Other barriers to constructing human-scale brain simulations include storage space and sheer processing power. What takes a cat one second might take the Blue Gene supercomputer ten or even a hundred seconds, depending on the complexity of the task. Among other things, this is mainly due to the inability of computers to process information in parallel by doing many calculations simultaneously. But even these extremely complex models, run on some of the best computer hardware in existence, lag behind the actual processing power of their biological counterparts. These simulations, which have utilized the very best in computer technology, such as IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer, have successfully emulated the processing power of a brain possessing 1.6 billion neurons-about the equivalent of a cat brain in terms of neuron numbers alone. As such, this section will cover the present state of mind uploading technology, focusing mainly on brain simulations, brain mapping techniques, and other technologies that might some day turn the worlds of Frederik Pohl and James Cameron into reality.Ĭurrently, the closest we have come to building a functional model of the human brain, a crucial step on the pathway toward downloading consciousness, is a series of cortical simulations. But as promising as Markram’s research is, most scientists admit that we still have a ways to go before we can even construct a functional model of the human brain, let alone download our own consciousness into a machine. One such study, led by Henry Markram and his team at the Blue Brain project, has already successfully simulated elements of a rat’s neocortical column, a complex layer of brain tissue common to all mammalian species. "Computing power doubles approximately every two years."Īlthough downloading consciousness is still only the stuff of science fiction, recent research has led scientists to claim that an artificial brain could be constructed in as little as ten years (Fildes, 2009).
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