Over the history of our
species, humans have desired to be remembered. Going back to ancient Greece,
wealthy rulers would pay bards, or singers, to tell tales about their life
story in hopes of being remembered. As religions changed, and literacy increased,
the desire to be remembered changed. Today, an example of human's desire to be
remembered is the gravestone. As bard singing became obsolete with writing, so
may gravestones become obsolete with brain mapping.
Amy Harmon's article, "The
Neuroscience of Immortality" in The New York Times, talks
about the possibility of immortality through brain mapping and other means. The
thought of preserving our brains immediately makes me think of the jars of
floating, living heads in the popular television show Futurama. I
do believe near-immortality is in our future (barring no environmental-caused
extinction), but I hope the methods of preservation are less barbaric than the
proposal made by Futurama.
Harmon boils immortality down to a
few key goals: preservation of the brain through plastic resin or cold
temperatures, scan synapses, trace the connections, interpret, make a
simulation, and finally connect all this to a virtual or robotic body. Only six
steps? Wow, this does not sound too difficult! In reality, this feat is extremely
tough. Regarding interpretation, Harmon says, "Imagine looking at the wiring diagram of a radio with no means to power it on, except that instead of a radio it's the most complicated machine ever invented." Harmon also elaborates that at Harvard, it took scientists thousands of hours to compile images of a small portion of a mouse's brain. Along with taking too much time, a major setback of immortality will be our ability to create a working model based off images and knowledge of the brain.
By my own biased and illogical reasoning alone, I would speculate that if we can develop the technology to image a brain, we should have the capacity to, eventually, be able to interpret interconnectivity and make a working model to use for our preservation.
Many techniques that are used in steps towards immortality have relevance in our class. Mapping the connectivity of the brain, down to its very last synapse is very representative of David Marr's hardware level of analysis. To understand this would open up doors to learning how information is organized and operated on using interconnectivity. Furthermore, this understanding could lead to more fully analyzing the brain on a computational level (i.e., the goal or guiding principles of certain behaviors).
Lastly, I think it will be very interesting to see what, if any, virtual life dominates humanity. Will we choose to place ourselves in an Oculus Rift-like virtual reality? Or will we be able to preserve our brains within a virtual body?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/03/us/13immortality-explainer.html
By my own biased and illogical reasoning alone, I would speculate that if we can develop the technology to image a brain, we should have the capacity to, eventually, be able to interpret interconnectivity and make a working model to use for our preservation.
Many techniques that are used in steps towards immortality have relevance in our class. Mapping the connectivity of the brain, down to its very last synapse is very representative of David Marr's hardware level of analysis. To understand this would open up doors to learning how information is organized and operated on using interconnectivity. Furthermore, this understanding could lead to more fully analyzing the brain on a computational level (i.e., the goal or guiding principles of certain behaviors).
Lastly, I think it will be very interesting to see what, if any, virtual life dominates humanity. Will we choose to place ourselves in an Oculus Rift-like virtual reality? Or will we be able to preserve our brains within a virtual body?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/03/us/13immortality-explainer.html
This was a very interesting topic to read about and it certainly possesses the potential to open the doors to any number of applications. I particularly enjoyed how you emphasized how difficult the process truly is, however; it would be incredible if those six steps were as straightforward as they sounded. Another aspect that also needs to be considered is the fact that our brains are constantly changing, adding even more to the complexity of the project. Even if we achieve a model of one's brain (supposedly after one is dead), how can the model be expected to truly capture our ability to learn, think, decide, feel, etc. if it not also capable of changing to meet the demands of the environment? If the model is but a static snapshot of one's brain, then would the connections also be static, incapable of strengthening and weakening?
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