Talk:Mind uploading/Archive 1

jewelhead stories

This description is a little vague, and there are no descriptions of any of these stories on Wikipedia. For those interested - the two 'jewel-head' stories I am aware of are short stories in a collection called 'Axiomatic'. The stories are titled 'Learning to Be Me' and 'Closer'. Maybe I'll write a piece if I have time. 203.214.98.112 12:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree, the Jewelhead stories should be removed and a similar reference to GUNNM should replace it.

1. GUNNM serials predate 'Learning to Be Me' (at lease according to Wikipedia)
2. GUNNM covers the same computer at base of skull, with organic original removed concept in the citizens of Tiphares.

It should also be noted that in GUNNM the Mind uploading is done without consent, and without knowledge to the individual. A common occurrence after discovery of the replacement (or lack of orgainic brain) by an individual is madness. The main story of GUNNM revolves around the excepted practice of Brain transplant in the general population, but the isolated population of Tiphares has Mind Upload procedures instead. Larek (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Threat to capitalism

Someone want to explain why capitalism would be threatened by mind transfer? It's mentioned in the ethical section. Also, why does this talk page contain the words "Battlestar Galactica"? It's mentioned at least twice, yet not mentioned at all in the article itself. 69.107.67.224 20:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Merged "downloading consciousness"

The orphan article "downloading consciousness" has been moved/merged here, to the pre-existing non-orphan "mind uploading" article which is about the same subject. The two should be edited into a single article. -- Anon.

Disposal rights

", including the disposal of the old body."

is that a right? :-) it would either be suicide or self-mutilation, depending on which perspective you look at it. isn't suicide technically illegal? - Omegatron 00:59, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

When mind transfer becomes possible, this form of suicide will probably stop being illegal soon. Not to mention that suicide is legal in almost all countries even now. Paranoid 16:39, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"When" it becomes possible? I think you mean "if" it becomes possible. Also, even if suicide were illegal (which it isn't), how are they going to punish you for it? Death? :p Kakashi-sensei 01:59, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

:-) It looks like it's been illegal at various points in time. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040326.html - Omegatron 02:04, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

If mind transfer technology is developed perhaps one could punish people for committing suicide, depending on whether copies of that person are legally liable. One could also finally be able to serve out multiple life sentences, and even multiple death sentences. :) Bryan 15:55, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

If someone committed suicide: a) other copies might follow suit. b) other copies might be innocent by law as not responsible for their copy/original's death. Nihiltres 04:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

But its only suicide if it is "copying". If it is "moving", then it is not suicide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.73.145 (talk) 05:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Copying vs. moving

I think the Copying vs. moving section needs to be expanded and/or clarified. Right now it barely mentions, if at all, the implications of required consciousness continuity vs. arbitrary consciousness pattern reproduction (whether a mind needs to move with its hardware or whether one can just copy the hard state to reproduce an original), and could be interpreted as POV by the majority of information that implies that a copied mind is equal to and is the same person as the original. I'd like to see more on the subject, even though all ideas presented are by necessity theoretical. Nihiltres 04:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I think you need to move. I don't want to awaken a clone of myself, I want to move onto the silicon. Suppose I can create a copy of my memories in silicon. Then give my consciousness access to the new memories and have my consciousness 'running' on the new silicon memories in a way similar to how software runs on hardware. I could then turn off my consciousness in the brain and let my body die peacefully in old age. The trick would be getting my consciousness to run on brain tissue and silicon in a simultaneous fashion. Wether this can be done will depend on just what our consciosness is physically. That is are we the spike trains in our neural nets, or some other physical phenomina. There's more information on this approach www.cyberneticimmortality.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.158.21.93 (talk) 18:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Brain transplant contradiction

DISPUTED :

"Treat Yourself to a New Body" BrainTrans, Inc. Company Website  : what is this ?

i read (whole-body transplant page) : "No technology currently exists to perform brain transplants."

(head transplant page) : "Since the technology required to reattach a severed spinal cord has not yet been developed, the subject of a head transplant would be a quadriplegic. "

while the "BrainTrans" page says : "But act now, join our waiting list and you will receive 10% discount. Expires 01/01/2001."

isn't this a BIG contradiction ? maybe you should add a WARNING or something ? 30 September 2005

• I read the whole page and I call bullshit. A photo of a "patient" appears to be a Photoshopped mugshot (!), the images of "sample bodies" look like they came from an art magazine, and the general syntax is on par with one of those Nigerian scam emails. Also, they say that they can't reveal where the bodies come from for "ethical reasons." Recommend removing link. Teflon Don 08:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

a list of science fiction plot devices?

