All of us have uploaded
our “selfies” in one or the other social networking sites. I myself have done
it too. It is also common to upload videos, assignments, essays, songs or any
other file. Is it not? Every time we do it, we take the pain to open up our
PCs, go online, check for a good picture, click the upload button, and wait for
it to get uploaded. Seems like a couple of steps!! Well, may not be the case anymore!
The racing science and
technology is exceptionally amazing. With the present level of advancements
growing up, it shouldn’t be a surprise if there is a digital copy of yourself that
does things instantly just as you think. Director of engineering at Google, Ray
Kurzweil, believes that we will be able to upload our brains to the computers
instead of just uploading some petty documents.
The basis for thinking
in such a futurist way is that our brain is thought to function as a function of nerve impulses. We know
that nerve cells communicate with each other through an electrochemical signal.
The pattern of signal transmission
from one neuron to another is what encodes information, memories, emotions and personality.
So you see a neuron can exist in either of the two forms- active or rest. This
gave an insight to the computer scientists to come with an equivalent brain
like machine that would represent the two state of a neuron with the basic
binary system, zeros and ones.
You must be thinking
“So how can remembering stuffs be manipulated into computer language?”. That’s
what made me glued to the article I was reading a couple of days ago. Ok! So
this is the principle behind it.
When you see a famous
painting, let’s say “The Old guitarist”, by Pablo Picasso, for the first time,
neurons from the visual areas of brain will fire. So the next time you see the
same painting or hear someone say about that painting, the neurons that encoded
that message will fire, thus making you recollect it. Interesting, isn’t it? So
building a program that can “recollect” the past neural networks using math and
other powerful tools is something our computer scientists, neural engineers are
working on. In fact such software does exist which performs complex pattern recognition
tasks as of now.
Then, what it is like
to give our whole brain to a machine? Theoretically speaking, uploading our
minds to a computer would mean that we have already generated the required
program code ourselves and it just needs to be executed on a digital platform. Otherwise,
your brain is just another computer language that can run with proper inputs on
a PC.
Let’s say we have
created a human like machine (advanced computer) which has your brain information.
Also imagine you can make a link to your digital version-your twin, whenever
you want. When you are linked, both of you think the same. However, when you
cut off the link, your twin can remember the last bit of memory until the next
link is made and so on. This is the strategy I will use to give inputs to your
twin. Sounds awesome? But hang on a
second. You can play with your twin however you want. That’s the creepy part. To
illustrate it, imagine that you are not an experienced swimmer. You want to
know through your twin whether you would escape a high tide rough sea. So you
think about it and then cut the link. Your twin is now ready to process the
input given. Based on your past neural network pattern, it will execute the
action. Won’t the outcome scare you?
This is the level of technology
we will have to witness in the near future. It may sound unrealistic but that’s
what is more probable to happen. Some futurist’s have already predicted that by
digitalizing ourselves, we would become digitally immortal- they refer this
phenomena “singularity”.
More on singularity-
see the next post!!
Referred sites:
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/neuroscientist-who-wants-upload-humanity-computer
