From: Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Date: Mon Jan 04 1999 - 11:44:28 MST
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.
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.
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com
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