The attraction and horror deliver your consciousness to a computer has long been foraged for cyberpunk novels and Billionaires-supported immortal companies. But an important part of neuroscientists believe that it may be possible to extract memories from a preserved brain and store those memories on a computer, according to a new study.
The study, published in the newspaper Plos onesuggests that most neuroscientists believe that memory has a physical basis and, on average, gives 40% probability that we may be able to emulate human brain one day. But there was little consensus on what is exactly that physical basis, emphasizing just how little we know of what is made of memories.
The authors investigated 312 neuroscientists – experts in memory and general neuroscientists – to get their thoughts on the feasibility to keep human brain and then extract their memories. It was led by Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a neuroscientist at Monash University in Australia and the author of The future loves you: how and why we need to abolish death.
While the researchers wrote that the questions of extraction of memory from preserved brains are “strange and speculative”, they give an understanding of how neuroscientists think of forming memories.
Results of the survey show that neuroscientists largely agree that memories have a physical substrate instead of relying on a dynamic process that stops conservation; They are probably preserved in the synaptic relations between neurons that strengthen and weaken with experience. The survey has shown that 70% of neuroscientists agree that there is a physical, molecular record of memory – on stable changes to neural connectivity and interactions between proteins and other cellular components – from which you could theoretically take a scarf.
However, “there was no clear consensus on exactly that neurophysiological feature or scale is critical for memory -storage,” the authors wrote in the study. The respondent scientists did not agree with what resolution-from the nuclear-level composition of biomolecules to nanometer-level resolution of subcellular structures-need to extract memory from a preserved brain. This is largely due to the fact that while most neuroscientists agree that memory has a physical basis, it is, however, for debate exactly what is that basis.
The survey also asked if existing tools could theoretically keep the brain structure well enough to extract memories. Keeping brain so that the proteins and cells remain intact is difficult, because ice cream can damage neural tissue. But one way neuroscientists could do this is by cryptographic aldehyde, a technique that combines chemical fixation with vitrification-the process of transforming a substance into a glass similar solid cooling it quickly. The study asked for neuroscientists to assign a probability that memories could be extracted from a crypto -served brain. The participants gave a wide range of estimates, but the average response was about 40% probability.
The authors asked the neuroscientists, as it is likely to emulate a whole brain – like, uploading and digitizing a human brain on a computer – of a kept neural tissue. That could open the option to upload your full self and consciousness into a machine. In this case, the average response was again about 40%, although the authors notice that the answers varied widely.
“Sure, that’s not 100 percent,” Zeleznikow-Johnston said Iflscience. “This means that there is no full consent in the community that yes, this will definitely work, but it is not 0.1 percent, or 0.01 percent. This is an important part of neuroscientists who think there is a very real possibility that it will work, and my guess is that that number will be increased over time, because we better do these brain interference.”
Neuroscientists believe that we still go away from being able to emulate a whole human brain, according to the study. When asked when we could emulate the human brain, respondents gave an average response of 2125.
However, this is something to think about.
