Mind Uploading Research Articles

Spiritual Cyborg: Virtual Embodiment From Secular Ambiguities to Ontological Opportunities

Abstract AI and robotic technologies are reshaping embodied experience, specifically experiences of the relation of mind to body as well as experiences of “reality,” which necessitate the qualifiers augmented or virtual. Such technologies have allowed people to infuse the expanding assortment of technological experiences with spiritual meaning, thus expanding the ambit of spirituality and religiosity; at the same time, the technology has provided many researchers with occasion to argue that all spiritual and virtual experience—including of soul and deities—may only just ever be in the brain, putting the virtual back into the body but not without changing each. We are comparing three sites—VR, gaming, and transhuman mind uploading in Europe, the US, and Japan—not as sites of confusion but of “ontological opportunity,” that is, occasions for remaking experiences of embodiment and disembodiment, and changing the relation between reality and virtuality.

Our Futures in Mind Uploading: Public Perceptions and Narratives

Advances in neurotechnology have immense potential but also pose significant ethical challenges. While the public is a key stakeholder, this audience is understudied. My research uses mind uploading as an exemplar for hypothetical future neurotechnology and contributes new data to an under researched field. To encourage participants to connect with mind uploading, I designed a novel data collection tool and method - a website that tells the stories of two fictional mind uploaded characters. My results showed that while awareness of mind uploading has remained relatively static over the last few years, favourability towards the concept has significantly increased, reflected in an increasing number of people who would upload if their physical body was dying and search for meaning in this new afterlife. However, while the public could identify several benefits for mind uploading, primarily a continued connection to loved ones, they were clearly concerned how neurotechnology, particularly that which would augment our existing capabilities, might develop. Public concerns reflected those of policymakers and scientists and confirmed the need for regulation to ensure neurotechnology is not discriminatory and does not create an even greater divide between the privileged and disadvantaged.

The Digital Hereafter, or: Nirvana in the Cloud

In the discussion of posthuman encounters, the focus is predominantly on robotics and the cyborg, artificial intelligence, and the implementation of technological elements into the human body. Less often explored is the complementary vision of the uploaded mind as a promise of life extension or even immortality. Nevertheless, there is, by now, quite a body of conceptual explorations, promises, warnings and also popularizations of this idea. The technological options described range from memory transfer to whole brain emulation or simulation, and they raise a multitude of theoretical, technological, philosophical and ethical concerns. Unsurprisingly, the assessment varies from enthusiastic celebration to dystopian nightmares, and the concepts have also been explored controversially in literary works. In my paper I outline the most important arguments and discuss some works of science fiction which explore visions of uploaded minds, most importantly Greg Evans’s Permutation City, Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome, and Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein.

I am no abstract object: a novel challenge to mind uploading

I am no abstract object: a novel challenge to mind uploading

The quest for the Benjamin Button effect in Silicon Valley: Bioethical and ecological issues posed by the longevity and immortality industry

The attainment of longevity and immortality, long a theme of fairy tales and myths, has now become a real-world quest. Scientists, innovators, and elite Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are engaged in an epic mission to transcend mortal limits and defeat death using innovative biomedical technologies. From cryonics and plasma infusion to genetic editing and mind uploading, the development of such technologies has been gaining momentum in recent years. Such biomedical advances in longevity and immortality, if successful, will have implications not only for individuals but also for society. Given their exponential growth as a target of commercial investment, it is crucial to address the potential bioethical and ecological issues these technologies pose within the ecosystem.

AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT enabled optoelectronic artificial synaptic devices for neuromorphic computing

Artificial optoelectronic synaptic transistors have attracted extensive research interest as an essential component for neuromorphic computing systems and brain emulation applications. However, performance challenges still remain for synaptic devices, including low energy consumption, high integration density, and flexible modulation. Employing trapping and detrapping relaxation, a novel optically stimulated synaptic transistor enabled by the AlGaN/GaN hetero-structure metal-oxide semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistor has been successfully demonstrated in this study. Synaptic functions, including excitatory postsynaptic current (EPSC), paired-pulse facilitation index, and transition from short-term memory to long-term memory, are well mimicked and explicitly investigated. In a single EPSC event, the AlGaN/GaN synaptic transistor shows the characteristics of low energy consumption and a high signal-to-noise ratio. The EPSC of the synaptic transistor can be synergistically modulated by both optical stimulation and gate/drain bias. Moreover, utilizing a convolution neural network, hand-written digit images were used to verify the data preprocessing capability for neuromorphic computing applications.