"merely duplicating how it responds to specific external stimuli"
I suggest that there be a more clear distinction in the article between
1) what are presented as serious possibilities for how to attempt mind transfer
and
2) the contents of the "Mind transfer in science fiction" section.
Given the complexity of the brain and human behavior, it is a joke to say "merely duplicate" human and brain behavior, as if this is any less difficult than actually examining the details of brain structure. --JWSchmidt 15:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring the article

I've restructured this. It had become rather repetitive, and the structure did not seem entirely logical.

I suggest that consideration be given to creating a separate article called something like "mind transfer in science fiction" and moving the relevant material there. It is kind of dominating the rest of the article and it needs more interal structure (and a stylistic edit). Meanwhile, I have put all this material together and eliminated some repetition. Metamagician3000 04:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Confusion

What is this saying?

In the case where it is transferred into an artificial body, to which its consciousness is confined, it would become a robot, albeit one that might claim ordinary human rights, certainly if the consciousness within were feeling (or were doing a good job of simulating) as if it were the donor.

In this case, the mind is the donor, isn't it? What is claiming human rights here? Why the emphasis on "were"? zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:35, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

If I copy a computer program onto a jump drive, then copy it onto your computer, is the program on your computer the same program as is on my computer, or just a copy of that program? Say the programs were my human consciousness. How would it work? Would *I* be on my computer, or your computer? Or on the jump drive? Would I be all three places? How? Would I think of myself as being on all three simultaneously? Would I perceive events from all three simultaneously? I have serious doubts as to whether this process transfers the actual sentient being of a person. Applejuicefool 19:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

{{OR}} tag

I added this note to the article. I enjoyed reading the article, but it reads much like an essay (i.e. original research) than a typical Wikipedia article. The "feeling" I get from the article is that it is more like a brainstorming session by the editors than a report on expert opinion. — MSchmahl… 18:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

None of these methods are original to this article, as all of them has seen significant use in the transhumanist and science fiction communities —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.209.101.58 (talk • contribs)

I agree, I've heard all of these before. But MSchmah is right too so let's do some referencing. I've started off with a few easy ones, will do more over time but feel free to dive in with a few others. Bryan 04:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like the objection is more about Template:unreferenced/Template:not verified and Template:cleanup-tone. Perhaps the tag should be changed accordingly. 131.107.0.73 00:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I changed the tag to "unreferenced," because it seems like this is more the key issue/problem with the article as it stands now. If others feel that OR is still involved, please feel free to change and discuss. --Xaliqen 00:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Mind TRansfer

Who is it that thinks? It is you. The mind is just a tool, like arms or legs, heart and muscles. Using the mind is like putting your hand in a glove, where the glove is the mind and you are the hand. The mind is a tool, with which you can experience everything outside of you inside of you. Mind Transfer already occurs, it is called Telepathy. It is our inner connection. What would happen if you could separate the mind from your body? Well, ask my schizophrenic friend, he knows.....The mind is virtual reality, it is of the same fabric as the outer world. It is an illusion, a dream made up of light particles like the pixels of a screen. The outer world is also a Dream, it is just not as swift as your mind. Our collective habit is to entertain the focus that the outer world of matter is somehow more Real than the inner world of Mind. In fact, they are the same, they are both unreal and real. /Mohsin

• See Also: There is an article on EM theories of consciousness that may link to this. brain==mind is indeed controversial and is a non-proven POV. Many of the steps in emergent trait hypotheses amount to , " and then a miracle happens." If you are going to talk about mind and discuss relationship to brain, it would seem more balance is helpful. The implication is that EM theories are inherently "other worldly" but Maxwell is really 4 simply equations and QM doesn't add much mystery. So, while EM theories do make it possible for hard-to-observe interactions ( yes, you could be talking to real ghosts with intelligence separate from a brain ) they are hardly non-physical unless you believe that Maxwell is character from Ghost Busters. Of course many credible computer scientists think brain==mind ( again POV). I guess you could think about it in terms of optical communications- sure you need a light source and modulator, but if you replace the incadescent bulb with an LED, and use the same external modulator, the information in the light remains the same ( light source==brain, mind==information in light). Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 11:55, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Change title to mind uploading?

