Russian research project: immortality to billionaires - transplanting brains into Robots

reply to post by violet


"It's the equivalent of sending them to hell."

Well they sure as "Hell" are targeting the correct demographic!

If anyone deserves eternal damnation its the top 1% aka da Illuminati! LoL

Originally posted by wrabbit2000
They're chasing something man has been in pursuit of for thousands of years. The Fountain Of Youth. I doubt they'll find it any better in the science lab than anyone has managed in the real world.

They'll try though...they'll always try. No one likes death and we ALL die...so I never expect to see the effort stop, because it'll never reach the goal they seek. Immortality this way? Hell.. You aren't even the same person anymore, if a person is what it could be called at all.

Just wait till they find how important some of the other areas of the body are to the 'self' and the 'Soul'. That should be a wake up ...but they won't see that until they do a true head transplant or extended time with a brain "running" separate from the original body. It's getting to be a freak show.

In its infancy for sure the process would not be very polished off, and who knows how much feeling, or interaction with the real world they might have. But what happens if you are downloaded today, but 500 years from now they come out with a new stem cell grown shell body and all of a sudden the people that were downloaded get to start life again in a 10 year old's body?



When I was young I was afraid of dying and I said to myself I would take up one of these procedures should they ever be developed. But now that it's a reality, I'm not that sure...

Two things:

1. How long will it take for some quasi human cyborg system to be developed and corrupted so it begins resembling the Borg collective?

2. What if us coming into existence here is merely passing the gates of hell, and continued stay is actual hell. And it's only our death that can free us?

Originally posted by Vandettas
I doubt a amateur hacker will be able to hack something that billions of dollars was put into.

I got a question for this, because I see many people complaining about it. Whats wrong with this? In my opinion, absolutely nothing. I feel like people just need something to whine about.

Seem to have worked for Gary McKinnon, he apparently gleaned rather a lot of information and he was an amateur.

reply to post by Raxoxane


I can't edit my post now to expand on my reply.
It would sort of be like existing as a vegetable. You are there partly but never fully. Horrible.

They would have to do a complete memory wipe so they don't really know how they came into being. Not implant the portion of the brain that controls emotions. In that case it's not really immortality.

Sounds awesome.
Wonder if they accept payment plans. a dollar a year for a billion years?

Originally posted by nirvi
probably means to billionaires naive enough to still buy in to the idea we are our brains

You think we can exist by removing our brains?

If we are a soul, then why is it people whom get brain trauma often have significant behavioral differences?

My actual thoughts:
Again, sounds awesome
Also, it will come down in price after its been going a bit. initial investments are seed money. tech will improve, become cheaper, competition arises (after all, once things are going smoothly, a payment plan is plausible, even a very affordable one to just about anyone.)

So..great news. lets see where it goes.

What about the issue of consciousness?

We still have no clue as to where consciousness originates or resides with in our own bodies.

What if our very essence/soul or consciousness is located not within the Brain itself but rather is contained within our bioelectric field, how do you transfer that into an automaton?

reply to post by dominicus

and it will be the Rich folks who get there first!!!!!

More like only the rich people will get it period. Just think...rich person gets his brain put on a robot to live forever. Then out comes the technology of human cloning and brain neural transfer. The brain which is on the robot living forever could be downloaded to a computer and put into a new body. You could be human forever instead of a robot.

Originally posted by dominicus

What's said is, everyone thinks the Brain is center of Consciousness, whereas there is still intuition in the Heart and the Gut. So in the case of a Brain transplant without Heart/Gut, that bionic person will end up a cold-calculated narcissistic psychopath, and will be the small group of Bionics that will be running the world's Governments.

Scary times ahead!!!!

I can be 100% sure that the heart and gut have NOTHING to do with any aspect of consciousness, and by that, I mean that thought process does not have anything to do with the heart or gut.

The heart pumps blood.

The gut processes food for energy.

reply to post by boncho


I suppose this comes down to a real fundamental question, beyond the technology and it's own serious issues.

Are we bio-machines, no more special than artificial intelligence we may someday create when computing power hits the multipliers to approach human thought and overlapping process?

