Computers in your brain (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993488) (if you are a rat or monkey). Who among us would replace our brain with a cyberbrain, given that the cyberbrain worked at least as well as the meat version, and did not run on Windows?

My opinion? I'd have to know more about the cyberbrain. I think if I was in danger of my meat brain not working--for example if I had a degenartive nerve disease like multiple sclerosis or was developing a tumor, then I'd get a cyberbrain. Otherwise, I'd like to see about 30 years worth of other people with cyberbrains working without problems before I did it. There could also be political and corporate ulterior motives for implementing cyberbrains. Law enforcement could potentially see through our eyes, without needing a search warrant. Corporations could target advertising geared to our tastes. Hell, our brains could be hacked.

I think you make the false assumption that our brains aren't hackable now.

When I type my trigger phase, you're going to kill Walter Mondale!

Being the cynic I am, allowing any type of such implant is unacceptable.

Also, I am blaming you for this nagging desire to re-read the Fred Saberhagen "Berserker" series.

2 + 2 = 5

Never. The brain is the only sacred part of the body, artificial brains = artificial people!

Before technology problem, there is a big ethical one for me. Not that I think like Grumblin that our brains are sacred, but being able to have an artificial brain means reaching immortality.

We die because our cells degenerate, and more particularly our brain cells, that never regenerate. If we can transfert our persona into a cybernetic brain, when will we die? If replacing brain would be possible we can imagine doing it with all other organs would be a joke, then if our bodies became immortal, what will happen with our spirit?

Beside that, I voted "yes", because I'm all for "improving" our body. Data accessibility, human to human and human to machine communication, body self control, upgrading our brains brings alot of possibilities and "dreams becoming true".
Night's Dawn from Peter F. Hamilton shows for me what future for "cybernetic" could be. (good series if you like SciFi, if you ask me btw ;))

Can this cyberbrain download porn wirelessly and feed it directly to my visual cortex? Is there some sort of holodeck setup involved here?

I always side with the mad scientist on these issues. Run flagrantly unethical tests in a castle on a lonely island in the Azores on unsuspecting nubile teenage vacationers until you get it just right, then unleash it upon the world!

Can this cyberbrain download porn wirelessly and feed it directly to my visual cortex? Is there some sort of holodeck setup involved here?

Jesus I would never get anything done if I could do that!

LOL that reminds me of that movie from several years ago, "Strange Days" I think it was where they could do something like this.....whoa.

Funny how one's perception on this issue change once confronted with his own mortality.

Anyone remembers robocop? I was totally terrified by the idea of losing my body and being trapped in a machine when I watched it.

Now after a few years, a few broken bones, a few kidney stones and a diabetes later I would even welcome the possibility of "cyber modding" my own body.

Strange isn't it?

Do you think a spirit/soul/ghost can be transferred? A brain would require some metaphysical random number generator. Our spirit/soul/ghost can be just that. But given the fact that man could transfer his mind and soul into a cyberbrain, it might extend human life by many years.

The negative consequences? A loss of more privacy with our digital self. We're practically hooked up to the Net (please, not dot-NET Microsoft, whatever evil ideas we must succomb to in the future). Testimonies requiring us to back it up with our brain. The possibilities for good and bad are endless.

Or ... corporate graft and monopoly over cyberbrains. Yes, Microsoft might just have that too.

This is, of course, assuming people have souls. ;) I think if we're considering robobrains, that's definitely up for debate. ;p

I don't believe, per se, that human brains are sacred; but for those of you (who are old enough to remember them) who think that the human consciousness can be reduced to a set of either/or decisions, consider this:

When you listen to an analog recording, and then to a digital remastering of that recording, do they sound the same? The answer is no - analog recordings were/are capable of capturing, faithfully and without *assigning* values to them, changes in wavelength, decibel level, intonation, background noise... and when I listen to digitally remastered copies of old analog recordings I often become irritated that they not only sound 'too clean', but that, depending on the work, a significant amount of the richness, of the musicians' intent, of the composition is lost.

I think that any attempt to digitize human cognitive processes (much less 'personality'), 'fuzzy logic' programs and all, will suffer from the same deletion of complexity; the signal to noise ratio, among other things, is a large part of what we are as gene and protein transcription, electrochemical-signalling, based human beings...

As frustrated as I am by my own recent aging and autoimmune related degenerative changes, I'll keep my wetware, thanks :). Rybit also brings up an excellent point as well, foreshadowed by Malse's post in another thread: what about our current love of enabling executables to be transmitted freely from system to system? The cerebellum and medulla are a lot less complex than the frontal cortex and will undoubtedly be cracked before much longer...

Regards,
Nydia

analog recordings were/are capable of capturing, faithfully and without *assigning* values to them, changes in wavelength, decibel level, intonation, background noise..

