This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
The brain renewal concept could have applications such as treating stroke victims
If this can restore functions to stroke victims again, it's absolutely amazing.
If this is vastly successful which remains to be seen, there might be a path format to the longevity part of the idea.
No. Absolutely not. Whenever anyone says, "wouldn't it be great to live forever" remember that means people like trump and Musk are with us forever. Unless people take things into their own hands, but that's another issue.
I am not renting my corporeal existence from a megacorporation. There is no way this is ever affordable to the masses without some pretty huge caveats
There are two reasons he believes the neocortex could be replaced, albeit only slowly. The first is evidence from rare cases of benign brain tumors, like a man described in the medical literature who developed a growth the size of an orange. Yet because it grew very slowly, the man’s brain was able to adjust, shifting memories elsewhere, and his behavior and speech never seemed to change—even when the tumor was removed.
That’s proof, Hébert thinks, that replacing the neocortex little by little could be achieved “without losing the information encoded in it” such as a person’s self-identity.
The second source of hope, he says, is experiments showing that fetal-stage cells can survive, and even function, when transplanted into the brains of adults. For instance, medical tests underway are showing that young neurons can integrate into the brains of people who have epilepsy and stop their seizures.
“It was these two things together—the plastic nature of brains and the ability to add new tissue—that, to me, were like, ‘Ah, now there has got to be a way,’” says Hébert.
Very interesting. I've also seen research suggesting that the application of stem cells to damaged neural tissue within the spinal cord could repair it, so the idea that you could use a similar approach to actual brain health isn't such a big leap. But still, wow. I wonder how long it would take for the immature cells to develop into "adult mode" that's fully integrated into the patients cortex. In order to replace the entire brain, you'd have to do it in like, 8 parts, with years of recovery time in between each surgery. Also there would exist the potential for the new cells to develop into like, a second, smaller brain, if the connections sour or if the new material isn't stimulated the "right" way.
Yes, because who wouldn't want to live for centuries amidst floods, fire, raging mad politicians and greedy billionaires...
Well this really exists for those billionaires and rulers. This isn't for the common person.
They're so mad that they've removed themselves so far from us and we still share a common experience in death. That's unfair for them to have to be associated with peasants in such a debasing way. So now they'll remind us that death is for the poor or at least not living centuries will be for poor.
This is the correct way IMO. "Uploading" your mind to a computer is making a clone/copy, but the original dies the same.
I agree.
But here is an interesting thing to think about:
What is the perceived difference between falling asleep and waking up the next day, vs going to sleep and copying your consciousness to a machine/new body.
Your brain is still functioning while you're asleep. If it turned off all the way then you'd become brain-dead.
Some sleep is conscious (dreaming) but they're easily forgotten. Perhaps being unconscious still always has a grain of consciousness (but is just forgotten).
It seems there is a grain of reduced experience while sleeping. Copying seems to imply it's always a clone (a different ego, a different person).
Maintaining continuity of consciousness is the only thing that would make me feel comfortable with converting myself to a machine intelligence.
I hate to break it to you, but our meat brains don't even have continuity of consciousness. We become unconscious all the time. The only real constant is the "hardware" our consciousness emerges from, but even that is always changing.
I think the only way we know it is us for sure is if we are conscious in both the original and clone at the same time. Like... okay... I know this is me in the new brain, I'll shut down the other one.
Like… okay… I know this is me in the new brain, I’ll shut down the other one.
the other one: i'm pretty sure you've got it backwards, pal
No, no... you misunderstood. We're just taking a trip to the brain farm up north. You'll be able to think with the other brains up there. It'll be fun.