Note: as result of an earlier discussion (shown directly below) the the title was changed from Mind uploading to Mind transfer 12 January 2003. This Section resulted in the title being changed back to Mind uploading on 15 February 2007. I've put the two discussions together to reduce confusion.141.219.42.60 (talk) 14:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Uploading vs. downloading

Why is the term 'mind uploading' preferable to 'downloading'? Is this because advocates of the process view the thing transferred TO i.e. the new body or the computer, as superior or greater than the body that they are leaving behind?

the 'upload' versus 'download' terminology in the mixed text is confusing

Perhaps it's because "uploading" is what the existing human brain is doing to the mind, and "downloading" is what the new artificial brain is doing to it, and so when seen from the perspective of the human uploading becomes more prominent. Or perhaps it's just happenstance. The mixed terminology is my fault, I didn't change the text as I merged it all. I'll do that now. Bryan

since the terminology is inherently confusing, and since someone has used the phrase "mind transfer", e.g. in the article on w:Raelism, why not simply use "mind transfer" as the main term, and perhaps also use "brain transfer" as the master term (redirecting both w:whole-body transplant and w:brain transplant since it is also unclear from whose perspective it's transplant and whose perspective its donation). Then the terminology is consistent and there is no question of whether the mind's, or the body's perspective is the one invoked.

I agree, that's much cleaner. If there's no objections, I'll move it and fix all the links and such. Bryan

This article's focus is on serious transhumanist ideas about tranferring human consciousness to a computer, rather than just sci-fi ideas about switching minds...in transhumanist circles I think "mind uploading" is much more commonly used than the more generic "mind transfer". Notice, for example, that if you google the phrase "mind uploading" with the word "transhumanism", you get 9,610 hits, while "mind transfer" and "transhumanism" gives only 1,230, with many of them quoting or linking to this wiki article. Likewise, googling "mind transfer" alone brings up a combination of pages dealing with stuff like "father-son mind-transfer comedies" along with pages referring to the wiki article and a few that independently use "mind transfer" in the transhumanist sense but also note that it is often called "mind uploading", whereas googling "mind uploading" gives pretty much exclusively transhumanist pages, including this one from the Foresight Institute which lists a large number of articles on mind uploading by prominent transhumanists.

So, I think it would be better to change the title back to "Mind uploading" rather than "Mind transfer". Would anyone object to this? Hypnosifl 23:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This article's resulted from the merging of several articles that used both "uploading" and "downloading", either of which is a valid description of the process depending on point of view. Rather than pick one I think it's preferable to use the current neutral description that covers both cases adequately. For a little old discussion on this topic see #Uploading vs. downloading, above. Bryan Derksen 05:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I read that discussion, but the participants seemed unaware of the fact that "mind uploading" was pretty much the accepted term in transhumanist writing, not "mind transfer" or "mind downloading" (I agree that if it wasn't for the history, a priori these other terms would make equal sense, but you'll rarely hear a transhumanist using them in place of 'mind uploading'). As I mentioned, googling "mind uploading" along with "transhumanism" gives 9,610 hits, while googling "mind downloading" and "transhumanism" gives only 521. And please look over that link from the Foresight institute I posted, showing numerous uses of the term in transhumanist writings...also, you can find plenty of detailed websites on "mind uploading" by transhumanists, like Anders Sandberg's mind uploading page (see Anders Sandberg) and The Mind Uploading Homepage and minduploading.org, while I don't see any analogous pages using "mind transfer" or "mind downloading". Since the article is primarily about mind uploading in the transhumanist sense, rather than a more general article on "mind transfer" (it doesn't talk about all the fantasy movies where one person's mind is transferred to another body by magical means, for example), shouldn't the title reflect the most common term in transhumanist circles, rather than just the description that seems most logical a priori to wiki editors? Hypnosifl 06:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to add to this, I think this would fall under the Wikipedia:No original research policy--since wikipedia isn't mean to be a publisher of original thought, if we have an article about the transhumanist concept of transferring the mind to an artificial substrate, then we should use the most widespread term that transhumanists use for this, not pick our own preferred term. Does anyone disagree? If not, does anyone disagree that "mind uploading" is in fact the most common term for this used by prominent transhumanist writers? If there are no disagreements on either score, I'll go ahead and change the title to "Mind uploading" in about a week or so. Hypnosifl 13:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's been over a week, so I'll go ahead and change the title now. Hypnosifl 21:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