Or..

Do we have a Soul? It really is that basic a question. Medicine has noted for awhile now that there are other nerve and tissue areas in the body, and related to the Heart in one specific example, which are very similar to the Brain. There is still more they don't understand than they do...BY FAR. So..they want to go cannibalize some rich guy and make him a veggie? Well..Just have someone with a gun nearby to kill the monster spawned when/if life without that special essence which gives it light comes to be.

.....then again, it'll prove every Atheist right if it all works 100% with no problems at all. We really are just big robots with wetware instead of hardware, in that case. I have no fear of finding out one way or the other...beyond the abominations created to prove it. We may be God-LIKE in our tech...but we are nowhere remotely close to Gods ...and when we still have more to learn than we know? This is foolhardy to an absurd extreme.

Originally posted by Grimpachi

In seriousness brain cells degrade just like our body so immortality this is not.

I thought it was something that shut off in our brains that stopped cells from replenishing themselves and makes us age? If you could just turn that back on, don't see a problem. Maybe I am way wrong but I thought I heard that somewhere.

reply to post by dominicus


This will probably not work though undoubtedly the body transplant with all of its unethical connotations will and has already been up on a previous thread, still if we achieve perfect nano technology the conversion of a living brains into a cybernetic and eventually solid state system that replicates perfectly the brains functions may very well become achievable but not yet as the brain needs organic secretions from all the other organs in the body and is not in isolation from them.
The Cerebellum and indeed the whole brain is just a part of the nervous system and many functions will fail after being disconnected, this is just a clever ploy to make money from those whom are totally atheist and fear dying more than spending there ill gotten gains.

Originally posted by violet
reply to post by Raxoxane

 

I can't edit my post now to expand on my reply.
It would sort of be like existing as a vegetable. You are there partly but never fully. Horrible.

They would have to do a complete memory wipe so they don't really know how they came into being. Not implant the portion of the brain that controls emotions. In that case it's not really immortality.

If you can reach into your subconscious and remember how you were when you pre-existed prior to being born in a body, like I have remembered, you would realize that being in these limited physical bodies is like having clastraphobia while being locked in a very tin prison cell, that you are covered up by the programming you have picked up while living here, that most are like unawares vegetables, your there, but barely ever fully, mistaking your weak flesh suit and operating system for yourself.

Majority of humans have gone through memory wipe and don't remember pre-existing as a soul

I see a few problems with this...even if they can ultimately transfer the "human consciousness" to a machine...

1. You will never be able to independently verify that the persona/avatar you're interacting with is the same person that died

2. EMP...that's all - you figure it out

3. Hackers & exploits...how would you know someone had been compromised?

4. File corruption...viruses...hardware failure...all the other tech problems we have now

5. Rights as a person...do you get the same rights as a "real" person? If so...see problem #1

5. If your "consciousness has been successfully transferred...then how do you die? Are you simply a data file? Are you the machine? Are you more than the machine? What would that say about our self perception that we are more than our physical existence?

I'm sure there's a few other problems that would come up...those are just off the top of my head...

Well I don't know how I feel about it.

Few things:
A) I don't feel it's selfish to want to live longer even as a robot
B) I don't believe in an after-life or a God, but I don't reject it as possible - I'm agnostic

What I'm concerned about is how this would change what it means to be human. As a poster commented, it's possible that the robot body could have better vision and more nerve endings for the sexual organs or stronger muscles or more arms or any matter of modifications. One can imagine that they will improve the bodies and become creative with it. Does this bother anyone? It's redefining what a human is. A different poster commented that they'd rather live in a virtual reality than in a robot. Interesting times, eh? I wonder what else can be thought up about it.

What about genetic engineering? This is the tip of the iceberg. In several hundred years of this humans might not look like they do now thanks to all of the alterations we've made.

What if they crack the code used in hte brain and are able to reproduce it on synthetic chips? What if they won't even need a human body to produce a human-type intelligence? These people aren't going to rest on their laurels. They're going to try to reproduce the processes in the brain on chips. There could be a whole new series of chips that're based on the brain and operate similarly.

www.spacedaily.com - Computer scientists envision computer chip working like a human brain...
www.popsci.com - New Computer Chip Modeled on a Living Brain Can Learn and Remember...