„Być albo nie być” − transhumanistyczna wizja przyszłości według Wiktora Pielewina (na materiale utworu "Transhumanism Inc.")

Victor Pelevin has established a reputation as one of the most interesting, controversial, and mysterious contemporary Russian writers. He is recognized as one of the leading representatives of Russian postmodernism. Pelevin is also known as an attentive and critical observer of the surrounding reality. He is sometimes described as a deep thinker, a prophet, and a visionary. Pelevin’s literary work entitled Transhumanism Inc. (2021) is the subject of the analysis in this paper. The purpose of the article is to show and discuss Pelevin’s transhumanist vision of the future in which an isolated brain (removed from its host) will be able to survive indefinitely in a specialized container (‘a jar’) and human consciousness will exist within a virtual reality. However, access to this ‘jar dimension’ will be exclusive, limited only to the wealthy, leaders, and world oligarchs. However, it is the vampires, as supernatural creatures, who will be the real architects of the world order. This paper focuses on the analysis of the selected aspects of Pelevin’s literary work − mainly those which can be viewed in connection with the assumptions of the transhumanist project. Special attention is paid to the idea of cyber immortality, the concept of morphological freedom, and mind uploading.

Upload, Cyber-Spirituality and the Quest for Immortality in Contemporary Science-Fiction Film and Television

As a genre, science fiction has long played with the idea of all-powerful virtual beings and explored notions of transcendence through technological advancements. It has also been at the forefront of exploring our anxieties and hopes regarding new technologies and the ethical and moral consequences of scientific advancement, raising deeply philosophical and theological concerns about an age-old question, namely: what makes us distinct as human beings and what lies beyond our own existence? This article aims to provide an overview of recent themes that have emerged in science fiction film and television, especially with regard to extending our lives beyond their natural biological age. As the article will outline, these ideas generally appear in notions of cyborgization or mind uploading into cyberspace. Both indicate a deeply human desire to avoid death, and the films and shows discussed in this article offer a range of different ideas on this. As we will see, the final case study, the Amazon Prime television show Upload (2020–), brings both of these elements together, touching on a broad range of ideas about cyber-spirituality along the way. The article concludes that although many shows raise interesting questions about the ethical challenges inherent in transhumanist fantasies of mind uploading, they ultimately remain ambiguous in their critique of the dream of digital immortality.

Transhumanističko doba – novi posthuman, nove mogućnosti, novi moral

The paper about the transhumanistic era evaluates the new postulates of the philosophical concept of transhumanism and the new possibilities it offers by creating a new posthuman being with a newly constructed moral system. Through three thematic units, the work reflects on transhumanistic ideas and the new paradigm of man, which is realized by means of technological and scientific achievements.The first thematic unit discusses the philosophical idea of transhumanism and the philosophical shift made by transhumanist anthropology, especially those proclaimed in transhumanist manifestos. The second part provides an understanding of the means used by technological transhumanism starting by cyborgization and mind uploading. The third part looks at the new moral system brought by the new paradigm of posthuman ethics, which opposes the moral values of Christian anthropology.

Biomothers and Technobodies: Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein: A Love Story as the Technocritical Hybridization of Trans- and Posthumanism

Abstract In Frankissstein: A Love Story, the British writer Jeanette Winterson reclaims the epistemological value of the literary interpretation of existential questions around the posthuman. By retelling Mary Shelley’s gothic classic, Winterson assesses, both ethically and aesthetically, the consequences of artificial intelligence for traditional conceptions of gender, life (re)production, and the commodification of bodily desires, as well as their fusion at the intersection of technology and art. With the methodological support of recent studies on trans-/posthumanism and material/trans-corporeal feminism(s), this article will attempt to show how, by revindicating monstrosity as the legitimization of new forms of life and love, Winterson hybridizes trans- and posthumanist polarities and relativizes the rigidity of the debate around the de- and rematerialization of nature in the face of practices such as mind uploading, the mass production of sex robots, and enhancing biotechnologies, through a technocritical examination of the risks and possibilities of the com-posting of human and nonhuman matter.