one sci fi story not enough

The Egan story should not be considered a method of mind uploading. If is fictious for one and no one has seriously considered it. It belongs in the fiction section.YVNP (talk) 19:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Mind uploading in science fiction - Multiplicity?

Should we add the movie "Multiplicity" to this section? http://imdb.com/title/tt0117108/ Tommy (talk) 18:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Mind uploading in science fiction - The Matrix?

Should we add the movie "The Matrix" to this section? http://imdb.com/title/tt0133093/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.186.132 (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• A 'The Matrix' entry was added to the Science fiction section on 01:53, 2 January 2008
• The next day (Mange01 Added corrective content with the comment ("The Matrix" is not mind uploading, but virtual reality.)

• I agree with Mange01 that the 'The Matrix' doesn't apply to Mind uploading, But I think it needs to be removed rather than stipulate that it doesn't apply.Larek (talk) 16:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The confusion around The Matrix should somehow be mentioned in the article, since it is a quite common misunderstanding the this movie is about Mind uploading. Mange01 (talk) 20:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The Misunderstanding may apply to more than a single movie 'The Matrix'. The misunderstanding AIS is really between VR and Mind uploading. As 'The Matrix' is a very well know example of VR the misunderstanding is thus applied to it, but the root cause of the misunderstanding. Would not a section describing the differences and common misconceptions between VR and Mind uploading be a better presentation. Then 'the Matrix' could mentioned as an example VR at the end.141.219.42.60 (talk) 13:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm also put off by how much 'The Matrix' section is Neo centered. Neo is not unique in the story as_so_far in the topics covered, and that all of the non-"natural" humans from the film, follow those same story elements.141.219.42.60 (talk) 13:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Mind uploading in science fiction - Ghost in the Shell?

I think this should be here... 83.6.94.177 (talk) 05:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It should remain in a seperate article imo AP Shinobi (talk) 15:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it should be included, as it covers a topic not currently covered here and that I don't believe is covered currently on a different page.

In the TV version most of the population uses "Cyborging" process, which is covered. However the Tachikomas (Specifically from Season 1 of The TV Version) go through two Mind uploading/downloading processes nightly. Each Tachikoma starts the day as an exact consciousness copy of of the rest, and as described in the Copying vs. moving section their experiences begin to diverge as the day progresses. To counter this diverging, at the end of the day, each partial distinct consciousness is uploaded to a central location and merged back into a single consciousness for download the next day.

This a solution to "The problem" in the Copying vs. moving section that is not currently listed.Larek (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Heisenberg uncertainty principle

Accepting physicalism for a moment, the mind is not just a set of particles with positions x,y, and z, but a set of particles with position and momentum in a particular direction. Since it is impossible to simultaneously record the exact position and momentum of a particle (heisenburg principle [and common sense to me]) I think it must be impossible to record the exact state of someone's mind. TimL (talk) 04:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Most physical phenomenons that we meet in our daily lives do not require quantum physics to be explained. The probability is very high that classical physics can give a sufficiently accurate explanation to them. Measuring parameters that are affected by the state of a large amount of particles do typically not require the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Do we know that the mind really require quantum physics? The neural paths, the hormones and the electrical impulses between the neurons do probably not - they are rather slow processes, not only involving single particles. What about the "weights" of each input of the individual neurons? And are there any other information about the "internal state" of the individual neurons that must to be measured in the brain scanning process that we can expect to involve single particles? Mange01 (talk) 11:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

you attack the concept of "uploading" from a theoretical perspective, and prove one think - you want something like uploading to be impossible. I represent however the other extreme of the spectrum - I think it is possible to both chart and reverse engineer the human brain, "reduce" it to an artificial medium and port it into a device. If it can't be ported as such in its entirety, it can be done piece by piece - by replacing parts of the existing brain until eventually you are left, over the span of possibly decades, with no organic parts, and only artificial parts. Or - do you propose legal entities do NOT regard people who would endure such a (hypothetical!) treatment as 'people', 'humans', 'persons', 'having free will' or 'having rights'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dagonweb (talk • contribs) 09:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism?

