Project Mindfile
From Order of Cosmic Engineers
Artwork, neural synapses. Image credits: http://www.sgeier.net/
Project Mindfile is a research and implementation program on personality capture, storage and reconstruction. In other words mind uploading: capturing and storing a digital "backup copy" of a person, that can be re instantiated (revived) in an appropriate and suitable way by future technology.
We are persuaded that:
- Our bodies and brains are biological machines;
- In all the senses that matter, we are the information encoded in and processed by our brains;
- This information can be in principle captured, stored and reconstructed.
Most techniques that have been proposed for mind uploading are based on "brute force" very high resolution brain scanning aiming at capturing all potentially relevant information stored in the brain. Very high resolution (nanoscale) brain scanning research is under way, but its operational implementation seems far.
We will enhance William Sims Bainbridge's approach to personality capture, and its implementation in Martine Rothblatt's CyBeRev project. In parallel with the Bainbridge - Rothblatt approach outlined below, we will rely on fast user interfaces to web content, non-invasive BCI (Brain to Computer Interfacing) interfaces, and neural implants. In order to cover all bases, we will also store DNA samples.
The Bainbridge - Rothblatt is based on capturing bemes by currently available technology. Bemes have been defined by Rothblatt: "Bemes are fundamental, transmissible, mutate-able units of beingness very much in the spirit of memes. The difference is that memes are culturally transmissible elements that have common cultural meanings whereas bemes are highly individual elements of personality, mannerisms, feelings, recollections, beliefs, values, and attitudes".
From the CyBeRev website: "CyBeRev means cybernetic beingness revival. The purpose of CyBeRev is to prevent death by preserving sufficient information about a person so that recovery remains possible by foreseeable technology... A CyBeRev person stores digital bemes of their mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values with as great a fidelity as is possible.. Future developments in software technology (such as mindware and thoughtware) will enable the stored CyBeRev information to be organized into a coherent consciousness and sense of self indistinguishable from the original CyBeRev person". The CyBeRev text continues by explaining how the resulting coherent consciousness with a sense of self indistinguishable from the original may continue to live in a biological or robotic body, or even as a software being in a virtual world.
In the Bainbridge-Rothblatt approach bemes are captured by collecting the user's responses to a set of web-based structured questionnaires with thousands of questions aimed at capturing the user's fine-grained personality type, beliefs, wishes, fears, emotional type, associations and convictions. The user can and should provide also a large amount of free-form text entries, pictures, videos and other material that (s)he consders relevant. As Bainbridge says in Nanoconvergence, this method can work but it requires discipline and commitment from the user, and it can take years. Also, with current technologies, text based questionnaires can only capture a very small part of the user's identity, probably not enough to permit future reconstruction. See Martine's mindfiles on Sentient Developments.
The conscious, structured thoughts in the text I am writing are certainly a central part of my identity, but so is the stray thought that I had a few seconds ago, triggered by a smell coming from the kitchen, and in turn triggered a fractal and chaotic wave of memories, impressions and other thoughts. This turbulent part of a consciousness stream cannot be captured by structured text questionnaires.
It is important to make the CyBeRev process much faster, and much wider in such a way as to capture the more turbulent part of a consciousness stream. Waiting for new technologies, one intermediate approach consists of using advanced user interface technologies like Ajax, the new generation of Flash, and the emerging 3D interfaces basd on virtual reality to permit a much faster and wider collection of user responses and free-form bemes.
Ultimately, the Bainbridge-Rothblatt approach can only work with very fast, very high bandwidth BCI neural interfaces, for example based on the next generation of thought-operated videogame controllers, the evolution of the first prototypes that will hit the market in a few months. See for example Emotiv Systems and the coverage of the upcoming Emotiv EPOC neural interface on CNN, Business Week and CNET. The age of open source neurohacking is coming, and we will use all advances in neural interfacing as they become available in order to enhance the power, speed and reliability of Bainridge-Rothblatt personality capture. Some focused research projects will be necessary to develop adaptations targeted at personality capture.
Virsona's AI based technology lets users gradually build a "virtual persona" (Virsona) which learns how to emulate its creator. From the Virsona website: "Virsona has a patent-pending artificial intelligence technology integrated into each Virsona , which enables it to reason, remember and react as if the Virsona were the person it was designed to emulate". There is the possibility that future advances in AI may fire up consciousness in a virsona, which may then be considered as a upload of its creator. "Personal Virsonas take the term 'social media' to an entirely new level by giving people the ability to achieve digital immortality," said Peter Hodge, CEO and co-founder of Virsona. The Virsona PR has been announced to the Extropy list as "Uploading people has started".
Another interesting, slightly longer term approach is based on artificial neurons and memory implants. Chips Coming to a Brain Near You: "Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus, an area of the brain known for creating memories. If successful, the artificial brain prosthesis could replace its biological counterpart, enabling people who suffer from memory disorders to regain the ability to store new memories... The Berger enterprise is ambitious, aiming to provide a prosthesis for memory. The need is high, because of the prevalence of memory disorder in aging and disease associated with loss of function in the hippocampus... They hope to apply this approach to clinical applications within 10 years. If everything goes well, they anticipate seeing an artificial human hippocampus, potentially usable for a variety of clinical disorders, in 15 years". See also Chapter 19 BRAIN-IMPLANTABLE BIOMIMETIC ELECTRONICS AS NEURAL PROSTHESES TO RESTORE LOST COGNITIVE FUNCTION of Handbook of Neural Engineering (IEEE Press Series on Biomedical Engineering).
The published results only mention clinical applications to memory disorder, but the potential for personality capture and storage is evident. How does it work? You get a memory implant and if its capacity is sufficiently high, due to the distributed nature of memory at some point _you_ migrate in the implant and can be stored / retrieved from there. In one or two decades, brain implants will permit dramatically enhancing the power, speed and reliability of Bainridge-Rothblatt personality capture.
Notes and references:
http://advancedcognitivepsychology.blogspot.com/2008/08/chips-coming-to-brain-near-you.html
See also Chapter 19 BRAIN-IMPLANTABLE BIOMIMETIC ELECTRONICS AS NEURAL PROSTHESES TO RESTORE LOST COGNITIVE FUNCTION of Handbook of Neural Engineering (IEEE Press Series on Biomedical Engineering), can be downloaded from RapidShare
http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/
Bainbridge, William Sims. 2007. Nanoconvergence: The Unity of Nanoscience, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Nanoconvergence: The Unity of Nanoscience, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science (Paperback), by William Sims Bainbridge
[http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2007/08/martines-mindfiles.html
Virsona Inc. Launches Beta of Personal Virsona Service that Enables Consumers to Establish Digital Immortality - Virsona website
The Personal Virsona service enables consumers to create their own virtual personas (a.k.a. Virsona) that "come to life" by independently and intuitively interacting with others via an online chat format as if they were the people who created them. "Personal Virsonas take the term 'social media' to an entirely new level by giving people the ability to achieve digital immortality," said Peter Hodge, CEO and co-founder of Virsona.
