely an emergent property of the information processing of its neuronal network.

Neuroscientists have said that important functions performed by the mind, such as learning, memory, and consciousness, are due to purely physical and electrochemical processes in the brain and are governed by applicable laws. For example, Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi wrote in IEEE Spectrum:

Consciousness is part of the natural world. It depends, we believe, only on mathematics and logic and on the imperfectly known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology; it does not arise from some magical or otherworldly quality.

Eminent computer scientists and neuroscientists, including Koch and Tononi, Douglas Hofstadter, Jeff Hawkins, Marvin Minsky, Randal A. Koene, and Rodolfo Llinás, have predicted that advanced computers will be capable of thought and even attain consciousness.