This article in its current state looks like a very good candidate for a non-neutral POV tag. Most of the users here on the talk page, and the tone of the article in general, seem unabashedly enthusiastic about the idea of mind-uploading, without any criticism or controversy section to balance this enthusiasm. For instance, the overview section at the top contains original research ("Popular current thinking is that the human mind is a product of the information processing of this neural network. To use an analogy from computer science, if the neural network of the brain can be thought of as hardware, then the human mind is the software running on it.") that would imply that mind-uploading is much more feasible than we actually know it to be. Also, the "current research" title seems rather disingenuous for the blue brain project--this is a medical research project by a mainstream corporation, and no one involved with the project is making the claim that the "virtual brain" will possess anything resembling consciousness. What's actually going on (as I understand it) is computational modelling of a physical entity with the intent of studying its physical processes and properties. It might make sense as a link in the "see also" section, but it doesn't qualify for research into mind uploading. I appreciate the enthusiasm and interest of the page's contributors, but readers won'tl take this page seriously unless it reflects a more balanced perspective. A good way to neutralize things might be to include a broad "controversy" section with specific critical perspectives on mind uploading (a la the fairly balanced transhumanism article) rather than the somewhat vague lists of umbrella categories under the "philosophical and ethical issues" section. Alternatively, we might consider adding a "mind uploading detractors" section beneath the "mind uploading advocates" section. In its current state, the article looks like something from a futurist's manual. Comments? --Alladiheir (talk) 07:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

PUnctuation

this article needs a lot more commas, in some instances the lack of them interfere with the meaning of the sentence. --Avatarang30 (talk) 22:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Simulation of nematode worm brain, a fruit fly brain and a mouse brain

The article should mention what animal brains that actually have been mapped and simulated. The simplest brain existing - the one belonging to the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) nematode (roundworm) - was mapped and simulated in the end of 1990th. The brain belonging to the fruit fly Drosophila is also thoroughly studied. A half mouse brain was simulated recently by a IBM blue gene supercomputer. More information anyone? Mange01 (talk) 10:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

non-human transfers

Using this technology, would it be possible for me to transfer my mind into an animal body? (ie. a bird) 203.184.0.219 (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

A bird brain contains less neurons than a human brain. Theoretically, if it were possible, it seems likely that there could be some loss in data compression in the bird example (maybe an elephant or a whale, or a life form engineered to live on another planet or in outer space?). 4.242.177.68 (talk) 23:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't notice the longstanding term "metempsychosis" in this material, which may be found in Webster's and elsewhere.208.106.84.161 (talk) 09:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Downloading versus Uploading

What would the theoretical use of micromachines or other technologies in order to rewrite neural networks in biological brains to be the same as a simulated model in another substrate (generally some type of computer) be called? Should a section on that idea be added to mind uploading? Is there already an article on the subject? 4.242.177.68 (talk) 23:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Awful

actually, on a second readthrough, only deletion is really the way forward Jw2035 (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Not Awful (great, or should not be deleted)

I have a differing point of view. I don't think this is awful at all. I think it is great. Yes, there might be some not yet sufficiently referenced claims and info, but there is also some very good referenced and documented information also. I'll see if I can start improving some of it.

I'd like to get a vote to see how many people are in which of the two 'camps'. Is it awful and should it be deleted, or is it not awful, and it should not be deleted? I'll start by signing my name here. How many more can we get in either of these two sections?

Brent_Allsop (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Not awful at all, I've seen much much worse on Wikipedia.

Mind uploading is a real concept used in a number of places in the real world - when I come to Wikipedia I expect to be able to find out about it.

