Today at lunch we talked about mind uploading. It all started when Carla mentioned the below Ed Boyden’s TED talk “A light switch for neurons”, where an experience of inserting genes for light-sensitive proteins into brain cells is covered.
I then found on Quora a similar thread where a PhD in cognitive science and neural systems from Boston University states: “I think the “chance” of mind uploading happening at any time in the future is zero.”
Quite fascinating. Some of the parts I decided to highlight:
“I think the concept of mind uploading is still incoherent from both philosophical and scientific perspectives.”
“We have no way of knowing whether an upload has been successful”
“The concept of uploading a mind is based on the assumption that mind and body are separate entities that can in principle exist without each other. There is currently no scientific proof of this idea”
“As an analogy, consider the marketing/PR team working at a Fortune 1000 corporation. The marketing team puts out a coherent message — the voice of the company — but this is created by a team of people who collaborate and synthesize their thinking into a consistent framework. New people join the marketing department all the time, and they learn the ropes and take over from people who leave. Every few years, everyone working there is new, but the voice of the company (its identity, messages, and memory) remain intact.”
