I want that for everyone!

I'm not exactly sure how effective this is, but it sounds cool.

Colour me sceptical. You can 'reverse the ageing process' just by exercising and eating right.

lol, no you can't. At least, not in the sense I'm assuming this means.

edited 2nd Mar '14 4:51:57 AM by Know-age

Quote from the head scientist, Dr. Quentin Lazarus, working on the project;

edited 2nd Mar '14 5:30:40 AM by Talby

I thought I wanted to be transhuman in the past. I noticed how when people base their decisions off of emotion (Like so many humans do too frequently), it often yields negative results. I was convinced; and I still am to an extent, that decisions based off of reason were better thought-out and had more benefit and as a result should always be prioritized over emotion-related choices. Unfortunately I realized that if I felt no emotion in anything I do, then I'd never feel the excitement of discovering previously-unknown information and have no reason to learn...which would be problematic for me because that's what I live for.

No one is talking about removing emotions or any silly thing like that.

Why? It's like a really bad Doctor Who villain from The '60s.

• Remove peoples emotions, turn them into Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots

• ???

• Step Three: Profit !

Transhumans who are "all logic" are typical of the Straw Vulcan trope and signs of a hack writer.

edited 2nd Mar '14 12:07:18 PM by TairaMai

Given that our emotions come from our brains - the way our neural network works - then replacing most of the rest of the body with a cybernetic assemblage of "machinery" - whether biological or mechanical - is not going to remove our emotions.

Jury is still out on whether or not an artificial neural network into which you've been "uploaded" would still be "you", but if it replicates our brain faithfully, it should still have emotions exactly as the original did.

The whole Cybernetics Will Eat Your Soul trope bugs me and it's the first aspect of Cyberpunk 2020 I ditched when I started G Ming games.

Page three.

edited 2nd Mar '14 12:36:21 PM by Pykrete

I have to point out that removing emotions would be need a rewiring of the brain structure, which I do not think we have enough knowledge at this point to do so. There're studies on inhibiting the amygdala using electrodes that stopped people from recognizing emotions in others and seems to inhibit emotions in monkeys, but so far extremely crude and no one knows exactly what is going on (esp. when surgically removing the amygdala it didn't work the same way from memory it might be the electrodes affecting other areas at the same time, and the electrode method has other effects as well like hyper sexuality in monkeys).

Not to mention that "emotion" is rather hard to pin down at times. Our motivation pathway is the same as the pleasure/reward pathway (the dopaminergic pathway) because brain rewards itself with pleasure when it gets what it wants (as far as the theory goes). So is motivation an "emotion"?

edited 2nd Mar '14 12:54:31 PM by IraTheSquire

@Pykrete: I Read That As Page Three Stunna....

edited 2nd Mar '14 2:11:16 PM by TairaMai

Come to think of it motivation might be linked to an emotion or set of emotions. Every time one's motivated to do something, it's because they believe that they'll be/feel rewarded for completing whatever it was they were motivated to do and experience positive feelings after doing so. It also seems to be in part due to discontent with one's present state. I'm no expert on Neurology, but this stems from first-hand experience.

Removing emotions would be rather stupid since their are the controllers of our motivation. Decreasing their influence on our perception might be a good idea.

There is no reason why humans can not be upload in a computer. Then even if our brains are gone we will survive.

How? Your brain is gone. You're dead at that point.

I think now would be the time to mention that liking and wanting are not the same thing. Much of what we thought we knew about pleasure was actually about wanting. Dopamine for example is more closely related to motivation then pleasure.

Because the upload is just as valid of a continuation of you as what would have happened in your brain. Whatever it is that makes it you and makes it so that it will still be you tomorrow, is in both the brain and the upload. When you upload you split in 2 equally valid yous. One doesn't do much until the other is gone though. If you die (biologically after the upload, it will be the same as if you lost your resent memories.

Well unless souls exist.

edited 3rd Mar '14 4:44:47 PM by supermerlin100

@Le Garcon: You are not dead as your upload is still alive.

How do you even upload yourself in the first place?

In order for the brain uploading to work you would need to figure out how to maintain continuity of consciousness, so it's the actual person being uploaded that goes in the computer, and not just a copy. Having a copy of your brain floating around on the internet after you die doesn't mean much if you still actually die.

@Talby: Is there a acceptable measure of change to your mental state that is still me? Then as long as the upload stays in that range it is me.

edited 3rd Mar '14 4:58:37 PM by higurashimerlin

There's still the question of whether or not it is your consciousness that inhabits the brain-uploaded version of you. Brain uploading does nothing for me if my consciousness still ceases to exist, no matter how perfect the facsimile on the internet is.

Only an issue if magic is involved.

edited 3rd Mar '14 5:19:53 PM by supermerlin100

@Talby: What makes you the same person between moment to moment? That is preserved by brain uploading.

Many, including myself, would disagree.

In order to "upload" that which is"me" there would have to be something - like a spirit/soul - that exists separately from my physical body/brain that can be removed from my body/brain and put into the computer.

If there is a soul/spirit, there's no guarantee that it can be moved to a computer.

If there is no spirit/soul, then there is nothing to "upload", only data and neural pathways to duplicate.

Therefore, that which resides in the computer is not me, it is an electronic facsimile of me.

Ergo, when my brain dies, I die - regardless of whether or not there's a copy of me in a computer somewhere.

Arguments that the body replaces bits therefore I'm not the same "me" as before are fallacious as the bits are not replaced all at once and there is no time when both versions co-exist.

I'm not "uploaded" into an almost identical duplicate every time I replace a cell or atom.

Nor do I cease to exist from one microsecond to the next to be replaced by a near-identical duplicate.

What makes me "me" is continuation of consciousness. My body may have grown and had many cells die and be replaced over the years and I've lost individual atoms/molecules through waste disposal and replaced them with different ones through consuming/ingesting/inhaling but I'm still the same person that learned to crawl then walk then climb hills and trees.

A duplicate of me inside a computer may have memories of doing those things but they would be fraudulent - and a self-aware duplicate within a computer would know that - as the computer has never done any of those things.

If I at some later stage in my life replace my eyes, ears, ailing heart and, eventually, all of the rest of my body but my brain with machinery or engineered biological replacements, then I'm still the same person as the brain is the bit that counts, it won't be the same body - just as my current body is not the same as the one I had when I was a kid - but the brain will still be part of the same continuum as it always was, cells, molecules and atoms being gradually replaced but with continuation of the majority at the time.

That gets interrupted by "uploading" (actually duplicating unless you really are dragging a separate spirit/soul out of a living body and trapping it in a machine) into a separate artificial brain.

edited 3rd Mar '14 5:33:45 PM by Wolf1066

I think it was Star Trek when I realized they weren't transporting people they were just killing them and making a clone on the planet's surface.

Which sounds pretty awful.