Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
'Mind Uploading' Issue Now Downloadable
The Special Issue on Mind Uploading, from the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, is now available. It is billed as the first-ever collection of scientific and philosophical papers on the theme of mind uploading'.
(Propagating waves of activity in Izhikevich's large-scale model of mammalian thalamocortical systems [From FUNDAMENTALS OF WHOLE BRAIN EMULATION: STATE, TRANSITION AND UPDATE REPRESENTATIONS])
The concept of brain emulation is essentially the same as that of well-known emulators for computer hardware. An emulator replicates the functions of the emulated system by using the computational hardware of another system, and it strives to do this so well that the emulated system behavior is indistinguishable from its behavior on original hardware. With this aim, we therefore implicitly presuppose that brain behavior is computable. In practice, most researchers interested in brain emulation assume that brain behavior can be expressed in the form of e®ectively calculable functions for which the Church-Turing thesis applies... As in the case of other emulators, the highest priority is to insure that the results of processing on the emulator are the same as processing on the original hardware. While brain emulation provides access to the operations taking place during mental processes, that does not immediately give us an understanding of the strategies used at di®erent levels of abstraction of functions of mind.In the case of a human brain, we will use \mind" to refer to those functions that determine behavioral responses of the system. This involves processing environmental stimuli, stimuli elicited by intrinsic drives, spontaneous thought processes elicited by evoked memories, etc. Whole brain emulation means that the functions of mind are implemented in a substrate other than the original biological substrate.
The idea of moving a person's mind into some sort of receptacle has been kicking around in the minds of science fiction writers for some time. Recently, sf fans enjoyed Richard Morgan's view of this idea; see this article on cortical stacks which regularly update the person in a remote storage facility.
I also recall several instances of this idea in the original Star Trek series; this first one appears to use the brain transplant idea.
ALICE 263: These are our Barbara series. The body is covered with a self-renewing plastic over a skeleton of beryllium-titanium alloy.
KIRK: Very impressive.
UHURA: I should say so.
KIRK: I must say, I like the styling.
MUDD: They were, of course, made to my personal specifications, as indeed were the Maisie series, the Trudie series, and particularly the Annabel series.
KIRK: Don't you believe in male androids, Harry?
MUDD: Male? Well, I suppose they have their uses.
UHURA: How long does a body like that last?
ALICE 19: None of our android bodies has ever worn out. However, the estimated duration of this model is five hundred thousand years.
UHURA: Five hundred thousand years?
ALICE 263: Our medi-robots are able to place a human brain within a structurally compatible android body.
MUDD: Immortality and eternal beauty.
In another episode, What are Little Girls Made of?, a scientist moves his mind into an android body, only to find that his soul is missing.
I'm sure there are earlier examples; I invite readers to contribute.
Update 21-Dec-2014: See also the virtual immortality offered by Arthur C. Clarke in his 1956 novel The City and the Stars. End Update.
See Kurzweil AI for more details.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/25/2012)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...' - Charles Stross, 2007.
Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.
Hybrid Wind Solar Devices
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.' - Simpson Stokes, 1937.
BeamBike Solar Power Canopy For Electric Bikes
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...' - David Brin, 1990.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.
Drones In Vast Airborne Grids
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
Marslink Proposed By SpaceX
'It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line...'
Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Wood-Panelled LignoSat Launched
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.'
'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...'
Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