D0nj03 (talk) 06:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Please don't delete this entry -- maybe it's not the best, but just because it is a theoretical construct doesn't mean it isn't possible -- and the post contains a lot of good links to information. Mark it as controversial, and comment that it needs bolstering, but please don't delete merely because someone doesn't approve of the idea. 65.183.142.92 (talk) 15:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I've seen worse on wikipedia, yes, but his is BAD. it is what the 'synthesis' tag is made for - taking thinly related research and combining it with OR to create a hotch-potch of an article. the science is bad, the layout is bad - it reads like a personal essay - and fictional nd non-fictional refs seem to be horribly mixed up. if it survives AfD it needs a complete rewrite. Jw2035 (talk) 18:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

--Mark Francis Grover (talk) 22:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)It would be a shame if this page got deleted. There is a lot of interesting information in here about a popular subject, with some tidying up it could be a very good page. When conversation turns toward future technologies, mind uploading often considered as a possibility. If someone decides to look it up on Wikipedia there should be something to find. Also, given mind uploading's presence in science fiction, there is even more reason to keep it as a page. Please don't delete this wiki page.

-- User:Dagonweb 11:20, 2 April 2008 (CET) It is odd an article like this is even considered for deletion, since so much scientific research explicitly mentions uploading as an end goal. It is a critical part of kurzweilian thinking. It is staple in many popular SF stories. It is the major plot device in the upcoming terminator movie. I wonder why a person, except if he is a complete stranger to these topics and media, come to the conclusion to delete. I accuse anyone who has those sentiments of either gross ignorance or militant denialist luddism. It would be people deleting articles on "manned flight using heavier than air devices" in 1895. I think those in favor of retaining the article in its current form should list those who want it deleted by name, for historical record keeping. They should serve as examples of people literally impeding access to good information just years before of critical technological revolutions. Those people would be likely to become the laughing stock of history.

Now this is the sort of pseudoscientific rambling that has brought this article up for deletion. I'd suggest User:Dagonweb that you read Wikipedia:No personal attacks. If it wasn't wikipedia policy not to, i'm quite happy to have my name attributed to deletion of such a technically bad article, badly written, with combinations of rational science and speculative fiction, OR in such a way as to present it as peer reviwed science, with bad use and understanding of vaguely related scientific research using terms on the distant edges of scientific acceptability. personally, i've never read a peer reviewd mainstream reseach paper on Kurzweilian thinking, if you'd like to refer me to one, i'd be happy to read it. may i direct you to Mind transfer in fiction which deals with such issues. Jw2035 (talk) 15:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

-- Enough technophiles talk about this to make it culturally relevant. Leave it in for sure. Certainly the philosophical issues are real. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.39.212.101 (talk) 15:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Wired magazine has called for the WP article's saving definitely indicates that it is culturally relevant.MatthewTStone (talk) 01:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Removal of "mind transfer" to "other brains", "dynamic thinking substrates" and "yet undeveloped computational devices" from the lead

The article lead has discussed "mind transfer" not only to a computer system , but also to "other brains" (previously "dynamic thinking substrates") and "another yet undeveloped computational device". This is not discussed in the rest of the article - no scientific background is provided, and no references on the topic. Can we remove those kind of formulations, at least from the lead, until we find good sources for them? Okay, digital neural networks in hardware might be mentioned since there are research activities there since decades. I would like the article to be more focused upon scientific aspects and current research activities, and put the SciFi visions in the end of the article. Mange01 (talk) 10:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Reply I agree that transfer to "other brains" and "another yet undeveloped computational device" are not within the scope of this article, however, typical discussions on uploading (e.g. see www.minduploading.org) generally refer to moving information to other dynamic substrates. I think "substrate" is a more appropriate term than "computer" in the lead section because it is very general and includes any type of computer, biological brain or neuronal network, or any combination of these. Similarly, brain mapping and/or scanning are specific techniques that might (or might not) be used to achieve whole brain emulation. The previous description of transferring or copying information is more general, and therefore more appropriate for the lead section than any less general description or specific technique, such as brain mapping. Bottom line: The lead should be broadly general and not conflate the overall goal or process with a specific technique. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pwestep (talk • contribs) 16:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

In that case we need sources on this, and we need a definition of "dynamic thinking substrate". I don't understand the concept. If the difference from "computational device" is that "substrate" also may involve another brain, then we need a discussion on how this can be accomplished. How can the nerve fibers be rerouted? Until this is explained, "other computational devices" is perhaps a good compromise? Mange01 (talk) 07:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Removal of "fully synthetic model" from the lead

Regarding this change to the article first paragraph:

• The change introduced an important issue, but it made the introduction hard to understand for the average reader. Such theoretical and technical discussions should be placed later in the article.
• After the change, the text said something else than the reference.
• "A fully synthetic model" is in my ears a strong AI, but not uploading/whole brain emulation of a specific persons brain.
• This formulation need sources.

