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The concept, cool yet maybe a little creepy, is known as mind uploading. Think of it as a way to create a copy of your brain, a transmission of your mind and consciousness into a computer. There you would live digitally, perhaps forever. You\u2019d have an awareness of yourself, you\u2019d retain your memories and still feel like you. But you wouldn\u2019t have a body.<\/p>\n
Within that simulated environment, you could do anything you do in real life \u2013 eating, driving a car, playing sports. You could also do things impossible in the real world, like walking through walls, flying like a bird or traveling to other planets. The only limit is what science can realistically simulate.<\/p>\n
Doable? Theoretically, mind uploading\u00a0should be possible<\/a>. Still, you may wonder how it could happen. After all, researchers have\u00a0barely begun to understand the brain<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet science has a track record of turning theoretical possibilities into reality. Just because a concept seems terribly, unimaginably difficult doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s impossible. Consider that science took humankind to the Moon, sequenced the human genome and eradicated smallpox. Those things too were once considered unlikely.<\/p>\n As a brain scientist who studies perception<\/a>, I fully expect mind uploading to one day be a reality. But as of today, we\u2019re nowhere close.<\/p>\n The brain is often regarded as the\u00a0most complex object in the known universe<\/a>. Replicating all that complexity will be extraordinarily difficult.<\/p>\n One requirement: The uploaded brain needs the same inputs it always had. In other words, the external world must be available to it. Even cloistered inside a computer, you would still need a simulation of your senses, a reproduction of the ability to see, hear, smell, touch, feel \u2013 as well as move, blink, detect your heart rate, set your circadian rhythm and do thousands of other things.<\/p>\n But why is that? Couldn\u2019t you just exist in a pure mental bubble, inside the computer without sensory input?<\/p>\n Depriving people of their senses, like putting them in total darkness, or in a room without sound, is known as\u00a0sensory deprivation<\/a>, and it\u2019s regarded as\u00a0a form of torture<\/a>. People who have trouble sensing their bodily signals \u2013 thirst, hunger, pain, an itch \u2013\u00a0often have mental health challenges<\/a>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why for mind uploading to work, the simulation of your senses and the digital environment you\u2019re in must be exceptionally accurate. Even minor distortions could have serious mental consequences.<\/p>\n For now, researchers don\u2019t have the computing power, much less the scientific knowledge, to perform such simulations.<\/p>\nLiving in a laptop<\/strong><\/h4>\n