Brainiacs

The Mythical Pipedreams of Transhumanist Tech Execs

Two weeks after 17-year-old Mary’s baby died, she wrote in her diary, “Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits.”¹ Mary’s own mother had died of an infection a few days after giving birth to Mary, so death haunted her.

At the time, demonstrations of the power of galvanism were popular. Galvanism, named after scientist Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), was the process of giving electric shocks to parts of a dead body that resulted in the muscles contracting. One experiment on an executed murderer brought this result:

On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.

Some feared that “the wretched man was on the eve of being restored to life.”²

Mary wondered, “Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.”³ Mary wasn’t a scientist, but she turned out to be a good writer. In 1818, at age 21, Mary Shelley published the book that would make her famous: Frankenstein.

From Sci-Fi to Biotech

Since Frankenstein, science fiction has been abuzz about genetically altered humans, or transhumans. Some possess terrific powers, and some are even immortal. This has been seen in movies such as Spiderman, Captain America, X-Men, Limitless, Lucy, and others. But many now argue that immortality isn’t just science fiction because science is now on the threshold of bestowing true immortality through transhumanism. The basic idea is simple: if unguided, random matter, via natural selection, is capable of evolving humans into the marvelous beings that we are, then what happens if we humans use our intelligence to take the chance out of natural selection by modifying our DNA? This is sometimes referred to as “unnatural selection.”

  Tech executives are betting on it. The founders of PayPal, Google, Facebook, eBay, Napster, and Netscape are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat death entirely or at least to radically increase human longevity.⁴ Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has donated more than $430 million to anti-aging research.⁵ Similarly, Larry Page, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, started Calico (short for California Life Company) with an investment of up to $750 million from Google, for the purpose of life-extension research.⁶

Once we get this all figured out, we’ll be able to “reverse aging,” writes futurist and National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee Ray Kurzweil. This will be accomplished through biotechnology methods “such as RNA interference for turning off destructive genes, gene therapy for changing your genetic code, therapeutic cloning for regenerating your cells and tissues, smart drugs to reprogram your metabolic pathways, and many other emerging techniques.” If that doesn’t do it, “whatever biotechnology doesn’t get around to accomplishing, we’ll have the means to do with nanotechnology.”⁷

Of course, we’re not even remotely close to accomplishing these things, but that’s why Kurzweil’s book is entitled The Singularity Is Near. He looks to the Singularity to save us.

Brain Uploading

Another way some hope to live forever is through brain uploading, also known as “whole brain emulation.” Brain uploading is a kind of transhumanism in which the mind—a collection of the memories, personality, mental state, and attributes of a specific individual—is transferred from its original biological brain to a computer. If this were possible, then you could potentially possess literal immortality. If you could upload your consciousness into a computer, then you could load yourself into a new body or a digital avatar. You could be She-Ra or the He-Man, except those names are already taken—but don’t worry, there are avatar name generators to help you.

Brain uploading is illustrated in movies such as Transcendence with Johnny Depp (2014), Self/less with Ryan Reynolds and Ben Kingsley (2015),and the all-time worldwide box office leader, Avatar (2009). Brain uploading was even in an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer’s antics result in his death. But to the relief of everyone, we learn at Homer’s funeral that Homer had been cloned by Professor Frink. This encourages the brain-uploaded and cloned Homer to be even more careless, since he knows he can come back to life. But after 30 years of Homer dying and coming back as a clone, Frink announces at Homer’s umpteenth funeral that he has run out of Homer clones.

  All is not lost, however, because Frink had downloaded Homer onto a flash drive, which is ultimately uploaded into Marge’s home entertainment system. From then on, the episode is sad. Because she misses being with Homer, Marge ultimately electrocutes herself so she can join Homer forever in a flash drive.⁸

Not-Kidding Proponents of Brain Uploading

But for some, brain uploading isn’t science fiction; it’s achievable science. Belief that this is possible is based on the philosophy of materialism, which says that humans are no more than material stuff—i.e., humans don’t have souls. Brain uploaders argue that since humans are no more than molecules in motion, there’s no reason why the synapses of our brains couldn’t be replicated with components and circuitry yet to be invented. When this electronic whiz-bang is invented, brain uploaders declare, there will be no reason why a computer, which is also just material stuff, couldn’t become a vessel into which we can upload our consciousnesses.