Since no one has responded to the "clarification needed" and "citation needed" templates, I have now rolled back the change.Mange01 (talk) 09:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Highly Reliable survey / petition data being restored

JW2035 removed the reference to the canonizer.com survey 'camp' listing world leading advocates of the mind uploading idea thinking that "this is simply a crackpot site, poor reliability source."

If you will google for some of the people that have explicitly signed, are supporting and developing this 'camp', like Steven Lehar, John Smythies, and others that are referenced like V.S. Ramachandran, David Chalmers, you will find that these are the leading thinkers, and scientists in the field of the study of mind. These leaders in this field are actively developing and supporting these ideas and showing that there is more 'scientific consensus' around these ideas than any other scientific theory of consciousness. Canonizer.com is a rigorous tool being specifically designed for experts to collaboratively develop concise descriptions of the best theories, and rigorously measure how much support by experts there is for each.

Many of the other references to 'peer reviewed' articles accepted by wikipedia as 'reliable' only have a few 'peers' in the field reviewing them before they are accepted for publication. In other words, this particular camp already has far more mind expert 'peer' support and review and activity developing it than many articles in 'peer reviewed' articles accepted as 'reliable'.

There cannot be a more reliable source documenting who are 'Mind Uploading Advocates', than one in which the world leading supporters themselves effectively openly 'sign' a petition declaring such - which is precisely what this is. It wouldn't make sense to list all the explicit signers of this camp in this advocate section of this wikipedia article - instead referring people to this camp documenting real time who supports the idea, compared to other theories of mind, is much more reasonable than listing the actual members of a camp in this advocates section.

Also, you can see there is already an accepted precedent for referencing well supported camps at canonizer.com to document who supports various scientific theories. See this section in the wikipedia article on Qualia and most other articles on the study of the mind that have had references like this for some time.

So because of this rational, I am restoring this very valid and reliable information about which world leading experts are supporting the idea of Mind Uploading - as compared to all other scientific theories. Brent_Allsop (talk) 19:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

my reasons:

1)canonizer.com is intrinsically biased by the way it is set up. it is not a neutral source that discusses all viewpoints in a single place. if citing it you would have to cite the opposing 'camps' and discuss their views on the topic as well, not just select one 'camp' that supports your views. this could quite simply continue outward; once you've cited the opposing 'camp', to meet WP:NPOV you must then cite those opposing to the opposing camp!
2) since anyone can sign up using any username, how on earth do you know that 'A. Expert' is actually who they say they are?
3)i'm sure some experts can contribute, but so can anyone. there is a lot of non-peer reviewed questionable material on there, that i've (flipantly) called crackpot science that make fringe theories look more notable than they are.
4)it essentially is a forum for discussion. forums are not a suitable source for wikipedia, since they are not a verifyable or reliable source. see Wikipedia:Verifiability for more information.
5)this is not a form of peer review since articles are simpy not reviewed before being posted. neither are they necessarily reviewed by those who are working in the field. there are far more, relaible and verifyable, journals out there and plenty of people working int he subject area to validate the review process.

Jw2035 (talk) 07:06, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

i'd also add that most edits from the above user appear to constitue spam for 'canonizer.com'. they've been warned Jw2035 (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Merging "Digital immortality" here?

The article Digital immortality seems to have a significant overlap with this article. Significant enough in my eyes to support a merger with this article. Thoughts? Gabbe (talk) 21:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that they are the same topic, although it's not clear to me that Digital immortality (why do I always read that as digital immorality?) has much content worth merging. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 21:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I support a merge. Can the Digital immortality article be inserted under the Immortality/Backup headline? Mange01 (talk) 11:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Mind transfer via brain port and neurochip

