What Is Cyberconsciousness?
The not-too-distant future likely involves cyberconsciousness—simulating the human brain with computer software and technology. Tech Talker explains the basic terms, discussed further in Martine Rothblatt’s Virtually Human, you need to know to understand that future.
It may sound strange, but if you’re active on social media and blog regularly, you’re already well on your way to creating a back-up of your mind online. And since this file exists, in the not-too-distant future, it may even be possible to simulate human consciousness to create a cyberconsciousness with software and technology. That’s the topic of Virtually Human, a new book by Martine Rothblatt. In the book, Dr. Rothblatt explores what a future involving cyberconsciousness looks like and discusses the ethical issues surrounding it.
You can read more about achieving digital immortality in the book, but for now, here are the basics you should know about cyberconsciousness.
Mindcloning, Mindfile, and Mindware
A mindclone is a digital copy of your mind from an organic state (in your brain). Right now, mindclones don’t exist; however, as processing power and computing power come closer to that of the human brain this may be something that becomes possible within our lifetime.
Mindfiles are your memories in digital form that are downloaded from your brain to a digital-based copy. In order for these mindfiles to be more than a large data file, they must have a program that runs them. This is very similar to how the files of a computer require an operating system to execute and manipulate them; otherwise, they are simply data. Meanwhile, mindware is the operating system that uses mindfiles to reconstruct your consciousness.
Mindfiles are your memories in digital form that are downloaded from your brain to a digital-based copy
As you can imagine reconstructing consciousness would take far more processing power than is available by any one processor at this point in time.
Beman and BNA
The term “Mindclone” is synonymous with Beman. Beman stands for a Bio-Electric Human. Furthermore, BNA or “Beme Neural Architecture” is the software structure that will comprise mindware, just as DNA is the basis for the code that makes up our organic cells within us.
BINA48
BINA48 stands for “Breakthrough Intelligence via Neural Architecture” and the 48 corresponds to 48 exaflops of processing speed. Essentially BINA48 represents the first attempts to create a humanoid robot that you can upload your mind to. This robot will be the body for your “Mindware.”
BINA48 was created by Terasem Movement, Incorporated (TMI). TMI is interested in taking information from an organic brain and uploading the organic consciousness to a digital version of it. Not only would you be copying the data of your memory, you would also essentially be copying, or moving your consciousness to a digital vessel.
Digital Eugenics
With the ability to offload one’s thoughts, memories, and consciousness to a digital medium, we can extend our consciousness outside of our bodies. While this may seem like science fiction, the reality is that computer processing ability and storage capacity have been exponentially increasing since their inception.
Although there is no known technology that exists today that can match the power, flexibility and storage of our brain, the future of tech may allow us to create a digital vessel for a digital copy of our consciousness. The ethics, science, and sociological impacts are dissected in Virtually Human.
