Is it possible to keep the system of connections in the brain forever?/Michael Shermer
The article is published with the approval of Scientific American Israel and the Ort Israel network
The mind is an information template that represents us, our thoughts, our memories and our personality - our "I", but there is no scientific evidence that something like a mind or soul exists beyond the self-wiring of the brain. I was therefore curious to visit the company's laboratories "21st century medicine" in Fontana, California to see with my own eyes the attempts being made there to preserve the connectome of the brain: the comprehensive diagram of all the neural synaptic connections in the brain.
This medical research company specializes in the cryogenic preservation of human tissues and organs using cryoprotectants. For example, in 2009, the labs' chief scientist, Gregory M. Fahey, published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Organogenesis, in which he documented how his team successfully transplanted a rabbit kidney after treating it with preservatives and freezing it at a temperature of minus 135 degrees Celsius. The freezing was done through a vitrification process, or vitrification, "where the fluids found in a living system are frozen to a glassy state at a low temperature." [In contrast to a crystalline state that destroys the tissue cells - the editors.]
Is it possible to preserve brains? Fahy and his colleague Robert L. McNair are now developing methods that will win them, they hope, a"Brain Preservation Technology Award", the brainchild of neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth (I [Michael Schermer] is a member of the advisory board of [the Foundation for the Preservation of the Brain, which gives the award] in the role of "devil's advocate"). At the time of writing, the amount of the award is estimated at $106. First, 25% of this amount will be awarded for the first complete preservation of a synaptic structure of an intact mouse brain. The rest, at a rate of 75%, will be awarded to the first team "to successfully preserve an intact brain of a large animal in such a way that it can be adopted for human use in a hospital or terminal facility immediately after a determination of clinical death."
I witnessed the infusion of a fixative called glutaraldehyde, through the carotid artery, into the brain of a rabbit. After the substance bound the brain proteins to a solid gel scaffold, the brain was removed from the rabbit's body and flooded with ethylene glycol, an antifreeze agent that prevents the formation of ice crystals and enables safe storage at a temperature of minus 130 degrees Celsius. After such treatment, the brain is preserved in a solid, glass-like, chemically indifferent state. The chemical reactions at this temperature are so slow that the brain can be stored for thousands of years. And if it succeeds, will it be a proof of concept?
Think of a book dipped in epoxy resin and hardened into a solid brick of plastic, McIntyre told me. "You will never be able to open this book again. But if you can prove that the epoxy didn't melt the ink in which the book was written, you actually demonstrate that all the words in the book must be in it... and if you can carefully unfold the book, scan the pages, print them and bind them, you will get a new book that will contain the same words.” Heyworth told me that he examined the connections in the rabbit's brain using a XNUMXD scanning electron microscope and they "appear to be properly preserved, undamaged, and the synaptic connections between the nerve cells can easily be traced."
Hayworth admitted to me that "a post-human future, in which human minds will be computerized, is apparently several hundred years away from us." Even so, he adds, "As an atheist and a neuroscientist who is not ashamed of being a materialist, I am almost certain that consciousness can be put into a computer." why? Because "our best neural models claim that all our perceptual and sensorimotor memories are stored as static changes in the synapses between nerve cells." And this is what the field called connectomics is supposed to do: record and preserve these connections, to allow us, as needed, to "press the pause button" for a few hundred years. "Imagine a world where "the fear of death and the fear of disease and old age has mostly disappeared," he tells me. It sounds promising, but I have my doubts. Is the connectom an accurate analogy for software that can be uploaded in a format that a computer can read? Would uploading a connectome saved in this way be the same as waking up from a deep sleep or a state of unconsciousness? Furthermore, the human brain has about 86 billion neurons, each of which is often connected by 1,000 or more synaptic connections. That is, about 100 trillion connections in total need to be preserved and accurately copied. This is an incredibly high complexity. And this number does not include the rest of the nervous system, outside of the brain, which is also part of our self, which we would also like to resurrect.
It sounds utopian, but in his belief in our ability to improve the world on our own there is something that touches my heart deeply. "I refuse to accept the claim that the human race will stop technological and scientific progress," Heyworth told me. "We are destined to eventually replace our biological bodies and minds with optimally designed synthetic substitutes and the result will be a much healthier, smarter and happier post-human species destined to explore and colonize the universe."
Per audacia ad astra (boldly to the stars).
Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.co. His new book: "The Moral Noah's Ark" was recently published. Follow him on Twitter: @michaelshermer
9 תגובות
I'm going to upload my brain to the Commodore 64, let's hope the turbotape still works (-:
As if all kinds of women and men who believe in the style of Einav Bovalil, will miss the option of preserving themselves after death and will say "Leave, only God, blessed be He, will decide for me".
my daughter,
It is possible to both help the elderly and strive to improve ourselves, one does not contradict the other.
rival,
Want to improve yourself? Serve well with yourself? you are welcome.
Volunteer to help the elderly in a nursing home or perhaps the elderly who live in their own apartment and have difficulty with daily activities. I promise you that after such help you will no longer ask questions like: why don't you try to help.
my daughter,
What's wrong with striving to improve ourselves? Why does it have to be later? And what do you claim that science and medicine don't try to solve problems that older people have?
What to do God has done such a bad job that there is definitely a lot to improve.
At the end of the day, everyone is looking for God for themselves for the day after.
It may be possible in the future to copy the brain to a computer, but the question is whether what will run on the computer will be a simulation or the real thing, will this entity feel an inner emotion like a biological system?
Because we still don't know how the subjective emotion system is implemented in the animal kingdom with increasing complexity according to the species to which it is applied, which includes a large variety of emotional sensations, an example of differences in nature
They are different liquids, some of the properties can overlap, but there are also differences in the ability of the liquid to connect, such as water to different substances, which cannot be done by another liquid because this behavior is an integral part of the laws of physics,
It is possible (within the lack of knowledge we have) that the biological system during evolution had the potential to create a system with a subjective feeling that a life system that utilized it had a better chance of survival compared to biological systems that did not "utilize" this potential that may not be possible to maintain in some other materials such as the materials What are computers made of? The meaning is that it is possible that the quantum in the human brain and the biological material from which we are made are necessary
For this subjective internal presentation that we feel, if this is true then there is a probability that we will find that the human subjective feeling is also an evolutionary product that developed in the kingdom of life and we will find the development of the rest of the kingdom of life and then it will be interesting to find from what stage it started, I would bet already at the primitive initial levels At the very beginning or at the beginning of multi-cells or maybe billions of years, just there it is like a simple nutrient circuit that is very reminiscent of a computer, but there may already be a difference in the way it is applied, something related to the material from which we are made
So if this is true it will be possible to create life with self-awareness but it will have to be composed of biological material
Maybe there will be systems that will take advantage of the possibilities of the computer with the biological abilities to feel inner emotion,
Regarding the subjective feeling, since there is a lot of research, it is possible that even nowadays we will know the answer to this question,
If it is reasonable to assume that in contrast to digital behaviors that are more understandable to us versus the result of a long evolution that is like something analog of layers and more layers of hundreds to millions of years that create what we know today
which will always be difficult to understand because there is no clear place where the subjective feeling begins and where it ends, these are the product of many processes that work together so that it will probably be a target for discussions even to understand how it works because there will be different interpretations
Because such a complex system is difficult to give it a single definition that is agreed upon by everyone, at least in the complex systems of animals such as humans
I was happy to learn that there is now a new God who states that we are destined for synthetic substitutes to improve ourselves. Apparently megalomania knows no bounds. I'm definitely in favor of organ transplants for a medical reason, but for improvement? First of all, learn to treat the elderly with respect or at least put effort into solving the problems they have - then talk about improvement.
Hayworth sounds interesting and serious until the last three lines of the article. His statements about the conversion of our biological entity into a computerized entity seem problematic to me. For some reason, I don't expect the computer I'm working on now, or any other computer in the present or future, to be "happy". I also don't perceive him as someone who is "destined" for anything, except that he will serve me, the person with existence who is also biological, for purposes that are mine, not his. I am certainly not advocating for him to "settle the universe". I'm sure that if the computer that is supposed to be a kind of 'I' in the future, will consider things with itself, with the common sense of the artificial intelligence software that was built into it, and with the recognition that it is actually a machine - however sophisticated it may be - it will understand and decide that it has no reason to be, not to be, to act or for what to be or to act. After all, in the end, a computer that has 'authentic' awareness must recognize that it is a machine, not beyond that, and that the 'value', including the very existential value - must exist outside the 'world' of a machine. And if he does not have such authentic awareness, then he is really just an automaton, not having a human essence.