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MITs statement seems to position themselves to not be at risk if the startup goes south. They seem to think that with current technology it is unclear if the upload is feasible. Also, it would be interesting for someone to comment on how this embalming process is done? From what I know from cryogenic freezing or preservation is that it is a good idea that it could be "scanned" back in but most likely the information…
For those interested in this stuff, or the "we will preserve your body and resurrect you in some date in the future" technology, I recommend a Don Delillo novel from a couple years ago, title is Zero K.
Brain uploading is a misleading description of what nectome is proposing. We don’t know enough about what needs to be preserved yet to accurately save a snapshot of a brain’s “state”. It’s not theoretically impossible, just much further than this company’s marketing implies.
And given the recent discovery of what some are calling (possibly inaccurately) an entirely new organ in the body resulting from changes in the visualization technologies available ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/health/new-organ-intersti... )... I, for one, wouldn't trust that their preservation solution is sufficient for reconstruction of anything even approximating consciousness without a successful bidirecti…
I think they wil lose way too many analog details.
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Given that the main alternatives (decomposing in a box or being cremated) involve a 0% chance of resuscitation at some future unknown date, cryonics seems like the rational choice to make. Alcor has so far shown itself to be a fairly reliable cryonics provider and the sums of money are not extreme - neuropreservation being only $80,000, or a life insurance policy of ~$30-$150/month.
Even if it fails, if the promise of a chance to be revived at some point allows you or your loved ones to be more at peace with your mortality it seems worth it for the relatively minor cost.
So, insofar as this is viewed optimistically as something other than a combination of assisted suicide with weird storage of remains, I'm skeptical that it would be psychologically beneficial to the survivors.
If hundreds of millions of people were to do this, what economic, cultural or religious incentive do people have 500 years from now to resurrect anyone? Maybe people who were famous geniuses, sure, but with my view of human nature I get the impression that unless the resurrection process is extremely low cost and easy, nobody will go to the effort to bring back the consciousness of huge numbers of random people. This…
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The startup is not claiming to have current uploading technology. The startup is researching (does not claim to have) brain preservation techniques leading to long-term structure preservation in hopes of uploading sometime in the indefinite future. If your personal opinion is that this cannot happen, that does not make other people who have different beliefs and are upfront about their arguments for them "scammers".
There's no real evidence that the human brain functions anything like an Information Processor and, in fact, a growing body of evidence that suggests it's not. We still know so little about the brain and comparing a brain to a computer is is at best a flawed metaphor and at worst an outright falsehood. The idea that any sort of human consciousness can be uploaded or stored by a computer is asinine
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> Most neuroscientists think the ability to recapture memories from brain tissue and re-create a consciousness inside a computer is at best decades away and probably not possible at all. Did you deliberately ignore the rest of that sentence?
Yikes, what kind of horrendous wording is that? "it's probably not possible at all but if it is we'll be there soon!"
“At best” means “viewed maximally optimistically”, and, in the context of a development timeline, specifically “no sooner than”. So, it was saying “it’s probably not possible at all, and, if it somehow is possible, we’re at least several decades away from even a demonstration”.
You have badly misread, apparently inverting the sense of “at best”.
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How does it do that? Do browsers set a flag? That seems like a privacy hole.
Peeking into the source: /** * Detects incognito/private mode in various browsers. * * Adapted from: * https://gist.github.com/cou929/7973956 */