It's not our intelligence that separates us. It's not our body. It's not our creativity. It's EVERYTHING. In the midst of all these changes, we run the risk of losing ourselves.

I think I would be a lot more interested/excited if they were putting heads in jars. (i.e. futurama) Billionaire robots are just plain creepy.

Next thing you know they are going to be transplanting wings onto cats.

reply to post by Unrealised

I can be 100% sure that the heart and gut have NOTHING to do with any aspect of consciousness, and by that, I mean that thought process does not have anything to do with the heart or gut. The heart pumps blood. The gut processes food for energy.

Ha!!!!! That's a funny one!!!! Might want to do more research before posting that your 100% sure. I'd hate to find out what else you're 100% sure of, flat earth maybe.

Here you go:

Gut:

On an average, the brain has 100 billion neurons; it is the seat of all our thinking. The gut or the digestive system has close to 500 million nerve cells and 100 million neurons and is almost the size of a cat's brain. Not only does the gut 'talk' with the brain by releasing chemicals which are transported to the brain but also by sending electrical signals via the vagus nerve, one of the longest nerves in the body whose purpose is to relay the information of internal organs to the brain. It starts from the head and ends near the anus.

Heart:

The heart is one of the most important organs of the human body. It has nearly two billion muscle cells and 40,000 neurons. Heart neurons are very few in number compared to those in the brain, 100 billion or gut, 0.1 billion. Nevertheless, these neurons transmit the heart's signals and its condition to the brain.

source
Scientific America: Hod the Guts "Second Brain" Influences Mood and Well-being
On top of that, speaking from experiencing, I've had 100's if not 1000's of gut feeling in my life that have been mostly accurate.

Same with the heart. When I've been in Love, I can feel it in there. When I went through a real bad break up, it actually hurt there as well. And I have noticed there is battle in me between head and heart. Head wants to live selfishly, fast, illegal substances, tons of woman, cheat, lie, steel,....but my heart keeps it in check by helping others, staying calm, zen, honest, and wanting to help mankind in various ways.

For myself, I have a connection to both of these aspects, and many Spiritual Philosophies from India have known about this for 1000's of years saying these two parts of a human can be accessed and used, along with these two being the scaffolding for the subconscious.

Looks like some-one has some research to do.

the heart contains a little brain in its own right. Yes, the human heart, in addition to its other functions, actually possesses a heart-brain composed of about 40,000 neurons that can sense, feel, learn and remember. The heart brain sends messages to the head brain about how the body feels and more.

When I was a practicing psychologist, sometimes when I'd be working with a client who was confused about an issue or decision, I'd ask, "What would your heart say?" I often adapted a gestalt technique using two chairs. When the client was sitting in one chair, I asked them to speak from their heart and talk to their mind sitting over there in the other chair. Then I'd have them switch chairs and speak from their head, talking to their heart, telling their heart the mind's views and concerns. It was like two different people talking. The heart spoke from genuine feeling and authenticity, in the present. The mind spoke from opinions, fears, shoulds and shouldn'ts. I had them switch chairs several times, until they had an epiphany. Very often the client would realize their heart's voice was their true self, a voice that offered both more intuition and common sense intelligence.

source

Like I was saying, they'll end up narcissistic psychopaths. I rest my case

To accomplish that is not as easy as you might think it is. The mouse neural cells experiment you mentioned had nothing to do with "the transfer of consciousness". At this point, we do not even know what consciousness is.
And OP don't you think you are wasting too much of your time complaining about other people's real or in this case fictive advantages?It's not very productive.

Serious question... no matter how funny it may sound. Why would anyone in their right mind want to do this and live without the greatest pleasure... sex for the rest of eternity? I know, I'd rather die before willingly giving that up.

Additionally, the body deteriorates over time... to include brain cells dying. How can they avoid the brain losing cells regardless of whether it's in a robot or not.