"Billy Brown" <bbrown@conemsco.com> writes:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > I don't think you can get uploading without fine-grained models. How
> > do you make a higher-level model of a mind without scanning it on a
> > low level? Remember that the only thing we know are possible to scan
> > are the actual physical processes going on in the head, not the
> > information processes. And these scanable processes are low-level
> > stuff like neural firing, neuron types, connectivity and so on, highly
> > variable and individual.
>
> Yes, but you don't need to be able to sim the entire brain at this level.
> You can build an abstract, generalized neuron simulator without ever
> simulating more than a small cluster of neurons at the molecular level. Set
> up one instance of the simulator for every neuron in the brain, and you've
> got an upload.
Can we simplify neurons? Probably; this is just how nature made them, and I think it is possible to create more computationally efficient input-output mappings retaining the same properties. This is an interesting problem, both from a research, a theoretical and an uploading standpoint. What can we do away with without losing the important? How much detail is needed? Could you upload yourself into an integrate-and-fire model? Could this process be continued on higher scales?
<preening my computational neuroscientist feathers>
> Of course, you still need to scan at the molecular level to get the data to
> initialize those simulators. The advantage is that you reduce the
> computational burden by a gigantic factor. The necessary knowledge of
> neurobiology should already exist by the time we can run even this
> simplified sim, so this approach should be feasible long before we could run
> the brute-force sim.
What we need now is better data, better models and better computers.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y