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Humble Beginnings |
Schematic representation of a mind being uploaded from a human brain to a computer |
The Digital Afterlife
What if one could upload a human mind into cyberspace? It’s the stuff of many a science fiction story. Such stories are loaded with fascinating implications. Can we become immortal? Would such a mind be conscious? Or would it become a philosophical zombie? Would digital consciousness be heaven or hell?
Imagine your personality, along with memories, running amok in a digital world. Would a virtual simulation of sensations be sufficient? Picture yourself on the perfect beach, the just-right rays of a virtual sun warming your virtual skin with a soothing essence. Ice cream could melt into your mouth. But what if a villain takes over in the real world and reprograms your digital world such that shards of ice pelt your skin? Now that would be hell, wouldn’t it? Be careful with what you wish for.
A digital afterlife requires a hosting a reliable computer to run the program to mimic your mind. This means the digital afterlife experience depends on what happens in the physical world. Could you trust the real people to act in your best interests? Could a computer glitch? A lot can happen over millions of years.
Or could one overwrite the consciousness of another human being?
All of this makes for compelling stories. Could such a world be possible?
A Humble Beginning
Maybe you’ve never heard of Caenorhabditis elegans, but this humble and nearly microscopic worm is where our efforts begin. What makes this worm special? C. elegans is one of the simplest organisms with a nervous system. All living organisms are loaded with complexity. In order to emulate a mind, one can try emulating a brain. Physically, a brain is a highly interconnected network of neurons. Therefore scientists have chosen to begin with C. elegans. The famous physicist of nanotechnology fame, Richard Feynman, stated: What I cannot create, I cannot understand.
Hence, the OpenWorm group intends to simulate the roundworm. C. Elegans has 959 cells, including 302 neurons. Compare this to the human brain of roughly 100 billion neurons and a range of 40- 135 billion non-neuronal cells! OpenWorm began work during 2011 and by 2025 managed to simulate five seconds of the worm crawling through goo, taking over ten hours of computer calculations. Doesn’t sound impressive. Mind you, this is not a Manhattan or Apollo project with tons of commitment. The challenge remains daunting.
See a Wired article for more.
Quantum Computing
One shining light could give this project an exponential lift; ‘technologically-mature’ quantum computing. Developments in quantum computer (arguably) have been underway since 1984. Unlike classical computers, which operate solely on ones and zeros, a quantum computer can use both simultaneously. Such parallelism of data handling could defeat banking encryption systems among other things. However, for quantum computing to reach the technological maturity of traditional computing could take decades.
Quantum computing appears best suited in mimicking the human brain. Some scientists propose quantum mind theory to explain consciousness. “The Downloaded” is a story about minds uploaded to a computer, which due to plot circumstances, download back into to the brains of the frozen bodies of the original owners. The novel speculates on quantum computing making this plausible primarily due to the quantum mind theory of Penrose and Hameroff (See quantum mind theory).
As to the mind transfer mechanism, the novel leaves out, as far as I recollect.
Mind Transfer Mechanism
How could mind transfer happen from a person to a computer-type host? Could one transfer a mind from one person to another?
As far as we know, the process requires digitally mapping the brain’s structure and neural activity. Next, transfer the map to a suitable host. As to what the suitable host could be, this remains unknown. Possibly the host may be computer hybrid with biological functions yet to be determined. Perhaps some chemical signals would be necessary to replicate some synapses. It also remains unknown whether replicating the brain is sufficient. We don’t know yet how the physical processes within a brain give rise to the subjective experiences we feel. Will we ever find out? A good question. For the sake of writing science fiction, we’ll say yes.
Put another way, is the human mind an emergent property of the information processing of its neuronal network? Some scientists suggest this is the case. For more see Mind uploading.
For a simpler explanation, see a Neuroba article.
A key challenge is how to the map the brain? Most proposals suggest in-depth scanning of the entire brain, but would destroy the original brain. Therefore, think twice about transferring your mind.
“All the Science” suggests nanotechnology could offer a non-destructive means to map a brain. Essentially, a system uses nanobots to flow into the brain and scan all of it in detail. Picture a white-coat technician injecting a swarm of nanobots into your skull with a syringe. Getting squeamish?
When the scan is completed, the bots exit the original brain through the blood-brain barrier, possibly self destructing after exit. Similarly, bots could enter another brain and ‘rewire’ the nerves, meaning to disconnect and reconnect nerve fibers, also known as axons, using nano-surgical techniques yet to be determined. Would the technique be flawless? Would remnants of the original mind persist? Sounds like a story.
Again, nanotechnology rides to the rescue of plot plausibility.
Peter Spasov. Last updated Saturday July 05, 2025