Exploring moral perception and mind uploading in Kazuo Ishiguro's ‘Klara and the Sun': ethical-aesthetic perspectives on identity attribution in artificial intelligence

Literature wields a profound influence on our cognitive processes, shaping not only how we think but also what we think about. Aesthetic experiences, in particular, seem to foster a positive impact on our ability to comprehend complexity. This influence underscores the significant role of literature in the exploration of value learning and ethics research, because evaluating any decision-making requires seeking the widest possible frame of reference. Furthermore, literature plays a pivotal role in enriching our perception of both the external world and our inner selves, thereby fostering a heightened sense of ethical discernment. In this paper, I explore this last idea by examining Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun. In this enquiry, I reveal connections between two crucial controversies surrounding mind uploading: the epistemological debate centered on the theory of moral perception and the ontological inquiry into personal identity. Researching the intersection of these two big issues guide my decision to employ conceptual synthesis as the methodological framework. Besides, I will argue that the ideas of moral perception and personal identity that emerges in Ishiguro's dystopia are in tune with the narrativist hypothesis of Charles Taylor. In my conclusions, I defend that prospect of replacing a human being with a robot hinges on the challenge of instilling the machine with a unique moral perception. This remains an elusive goal, perhaps perpetually so, due to the inherent impossibility of objectifying a machine capable of apprehending and processing the non-objective qualities of matter. Furthermore, even if we were able to create such a machine, it would likely resist assuming a substitutive role, as it would quickly discover and appreciate its own existence. Finally, I ponder the implications of mistaking a simulation of human for an authentic replica, namely, an unsuccessful and unnoticed attempt at mind uploading—loneliness.

AI consciousness and neuroscientifically plausible “seamless” mind-uploading

AI consciousness and neuroscientifically plausible “seamless” mind-uploading Masataka Watanabe, Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo’s School of Engineering, examines a test for AI consciousness. He proposes it as part of a scientific approach to deciphering consciousness that leads to “seamless” mind uploading. Today, there is much debate on whether artificial intelligence (AI) has achieved consciousness. (1, 2) My short answer is probably not, but with dedicated substantial resources, AI will achieve consciousness at some point. So, what is consciousness? Could we ever tell whether it resides in AI? How can we build a conscious AI, and what would be the purpose of doing so?

Philosophical & bioethical boundaries in current biotechnologies: human enhancement and welfare biology

The aim of this paper is to conduct a descriptive and normative exploration of the most intriguing current biotechnologies. Firstly, biotechnological means capable of enhancing humans will be described, including the possibility of transferring the mind to a non-biological device. Secondly, the emerging discipline of welfare biology will be explored, subjecting it to a theoretical stress test. Well-founded concerns regarding the potential impact of biotechnologies exist, with a particular emphasis on the speculative nature of mind uploading. In contrast to large-scale welfare biology, small-scale welfare biology seems entirely plausible to reduce wild animal suffering.

Human Technological Enhancement and Theological Anthropology

Human Technological Enhancement and Theological Anthropology

Artificial Neuronal Devices Based on Emerging Materials: Neuronal Dynamics and Applications.

Artificial neuronal devices are critical building blocks of neuromorphic computing systems and currently the subject of intense research motivated by application needs from new computing technology and more realistic brain emulation. Researchers have proposed a range of device concepts that can mimic neuronal dynamics and functions. Although the switching physics and device structures of these artificial neurons are largely different, their behaviors can be described by several neuron models in a more unified manner. In this paper, the reports of artificial neuronal devices based on emerging volatile switching materials are reviewed from the perspective of the demonstrated neuron models, with a focus on the neuronal functions implemented in these devices and the exploitation of these functions for computational and sensing applications. Furthermore, the neuroscience inspirations and engineering methods to enrich the neuronal dynamics that remain to be implemented in artificial neuronal devices and networks toward realizing the full functionalities of biological neurons are discussed.

