Can You Upload Your Mind & Live Forever?

the desire to be free from the limits of the human experience is as old as our first stories we exist in an endless universe only bound by the laws of physics and yet our consciousness is trapped in mortal machines made of meat with the breathtaking explosion of innovation and progress for the first time the concept of leaving our flesh piles behind and uploading our minds into a digital utopia seems possible even like the logical next step on our evolutionary ladder mind uploading and digital immortality are some of the core themes of the game cyberpunk 2077 it plays in a grim dystopian future where humanity has progressed far beyond today's technology and explores what this could mean for humanity about a year ago cd projekt red asked us if we would like to make a video about some of these ideas and we were immediately on board so let's explore this topic together is it possible to upload your mind into a computer well it's complicated upload what exactly mind is one of those words that are really hard to define it's thought to be the collective abilities of your consciousness and intelligence the thing that lets you imagine recognize and dream mind uploading is the hypothetical concept of making a copy of this inner world and transferring it into a computer to run a simulation of your consciousness but even defining the premise gets really hard really fast the possibility of mind uploading is based on three assumptions assumption one your mind is in your brain's structure arrangement and biochemistry the idea that everything about the mind can be found in the brain is called physicalism and it keeps our discussion within the domain of natural law assumption two at some point we will understand the brain well enough and possess the technology to simulate all of its aspects to make a digital mind copy assumption three computer software can host your mind which means the mind is computable there is no physical property in the brain including consciousness that cannot be simulated accurately even if it requires a lot of code all of these assumptions have been proposed and challenged by scientists and philosophers and they remain the subject of passionate debate with so many fundamental questions still unanswered it's hard to discuss the topic without annoying someone whatever your position every discussion of mind upload has to begin with the brain the brain in a nutshell the brain is the most complex biological structure known and deserves its own entire video so let's just take a brief look at it around 100 billion neurons are communicating via one million billion connections that are sending signals up to one thousand times each second which is one quadrillion events every second of your waking life and it's not just neurons there are billions of supporting and immune cells of various types performing different jobs on a macro level the brain can be divided into sections with different roles from breathing and heart rate to coordinating movement and involuntary reflexes the most developed parts the neocortex or the outermost layer of the brain hold memories our ability to plan think and imagine hope and dream where exactly the you part of the brain is situated is not entirely clear we know that areas like the precunious cortex have the greatest influence on our consciousness but also that several areas can network together to share tasks none of them can do alone the brain's building blocks are not exactly simple either neurons are not just wires they alter and process information synapses where signals are handed over from one neuron to the next contain receptors for hundreds of chemical signals opening them up to outside influence we have a basic understanding of how these work and we can accurately predict their behavior at small scales but there's a lot more to the brain than just nerve signals hormones play a huge role like serotonin which affects our mood or histamine which helps us learn the brain is influenced by our other parts too from heart nerves to gut bacteria what seemed like a very complicated system to begin with gets even more complicated the more we learn about it to get this wildly interconnected mess of cells and meat and chemicals into a computer we need a model that we can simulate in our digital world some sort of scan unfortunately our scanning technology like fmri machines is not nearly good enough to attempt such a thing but there is a different method that seems very promising cutting a brain into tiny slices and scanning them with a high resolution electron microscope to create an accurate map of all the cells and connections in 2019 scientists successfully mapped a cubic millimeter of mouse brain roughly the size of a big grain of sand it contained 100 000 neurons with a billion synapses and four kilometers of nerve fibers this grain of brain was cut into 25 000 slices five electron microscopes ran continuously for five months collecting more than 100 million images it took three months to assemble the images into a 3d model the completed data set fills up 2 million gigabytes of cloud storage to scan a whole human brain we would have to repeat this effort a million times which is much easier said than done even worse to correctly simulate a brain we might even have to map out much smaller building blocks to include the billions of underlying proteins or even individual molecules that cause all the behaviors we see at the cellular level which might produce more data than the capacity of all data storage on earth brain water to consciousness wine while all of these issues are annoying the real question is how we turn the static blueprint of the brain into an active thing even if we have a scan down to the level of synapses we need laws and rules that animate the wiring diagram to endow this static structure with life update it with the various laws of chemical binding of electrodynamics to animate the simulation so it becomes a dynamic active thing like a brain that exists from one microsecond to the next that can evolve in time think see and act the reality is that we just don't know if this is possible to achieve if our technology can give rise to real minds it all hinges on the nature of the problem are the brain and mind just complicated and a lot of work to figure out or are they complex in a way that we can't solve in the worst case consciousness is more than the sum of the parts of the brain in a way that we don't realize yet complex in a way that we can't solve by getting better scans just having a list of the ingredients might not be enough to get a good consciousness cake right now we have a great starting point with tangible scientific results and an end goal but the road to true simulation is unclear and requires a lot of innovation and research humans have historically been horrible at predicting the pace of progress in the best case it's just a matter of doing the work and finding the right solutions it might not be necessary to simulate every last cell down to the last atom instead it may be possible to simplify elements into probabilistic models that could match the behavior of the brain using a more manageable number of simpler systems so we really don't know if we will ever understand our brain and consciousness well enough to upload human minds but the science is real and worth pursuing at the very least we will just learn a lot about ourselves and develop a bunch of new technologies if we succeed this might put mind uploading well within the capabilities of our rapidly progressing computer technology the consequences for humanity and our future in this universe are vast creepy and amazing the copy successful mind uploading is functional immortality unless damaged or deleted you will continue to exist as long as a copy is stored somewhere of course if the scan is corrupted in any of a myriad of ways your mind might get corrupted too you might be in an eternity of pain or paranoia or having an endless psychotic breakdown the question if this digital mind is you opens another whole can of worms for now we'll just assume that your digital mind at least feels like it's you how would mind uploading change your outlook on life will you feel safer knowing that death is not necessarily the end or would you try to be super safe to avoid dying before your mind is uploaded if scanning technology does become advanced enough your biological and digital versions could co-exist you could help each other out by making your biological lifespan more enjoyable and the future of the copy more secure whatever happens your mind copy will begin a completely new life once it opens their digital eyes for the first time having a functional body is actually quite nice and you're pretty used to it food love pain and exhaustion all of these things are parts of us that we must live with but in the end they are the result of neurons firing in your brain so while you could decide to live in a simulated body it might be optional for a digital mind falling in love might lose meaning if you can have it at the press of a button instead you might end up searching for new extraordinary experiences walk on the surface of the sun speed up time to skip past a few boring months experience a simulation of the past your perspectives and priorities will change as you continue to exist in this liberated form the longer digital minds exist eventually they will likely gain greater knowledge of themselves and an ability to change their own contents this can be as simple as deleting a memory that bugs you you might change aspects of your personality like grudges addictions or laziness without the constraints of biology your abilities might move up as technology progresses while your priorities or goals might become more and more foreign to your original brain if it's still alive waking up to the true potential of digital immortality will be gradual you can start projects that would take more than a lifetime to complete scientists could accumulate an incredible amount of knowledge leading to discoveries that could revolutionize the world adventurers could upload themselves onto small spaceships and embark on journeys to the stars just putting themselves on pause for thousands of years at a time although it's unlikely that every digital mind will work for the benefit of humanity since our current meat versions don't do that either some will seek power and influence and will have a literal eternity of trying to create empires others will begin hoarding as many resources for themselves as possible as they compete with other minds trying to do the same the longer they live the less sympathy they may feel for simple meat beings or imagine immortal cult leaders who propagate lies and invent religions fine-tuning and perfecting their dogma over hundreds of years or perhaps none of all that maybe our minds are not made for immortality and digital minds will just become rigid and unproductive and retire after a very long life having experienced everything they could ever want to it's hard to predict how much good or bad a self-improving mind could do with hundreds or thousands of years of free time while mind upload with all its wonders and horrors is beyond our current technological capabilities you can use some of your free time in the present and experience one interpretation of this future right away by hitting the streets of night city in cyberpunk 2077 cyberpunk 2077 is made by cd projekt red the studio that brought us the wisher series and is one of the most eagerly awaited games of the last few years you dive into a dark dystopian future where incredible technology is redefining who and what we are you can become part of this stunningly large world with immersive storytelling here's the thing we haven't played the game yet but when you see this video we're probably already doing so if the past work of cd projekt red is any indication then this will be an amazing game which is why we did this collaboration and sat on this video for far too long so if it's made you curious check it out

Channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Views: 6,002,998

Rating: 4.9392967 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 4b33NTAuF5E

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/djbandit]

Description

The desire to be free from the limits of the human experience is as old as our first stories. We exist in an endless universe, only bound by the laws of physics and yet, our consciousness is trapped in mortal machines made of meat. With the breathtaking explosion of innovation and progress, for the first time the concept of leaving our flesh piles behind and uploading our minds into a digital utopia seems possible. Even like the logical next step on our evolutionary ladder.

Sources and further reading: https://sites.google.com/view/sources-mindupload

[u/Kirsham]

Uploading your consciousness is a science fiction pipedream. It effectively encounters the same hard barrier of teletransportation, the only difference being that the target host of your consciousness is non-biological rather than biological copy of your brain. Even assuming that you can simulate consciousness in silico, which I'm not sure is feasible in the first place, the simulated consciousness will not be you.

[u/Puncharoo]

Video starts as regular Kurzgesagt video. ENDDS AS A CYBERPUNK COMMERCIAL

[u/pbjames23]

Yes, but even if the replica mind is identical at the moment of the upload, there will be two separate minds. "You" would die when your body dies, and your replica would go on "living" until it's physical medium (the computer in this case) breaks down.

[u/Script256]

This video was 100% paid by CDPR, not just "they asked us", the animation is wayyy better than what we have seen before + the top comment literally links to the shop site

EDIT: Aaaand it literally ends with an ad

[u/Turdie]

I'm gonna need a source on that "Histamines help us learn" claim at 4:35

[u/WeTheSummerKid]

posted to r/SOMA due to relevance.

[u/Puncharoo]

The animation in this video, I can tell right away, is stepped up a notch. I'm literally 3 seconds into the video and my first thought was "WOAAAAHHH"

[u/antuanos]

As I've understood it the brain does things and makes decisions depending on what chemicals the glands and other stuff in your body sends out. Without the glads (and testicles for men) the brain would just sit there doing nothing.

Maybe it's time to talk about how to upload our testicles to the cloud so we actually can use the processor that is the brain!

Jokes aside, it boggles my mind that no one talks about this, everyone just focuses on the brain structure like that in itself could have a life...