Your brain is making up any differences. Given high enough sampling rate, every little peep in that analog recording can be exactly reproduced.

Your brain is making up any differences. Given high enough sampling rate, every little peep in that analog recording can be exactly reproduced.No.

What is the digital representation of the note one third of the way between C and D?

Can you tell the difference between a digital representation of the analog color "Blue 3/9" and the digital color "Blue 3.3333333" -- no, not a chance. Are they different? Absolutely.

Along those same lines, a computer cannot truly represent, manipulate, or reproduce imaginary or transcendental numbers. Even the most basic things like square roots and circles are never more than approximations. Those nuances are significant, even though not pronounced.

What is the digital representation of the note one third of the way between C and D

This refers back to Nydia's idea of a sound recording. The answer to your question is "a digital representation of a note 1/3 of the way between C and D." That's easy to reproduce. Obviously, recordings of a guitar reproduce this type of sound.

With colors, computers are capable of blending 2 shades of blue to create something in between.

Sure, you can define technical differences. Could you tell the difference? I doubt it. I understand what you're getting at, and I used to agree with it. But, even if it's true now, I'm certainly not sure it will be true in the near future.

You guys are way too trapped in digital terms.

Never heard of analog computers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer)?

I guess probably not, they aren't common things these days except for some R&D where approximation isn't enough, however back in the 80s they were like everywhere in the USSR, from MIG onboard computers to university labs.

Sweet, I could put a tube amp in my skull and when I open my mouth I'll be playing Hendrix.

Still, there is also the problem of producing a digital representation of human consciousness. A soul, in its simplest form, is considered by some philosophers, such as Lucretius, to be a metaphysical random number generator with a spin. Would we be able to encapsulate such a process and transfer it without stopping the randomness?

Humans and machines are different in that humans have an extremely unique random number generator. It's been proven by computer scientists that random number generators are not truly random enough. Can human randomness truly be captured and transferred to machine?

On a side note, I believe machines/AI can come close to gaining human randomness, but like Palimax said, it will only be an approximation.

I do think, however, reproducing the simplest functions of the brain, such as a hippocamus, is indeed possible. It would be very difficult and would require a lot of testing. But if the firmware is small, fast, and stable, then this could mean hope for those suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and paraylsis.

Besides what's wrong with digitization? (Playing the :devil's advocate.) Wouldn't it be interesting to have brain that is perfected, like how sound is digitally remastered in the labs? Ever watch the movie G-A-T-T-A-C-A?

Still, there is also the problem of producing a digital representation of human consciousness.

Agreed. THe biggest issue we'd start with is that we don't understand the existing storage device. However, on the plus side, it all should be electrical impulses - which are easy to reproduce.

Here's a question I thought of on the way home. We often deal with the "it's good enough" issue. We can take huge high res digital pics, but then we reproduce them on a 4800x1200 printer, and it's STILL good enough to fool the human eye. If we eliminate all the, I dunno, end devices or display devices like printers, monitors, etc. by somehow going directly to the brain - I wonder if we eliminate some of the "it's good enough" issues caused by the limitations of those end devices.

I remember a movie out years ago called "Brainstorm" (i think) that involved the creation of machines that would record your experiences and would allow others to experience them. (what you see, feel, touch, ect; and they had a guy die while on it in the movie. Alot of the movie revolved around his buddies trying to see where he went after he died while the military wanted it for their own ends). The above is a terrible simplification of the plot but basically it....

Wonder if we'll ever get to that point?

Still, there is also the problem of producing a digital representation of human consciousness. A soul, in its simplest form, is considered by some philosophers, such as Lucretius, to be a metaphysical random number generator with a spin. Would we be able to encapsulate such a process and transfer it without stopping the randomness?

See, there's a problem with this, though: nothing is random. As complex as human thought is, it's still facilitated by a mixture of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. Computers will eventually be able to mimic human thought, I think. Considering we've evolved from a chemical reaction that ocurred amongst highly heated and pressured gases and liquids, I'd say I'm not too inaccurate.

Also, with regards to the debate between digital recording and analog recording, human memories are basically digital as well, it's just complex enough that we haven't yet been able to quantify it.

Hmmm. I wonder if that got renamed. It sounds familiar.

I just saw it listed on amazon along with ALOT better plot synopsis than i could ever give..hehe

It's 1983 so been awhile since i saw it....

Gee, did ghost in the shell have anything to do with you wondering this? :p

Brainstorm was a good movie, for it's time.

And, to make it more noteworthy, it was the movie Natalie Wood was finishing up at the time of her death.

But yeah, the "crossing over" recording strangely enough had me feeling somewhat antsy, as it did the folks I was watching it with at the time. The idea of recording the brain waves/memories in such a manner to allow others to experience them has been woven into a number of other stories and movies before and after this one.