Once we are able to upload our consciousnesses, we will be able to download them into a body or into a robot. As Kurzweil puts it, “we will have plenty of options for twenty-first-century bodies for both nonbiological humans and biological humans who avail themselves of extensions to our intelligence. The human body version 2.0 will include virtual bodies in completely realistic virtual environments, nanotechnology-based physical bodies, and more.”⁹ Futurologist Ian Pearson predicts that, “realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it’s not a major career problem.”¹⁰

One brain-uploading true believer is David  J. Chalmers, University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University. Chalmers and a host of others hold that one day you will be able to upload your consciousness into a computer and it will still be you. Some of those who believe this are giddy at the prospect of an electronic immortality. One such fellow is philosophy professor Mark Walker, who writes, “If one is uploaded to a computer, then it seems that it would be a relatively routine matter to enhance one’s memory or cognition: just add more computer memory or processing power. The sky is literally the limit here.” He enthuses, “In short, and without too much hyperbole, those who upload may well be on their way to godhood.”¹¹ Throughout the ages we humans have made our own gods, but now some think that we can make ourselves gods.

But how could you possibly upload your consciousness to a computer? One popular explanation is gradual uploading. Chalmers explains:

Suppose that 1% of Dave’s brain is replaced by a functionally isomorphic [similar in form and structure] silicon circuit. Next suppose that another 1% is replaced, and another 1%. We can continue the process for 100 months, after which a wholly uploaded system will result. We can suppose that functional isomorphism preserves consciousness, so that the system has the same sort of conscious states throughout.¹²

Chalmers believes that this gradual uploading is the “safest” way to upload your brain, and he is “reasonably confident that gradual uploading is a form of survival.”¹³ Thus he writes, “So if at some point in the future I am faced with the choice between uploading and continuing in an increasingly slow biological embodiment, then as long as I have the option of gradual uploading, I will be happy to do so. Unfortunately, I may not have that option. It may be that gradual uploading technology will not be available in my lifetime.”¹⁴ Or any lifetime!

Science Isn’t Even Close

The reason it won’t be available in Chalmers’s lifetime is that everyone agrees that the computer into which the brain is uploaded must have circuitry identical to the connections that one finds in your brain. Your brain needs to be mapped neuron by neuron, and then replicated neuron by neuron along with the other relevant components.

Chalmers writes, “The holy grail here is some sort of noninvasive method of brain imaging, analogous to functional magnetic resonance imaging but with fine enough grain that neural and synaptic dynamics can be recorded.” In other words, the wiring of your brain needs to be exactly replicated in a machine if it is to be you. The problem, writes Chalmers, is that “no such technology is currently on the horizon, but imaging technology is an area of rapid progress.”¹⁵ In other words, science isn’t close to replicating your brain, much less to making circuitry conscious.

In fact, we can’t even make artificial intelligence (AI) that acts like a person, much less upload a human brain into a computer. Stanford University neuroscientist and HBO Westworld advisor David Eagleman explains:

What AI is not any good at is the sort of broad intelligence that, for example, a 3-year-old has. A 3-year-old can do things like pick up a dish from the sink and put it in the dishwasher and communicate with people and manipulate people and navigate a complex room without falling down or running into the furniture—all kinds of things that AI really stinks at currently. We are not really close to having AI that seems like a human.¹⁶

Much less being a vessel into which we could upload a human brain!

Eagleman speaks of computers not having the “broad intelligence” of even a three-year-old. The problem is that humans possess a type of intelligence foreign to computers. Philosopher Hubert  L. Dreyfus points out that “metaphors like ‘Sally is a block of ice’ could not be analyzed by listing features that Sally and a large, cold cube have in common.”¹⁷ If you said that to most humans, they would immediately understand your low opinion of Sally, but a computer will have no idea. Philosopher John  R. Searle gives another example: “‘Juliet is the sun’ does not mean ‘Juliet is for the most part gaseous’, or ‘Juliet is 90 million miles from earth’, both of which properties are salient and well-known features of the sun.”¹⁸

AI scientist Erik  J. Larson points out that children know that “when Barack Obama is in Washington, his left foot is also in Washington,” but a computer wouldn’t know that without being instructed. Larson says that “simple knowledge like this seemed endless; even worse, the bits and pieces that became relevant kept changing, depending on context.”

The Wiring Disconnect

The problem of producing a brain, writes Eagleman, is that there are “almost a hundred billion neurons—those are the specialized cell types in the brain—and each one of those has about 10,000 connections to its neighbor. So there are almost a thousand trillion connections in the brain and we just haven’t figured out all the secrets to it yet.”¹⁹ So we haven’t figured out the “secrets” to “a thousand trillion connections” of our “hundred billion neurons.”