Sorgner, S. L. (2021). We have always been cyborgs: digital data, gene technologies, and an ethics of transhumanism.

The monograph We Have Always Been Cyborgs: Digital Data, Gene Technologies, and an Ethics of Transhumanism by Stefan Lorenz Sorgner aims to explain the most critical issues the Transhumanistic field has been dealing with, including gene technologies, cyborg technologies, gene-motivational technics, gene ethics, mind uploading, policy-making, the image and identity of the Transhuman community.

Mark McClelland’s "Upload" (2012)

In recent years and, in light of the latest developments in the field of neurotechnology, some critics have claimed that mind uploading could become technically feasible in a not-too-distant future. While transhumanist critics embrace this procedure and dream of a postbiological future in which human beings possess greater cognitive, emotional, and sensorial abilities, the critical posthumanists warn of the risks inherent to the idea of leaving biology behind to lead a virtual life in cyberspace. Significantly, these warnings reverberate in some twenty-first century cultural productions such as Mark McClelland’s Upload (2012), a novel that is also representative of an emerging trend of SF novels written by tech professionals. Although the novel may seem to be at first a defense of simulated life, this work aims to prove that McClelland’s narrative choices ultimately uncover a critical posthumanist view of embodiment as an essential part of human identity.

Sims and Vulnerability: On the Ethics of Creating Emulated Minds

It might become possible to build artificial minds with the capacity for experience. This raises a plethora of ethical issues, explored, among others, in the context of whole brain emulations (WBE). In this paper, I will take up the problem of vulnerability – given, for various reasons, less attention in the literature – that the conscious emulations will likely exhibit. Specifically, I will examine the role that vulnerability plays in generating ethical issues that may arise when dealing with WBEs. I will argue that concerns about vulnerability are more matters of institutional design than individual ethics, both when it comes to creating humanlike brain emulations, and when animal-like emulations are concerned. Consequently, the article contains reflection on some institutional measures that can be taken to protect the sims' interests. It concludes that an institutional framework more likely to succeed in this task is competitive and poly-centric, rather than monopolistic and centralized.

Digital suffering: why it’s a problem and how to prevent it

ABSTRACT As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then propose a strategy for solving it: Access Monitor Prevent (AMP). AMP uses a ‘dancing qualia’ argument to link the functional states of certain digital systems to their experiences—this yields epistemic access to digital minds. With that access, we can prevent digital suffering by only creating advanced digital systems that we have such access to, monitoring their functional profiles, and preventing them from entering states with functional markers of suffering. After introducing and motivating AMP, we confront limitations it faces and identify some options for overcoming them. We argue that AMP fits especially well with—and so provides a moral reason to prioritize—one approach to creating such systems: whole brain emulation. We also contend that taking other paths to digital minds would be morally risky.

A free mind cannot be digitally transferred

AbstractThe digital transfer of the mind to a computer system (i.e., mind uploading) requires representing the mind as a finite sequence of bits (1s and 0s). The classic “stored-program computer” paradigm, in turn, implies the equivalence between program and data, so that the sequence of bits themselves can be interpreted as a program, which will be algorithmically executed in the receiving device. Now, according to a previous proof, on which this paper is based, a computational or algorithmic machine, however complex, cannot be free (in the sense of ‘self-determined’). Consequently, a finite sequence of bits cannot adequately represent a free mind and, therefore, a free mind cannot be digitally transferred, quod erat demonstrandum. The impossibility of making this transfer, as demonstrated here, should be a concern especially for those who wish to achieve it. Since we intend this to be a rigorous demonstration, we must give precise definitions and conditions of validity. The most important part of the paper is devoted to explaining the meaning and reasonableness of these definitions and conditions (for example that being truly free means being self-determined). Special attention is paid, also, to the philosophical implications of the demonstration. Finally, this thesis is distinguished from other closely related issues (such as other possible technological difficulties to “discretize” the mind; or, whether it is possible to transfer the mind from one material support to another one in a non-digital way).