What If You Could Upload Your Brain?
It may have been a bit sad to say goodbye to your physical body, but at least you still have your consciousness, your mind and your memories stored safely in the cloud. And in the virtual world, everything that was once real, physical and finished can simply be replaced.
But is it really you? Are eternal youth and eternal life all that it is supposed to be?
Or is there a dark side to blur the consciousness? What could go wrong?
The science of digitizing your brain and downloading it to the cloud is very controversial and ultimately inconclusive. Some experts say that technology will never exist, but others promise to have it by 2050.
In fact, there is already a waiting list. An American start-up called Nectome says that through a process called vitrification, it can preserve both the external and internal structure of your brain in perfect microscopic detail.
To do this, they replace the blood flow in your brain with embalming chemicals, turning your processor into ice-cold meat. And if you have not already guessed, you can not survive this procedure ... at least, not physically.
In theory, you will live forever, but this is only possible if Nectome knows how to download your brain into the cloud, then reactivate it. Suppose they do it.
Benjamin Franklin once wrote: "In this world, nothing can be said certain except death and taxes. But it turns out that immortality could have an even higher price".
Choosing to download in the cloud could have unintended consequences. Today, the cloud is just virtual storage. You pay a monthly fee to business to store all your family photos so that their discomfort does not slow down your computer!
But now, we are talking about you. and all your unique features, special qualities and all the wonderful things you have to offer the world, uploaded to a server that is probably not powered by a benevolent and somewhat scary bearded man.
More likely, your heaven will be managed by a technology giant, who will have access to the data of your life, as well as that of everyone else. Your continued existence would be based on a subscription, requiring you to pay for storage and maintenance on a high-tech server.
Your new home, and, I suppose, your identity, will look like this. Because that's really what the cloud is. It is essentially a vast network of interconnected warehouses, filled with hard drives and spread across multiple locations so that your data can be backed up to multiple locations at once. just in case one of these warehouses is disconnected.
So, unless you're rich enough to create your own small private hard drive network, the term "home office" takes on a very dark meaning ...
Can the company you subscribe to could benefit from his access to your mind, your memories, and your talents? What prevents you from being copied and coded as a kind of A.I.
And then, what happens if we get into androids or surrogacy? If technology advances to the point where we can deceive death, why not deceive age or health?
For the first time, you can have the body you've always wanted. Forever!
But if you could not afford a high-end model, what could you have to do? But in reality, what is much more likely to become an android or your brain is stored in the clouds is that your brain is stored in a box!
Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov is developing what he calls a happiness box. It is a computer capable of transmitting sensations to your brain, as your body does today.
In fact, the pleasure box is being developed to replace your body. If you do not quite understand, think about The Matrix. It could be the closest thing to immortality.
So what would you choose? The red pill? Or the blue pill?
For the moment, we do not have to worry about it! Without knowing if the technology will exist or when it will be available.
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