Strong AI proponents say that they will one day emulate the brain on a computer, but that’s not the same thing as making a brain. Searle explains:

The computational emulation of the brain is like a computational emulation of the stomach: we could do a perfect emulation of the stomach cell by cell, but such emulations produce models or pictures and not the real thing. . . . Even with a perfect computer emulation of the stomach, you cannot then stuff a pizza into the computer and expect the computer to digest it. Cell-by-cell computer emulation of the stomach is to real digestive processes as cell-by-cell emulation of the brain is to real cognitive processes. But do not mistake the simulation (or emulation) for the real thing. It would be helpful to those trying to construct the real thing but far from an actual stomach.²⁰

But we haven’t even figured out how a brain with only 302 neurons works. McGill University neuroscientistMichael Hendricks writes in the MIT Technology Review:

I study a small roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, which is by far the best-described animal in all of biology. We know all of its genes and all of its cells (a little over 1,000). We know the identity and complete synaptic connectivity of its 302 neurons, and we have known it for 30 years. If we could “upload” or roughly simulate any brain, it should be that of C. elegans. Yet even with the full connectome in hand, a static model of this network of connections lacks most of the information necessary to simulate the mind of the worm. In short, brain activity cannot be inferred from synaptic neuroanatomy.²¹

We can’t even replicate a 302-neuron worm brain!

The Harvard-educated MIT neuroscience professor Sebastian Seung explains that “the bottleneck” for reproducing a brain has to do with “analysing the images.” Seung says, “Suppose we can image a cubic millimetre of brain in two weeks. To trace the neurons through those images manually we estimate would take 100,000 years. For one cubic millimetre.”²² And a cubic millimeter is only about the size of a grain of sand! In other words, scientists won’t be able to completely map anyone’s brain within, say, the next million years, and even if they could, it would only be a model of a working brain—it wouldn’t actually be a working brain.

Erik  J. Larson, in The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do,sums up the problem: “Here, it’s best to be clear: equating a mind with a computer is not scientific, it’s philosophical.”²³ Indeed, and because of the naturalist’s philosophical commitment to materialism—a commitment that has nothing to do with science—naturalists go on whistling in the grim reaper’s shadow, believing that one day science will figure out how to replicate a brain.

But as mentioned above, those who seek literal immortality have a last, best hope: the Singularity! Cue the choir! Many scientists hope the Singularity will save them! But in part two of this series, I will explain why the Singularity will never, ever happen—never ever.

—This article was adapted from Clay Jones’s book, Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us and What We Can Do About It (Harvest House, 2020).

Notes
1. Mary Shelley and Leslie  S. Klinger, The New Annotated Frankenstein (Liveright, 2017),xliv.
2. “George Foster,” The Newgate Calendar, available at The Ex-Classics Web Site: exclassics.com/newgate/ng464.htm.
3. Shelley and Klinger, Frankenstein, ibid., 298.
4. Ariana Eunjung Cha, “Tech titans’ latest project: Defy death,” Washington Post (April 4, 2015): washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/04/04/tech-titans-latest-project-defy-death/.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Penguin, 2005), 256.
8. The Simpsons, “Days of Future Future,” episode 548 (originally aired April 13, 2014).
9. Kurzweil, The Singularity, ibid., 199.
10. David Smith, “2050—and Immortality Is Within Our Grasp: Britain’s Leading Thinker on the Future Offers an Extraordinary Vision of Life in the Next 45 Years,” The Observer/Guardian (May 21, 2005): theguardian.com/science/2005/may/22/theobserver.technology.
11. Mark Walker, “Personal Identity and Uploading,” Journal of Evolution and Technology, vol. 22, issue 1 (November 2011): https://jetpress.org/v22/walker.htm.
12. David Chalmers, “The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis,” Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, 2nd ed., ed. Susan Schneider (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 208.
13. Ibid., 211.
14. Ibid., 211. Emphasis mine.
15. Ibid., 200. Emphasis mine.
16. Denise Chow et al., “‘Westworld’ science adviser shares his vision of robots and the future of AI,” NBC News Mach (June 16, 2018): nbcnews.com/mach/science/westworld-science-adviser-shares-his-vision-robots-future-ai-ncna883321.
17. Hubert  L. Dreyfus, What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason (MIT, 1992), xxvi.
18. John  R. Searle, Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979), 95.
19. Chow et al., “‘Westworld’ science adviser,” ibid.
20. John  R. Searle, “What Your Computer Can’t Know,” The New York Review (Oct. 9, 2014): nybooks.com/articles/2014/10/09/what-your-computer-cant-know.
21. Michael Hendricks, “The False Science of Cryonics,” MIT Technology Review (Sept. 15, 2015): technologyreview.com/s/541311/the-false-science-of-cryonics. Emphasis mine.
22. Ian Sample, “Interview: Sebastian Seung: you are your connectome,” The Guardian (June 9, 2012): theguardian.com/technology/2012/jun/10/connectome-neuroscience-brain-sebastian-seung.
23. Erik  J. Larson, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (Belknap/Harvard, 2021), 69.