The world's most famous American futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that in 2045, human beings will be able to upload their brain consciousness to the computer, realizing digital immortality. The concept of
seems very abstract, what does it mean? Case in point: In the future, people will already be able to scan your brain in enough detail to construct a digital "you." When you die, the digital "you" begins to take over the real you, living in a computer environment where simulates .
Digital Elysium has your cat, TV, the surroundings are exactly the same as you before your death , your loved ones can talk to "you" just like before. "You" is like living in a dream, unaware that you are just a digital virtual character. In this way, human beings achieve digital immortality.
Kurzweil is the president of Singularity University. He is a technology master who has won 9 honorary doctorates and 2 presidential honorary awards. He is also known to be a famous prophet. However, will the prediction of 2045 succeed this time?
Understand the human brain
If you want to create a person who is exactly the same, a person who has the same memory , personality and consciousness as you before, we must first create an identical brain, and build an identical person to the real you The neural network, and all this has to start from simulating the most basic unit of the neural network - neuron .
Now people can simulate the human neuron network on a microcrystalline chip, and the principle is to change the synapses responsible for transmitting information between neurons. For example, you give an artificial intelligence neural network a task and let it try over and over again. You give it a bonus signal every time it does well.Based on some simple learning rules, the size of each synapse will gradually change, and the connections between different neurons will change accordingly. Neural networks are slowly formed over time.
The news of Google's AlphaGo beating the top human Go master may have shocked you. AlphaGo's super-intelligence is derived from the neural network of deep learning. So, can this technology scale up to replicate the human brain?
For now, things are far from simple. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, and each neuron can initiate about 1,000 connections, that is, it has about 1,000 synapses that can store information. Multiply those about 1,000 connections by about 100 billion neurons, and that's the number of contacts, which is obviously staggering. Some people may say that after the quantum computer appears, these will not be a problem. So, let's go a step further and assume that even if humans were truly capable of creating a network of 100 billion artificial neurons, how would the uniqueness of the connections between each individual's brain neurons be replicated?
There is no ready-made scanner that can figure out the connection pattern (connectome) of each individual neuron. MRI scanners can now only achieve a resolution of about 1 millimeter, and synapses are only a few microns. Of course, maybe the scientists can kill you and make microscope slices of your brain. Scientists can then try to track dendrites, axons and how they connect with their synapses. This technology is terrible, but even so, the current technology is far from reaching such a level.
The structure of the brain is not that simple.
However, some scientists have now simulated a part of the connectome of a mouse neuron. Maybe in the future we can really scan your brain and extract the complete connectome.So, create an extraordinarily complex neural network of neurons, and you're done?
Don't be too happy for now, because copying a human brain is far from simple as we think. If you want a copy of your own brain, you will need to copy its quirks and complexities that dictate the unique way you think about things. Mistakes in any of these details can lead to epilepsy, hallucinations , delusions , depression, anxiety . Therefore, it is not enough to replicate the connection group itself. If your scan can only determine which neuron is connected to which, and to recreate the pattern in a computer, you are just creating a crippled digital human. Why does
say this? This is because real brains are very unique, and in real brains, every neuron is different. As a simple example, some neurons have thick, insulated "cable"-like axons that send information at a fast rate; other neurons have thinner axons that send signals at a slower rate; some neurons Not even sending a signal. All of these neurons also change differently at different times. The way the
signal is passed is also very different. There are hundreds of different synapses in the brain, and different synapses use different neurotransmitters , which will determine which neurons will receive these signals next. There are also neurons that "talk" directly without going through the synapses between them. Other neurons behave like a gland, and instead of sending an elaborate signal to a specific target neuron, they release a chemical soup that affects large areas of the brain over long periods of time.
Artificial neural network is still unable to simulate the complex structure of the real human brain.The neurons of the artificial neural network are all the same, and only affect the connection between each other as the synaptic strength changes, ignoring the complexity of the biological structure of the brain.
So, in order to replicate a real human brain, scientists need to figure out what kind of synapses are in each brain, what neurotransmitters are being sent by the synapses, and how fast the neurotransmitters are transmitted. synthesis, and how quickly it is absorbed. So, is this impossible? The answer is, of course, possible, but it sounds like the tech of the future, not the tech just around the corner.
Are digital humans conscious
Even now that we are in the future in a time machine and can replicate your brain's future exactly, then there is another obstacle. Is this brain really conscious, or is it a digital computer that mimics your behavior?
There are dozens of influential scientific theories about consciousness, which vary and no one knows which one is correct. But in neurological theory, it is believed that a computer can simulate a conscious brain. If we can scan a person's brain in full detail and simulate the structure on the computer, then the simulated digital brain will have consciousness, it will have memory, character, emotion and original intelligence .
However, that doesn't mean we're out of the woods.Let's look at another situation, if one day you are kidnapped, there is only one window every day, water and food will appear regularly to keep you alive, you are in a room with nothing, the only thing you can see for decades is How would you feel about an empty room of 10 square meters around? Unreal or scary, anyway, it doesn't feel natural, right?
Change this room to a virtual world. If there is nothing in this virtual world, and what is even scarier is that you find that you don't even have a body, even if you are conscious at this time, I am afraid that this consciousness will disappear as soon as possible.
Our cognitive and emotional experiences are often related to our surroundings, and this relationship between brain function and the world around us is sometimes referred to as "embodied cognition". Therefore, the next task is to simulate the actual body and a real world, and then embed the simulated brain in it. In today's video games, the real body cannot be simulated. The body in the game does not have the normal human muscles, elasticity of the skin, or fluidity of movement. However, compared to the simulated brain, these technologies are already a piece of cake.
Are you still you?
Well, now let's make a final assumption. In the future, we already have all the technology. When you're near death, we scan your details to quickly build a digital copy of you. Then, when you die, that simulated "you" wakes up with the same memories and the same personality as you.
The virtual world "you" lives in doesn't seem to be perfectly made, smells may not be the same, details may be lost, but it's also pretty good, "you" find yourself in a familiar world. Here could be a mock New York City with people who have also died, but without rats or dirt.Or in the countryside, or on the beach , the annual system upgrades make the environment more realistic time and time again. Unless the operating system crashes, "you" don't age, hurt, or die.
In short, congratulations: you have finally reached immortality! "You" can continue to communicate in the same way that you communicated with the world while you were alive, using your smartphone or via email, and "you" can continue to update Weibo and WeChat circles. Maybe "you" still have real-world jobs, as a lecturer or director or comedy writer , conveying your wisdom to generation after generation. It's like you've gone to another universe but still have access to the world you once lived in.
To your friends and family, you are still there, just traveled far. But is this you? Did you trick the Grim Reaper, or just replace yourself with a creepy copy? Obviously, no matter how accurate the simulation is, it won't be you. The real you, who died as your body died, would be a weird fake. But the "you" in the virtual world will not think so. Like you before his death, he will firmly believe that this is the real you.
If you have created a digital "you" before your death, this question is really difficult to figure out, are you one person, two people, or is there a real you and a fake you in the world? Before you figure this out, though, Kurzweil's prediction of digital immortality by 2045 is unlikely to come true with current technology.
(related content originates from the Internet, invaded and deleted)
