Mind Uploading

The Brain. Some chemicals, a spongey-like tissue and some electricity. It is the most powerful organ on our body, being able to control every single thing that exists inside you and capable of thinking, but also so fragile and so… organic. That is why brain uploading is becoming the popular thought of the moment. With Elon Musk’s Neuralink just behind the door, it doesn’t seem like a pretty bad idea.

The human brain is one of the most dependable things in existence. It needs protection from your skull, it needs blood to carry its food, it needs even your eyes, ears, hands, etc to perceive stuff.

That is where brain uploading comes. Think of it as keeping you alive, but without the need for a physical body. You can keep whichever form you want, you can eventually interact with the physical world, with the invention of cyborg-like machines, but not as an obligation, but more like an option. Not even that, you can even get smarter and faster by taking off your organic needs! Sounds amazing, right?

Well, not so much. Brain uploading comes with two problems: Ethics and security. Let’s tackle one at a time.

The ethical implications of brain uploading are pretty severe. I mean, what if as people are mapping your brain, they change the way you think? And mind control isn’t the only problem here. What if as we don’t need physical bodies anymore we decide to leave earth? Is that the right thing to do? What if we suddenly become the most powerful creatures in the universe and decide to rule it however we want? What if we make a mistake and get stuck in the digital form forever? How are new people going to be generated? What if there are bugs? There are many questions.

The security implications aren’t much better. What if a terrorist decides to unplug the power cable? Delete everyone? Hack into someone’s mind? This will not just murder much easier, but also untraceable. It will also put knowledge at risk. Someone could just change the past by putting some different values at humanity’s new knowledge base.

But how do we fix these problems? How do we make stuff happen? You see, the ethical problems aren’t quite solvable for the time being. Our best bet would be to simulate this new universe, from scratch, but we don’t even have the resources to make that happen yet. And probably we won’t have them when mind uploading becomes possible. but that also has ethical implications, since we are creating the Matrix.

The security problems are not quite easier. For now, almost unsolvable, since we would have to figure out a way to make an ever-changing, unbreakable, non-repeatable way to access the controls of the platform. But imagine we figured out a way to do it.

Humans… We never had quite a peaceful record. The most peaceful moment of our lives was when we started to plant things on the ground, form tribes and develop communication, and people still died chasing food to survive, hungry or even sick. The more we got smarter, the bigger our fight was. we went from small battles for land to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What would happen if we had access to all the knowledge in the universe? What would be the price for what gain?

With so much being destroyed, it could be possible that it would be better for us and the universe to stay here on earth. I am not saying we can’t use technology to evolve our brains, I think Neuralink is a great idea… but it is a great idea because it has limits. Neuralink isn’t intended for humans to gain another level of evolution, it is intended to help us cure uncurable diseases, to help us communicate faster, to be a companion, not a substitute. Because that would make a better world.

A world where we can cure sociopathy, depression, Parkinson and much more even before it aggravates. A world where we can learn everything we need in less time than ever before. A world where we can think 10x as fast, without having any issues with correctness. A world where geniuses can take way more out of their potential than what we could imagine a few decades ago. Somewhere safe, where crime is barely a thing. A world where technology and organic are in perfect balance, making everything just… overall better. Making the brain… a better brain. Making you a better you.