SF Signal: 2050: The Year of the Brain Download

2050: The Year of the Brain Download

Maybe we're not too far off from the future imagined by Altered Carbon and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. From CNN:

By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.

Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.

I suddenly have this impending inferiority complex that my brain can be captured on a 5.25" floppy disk.

In your case John, I think a 3" floppy is more appropriate.

Yes yes, I know they hold more, it's the 3"s that make the joke.

Posted by jp on Tuesday May 31, 2005 at 8:38 AM

Ok, to be serious.

Mr. Pearson says that computing power will make brain downloading possible within 50 years. Well, ok, but what about about the actual brain downloading part? Just because computers will be fast/small enough to mimic a brain, we still have to figure out how to transcribe a person's brain. Where is the work being done on that?

Posted by jp on Tuesday May 31, 2005 at 8:42 AM

For halloween I shall spirit-gum the end of a wireless card out of the base of my skull and go as next-generation man.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday May 31, 2005 at 11:25 AM

i had done my msc.physics with specialisation in electronics from osmania university . i got this idea some 6 years back. but i neglected and i did not apply for patent. brain download can be certainly possible . i hope that by 2015 this could be made

Posted by pavan kumar g. v. s on Saturday September 09, 2006 at 4:07 AM

I recall one proposed technique was to sever the corpus callosum and connect it to a computer, as it is like the data cable between the two hemispheres

Posted by jo5ef on Saturday February 16, 2008 at 6:43 PM