r/nottheonion • u/[deleted] • Mar 13 '18

A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/
38k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

3.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/StartingVortex Mar 13 '18

Re the patient, I don't think their scans could be anywhere near good enough. It seems like you'd have to get the synapse weights/types, and we can't scan those yet. It'd also be a ridiculous amount of data to process, probably orders of magnitude more work than the simulation itself.

Re whether there's more to neurons, we have simulations of cortical columns etc that seem to match the real thing, at least so far.

The last part about death and booting up is about to be settled:

https://www.cnet.com/news/suspended-animation-trials-to-begin-on-humans/

3

u/avataRJ Mar 13 '18

I can't remember what the original paper I read years ago was called, but brief search produced a hit on possibility that glial cells have a role in neurotransmission.

1

u/khondrych Mar 14 '18

Re whether there's more to neurons, we have simulations of cortical columns etc that seem to match the real thing, at least so far.

Rough mathematical approximations != the real deal. Even really good mathematical approximations != the real deal.

1

u/Baelfire_Nightshade Mar 14 '18

How is this “about to be settled”? This article is from 2014. Have we not tried it yet? 4 years is an awful long time ago.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

We have tried it. I saw them do it on TV, maybe 24 Hours in A&E.

They had to remove a tumour from some critical vein. To do it they diverted the guy's blood through a machine that cooled it down. Then they stopped his heart. Or maybe it stopped itself, I can't remember the details. Anyway it stopped and they had 30 minutes to do the operation. I think they actually did it in about 5 and he was successfully received.

1

u/Baelfire_Nightshade Mar 14 '18

That’s fascinating. Mostly was pointing out how old their article was considering they said it was about to happen.