The article needs to be expanded, It doesnt mention the ways in which mind transfer can be done via human brain ports such as the port to the brain via the ears (or other ports) via chip implants. It can probably be done via neurochip also downloading the entire nervous system is needed, this article mentions not the ways in which mind transfer will be done leaving a vacum in the article, can anyone expand on this? consider brain-computer interface, cyborg, AI etc - all due to neurochip implant to/and brainports! in the context of mind transfer. thank you. cyrus111 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.191.168.220 (talk) 20:33, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide a source for this? Please search at http://books.google.com or http://scholar.google.com.Mange01 (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The source you provided on google scholar beta were excell. The problem is that there is no direct source for this on the net it is still a very quiet rev. of tech. going on (for public issues). The scanning of entire brain and nervsyst. and then transferring it to a computer/digital/simulation etc does exist though, providing a source/gate/means for "eternal life" via "cyborgnetic" life. In this way all your memory and consciousness of ones life is up/downloaded via the chips the neuro,bio,and chemicals of brain which constitutes entire existens of being, are transfered to computercells/electr. via brain(or ear)chip-via brainport(such as through the ears) then to a compsyst. then to programing it to a cyborg, and further as in the movie matrix or termin. "ulimited" amount of information/data and hence intelligence can be input. Furthermore you can have simulated reality after body death if the cons. is uploaded, see transhumanism.

Thomas campell mentions the downloading of cons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akgCb85PG-A

Here is a source on cyborg

[1]

The possibility exists that the increasingly common replacement of body parts with mechanical items will lead eventually to the creation of cybernetic organisms--beings that intimately mix man and machine. If this trend is taken to its limit, computer chips and other electronic equipment implanted within human bodies might replace, augment, and enhance those most human of faculties, our memory and our ability to reason. We could see the coming to be of science fiction's cyborg, a person who has an intimate, perhaps necessary relationship with a machine.

On google scholar there is tons of similair sources if you search on brainchips, mind upload braincompter interface and others mentioned above. unfortunately there is not any on earchip except for this speculative site on the year 3000

[2]

see also mufcut... nanotechnology is at least 5000 years old...

Cyrus111 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.209.107.63 (talk) 13:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Academic books and scientific articles would be preferable, but since you have found some popular-science sources, why not be brave and add some of this to the article, or to other related articles!

THe best "scientific" source I have found, covering many of the above implementation issues, is the first source in the reference list: Anders Sandberg, Nick Boström, Whole Brain Emulation - A Roadmap. Technical report 2008. It would be nice if someone had time to bring even more material from that report into the article.

See also the section below. (I took the liberty to add intrawiki links to your text above.)

Mange01 (talk) 16:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Deleted text that need sources

Nanoscale probing

The following section was deleted on the 12 February 2010. Some of the text may be useful if a good source is provided:

File:Nanosensor.JPG

A nanosensor probe carrying a laser beam (blue) penetrates a living cell

A more advanced hypothetical technique that would require nanotechnology might involve infiltrating the intact brain with a network of nanoscale machines to "read" the structure and activity of the brain in situ. The data collected from these probes could then be used to continuously build up a simulation of the neural network being probed using an expert system with machine learning -- which could check and correct the behavior of the emulated model against the behavior of the biological system in real time until the accuracy of the emulation would reach a sufficiently acceptable level.

Mapping and simulation of roundworm neural system in end of 90s

The following paragraph was deleted from the Current research section in 3 April 2009 due to lack of sources:

Several animal brains have been mapped and at least partly simulated. The simplest brain existing - the one belonging to the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) nematode (roundworm) - was mapped and simulated in the end of 1990s. The brain belonging to the fruit fly Drosophila is also thoroughly studied.

Half a mouse brain simulated

The following section was deleted from the article lead in 22 August 2010 due to lack of sources (but a similar paragraph still remains in the Current research section, partly supported by sources):

Since a half mouse brain neural network model was simulated in a supercomputer in 2007, at a simulation speed of one tenth of real time, super computers are expected to reach sufficient capacity for whole human brain emulation within a few years. However, no realistic human brain mapping technology is expected to be presented by then, and most suggestions for scanning technologies would destroy the original biological brain.

Mind transfer to another biological brain (SciFi)

The following sentence was deleted in 22 August 2010, although it was discussed above. The aim of the sentence is to show that in SciFi, the term mind transfer is also about transferring a brain model to another biological brain, which is not a scenario discussed in scientific literature.

The term mind transfer also aims at the transfer of the state of a brain to another biological brain. No current research or development activities are reported in this area.

NPOV tag - Overwhelming transhumanist POV

In the real world, mind uploading and mind transfer is overwhelmingly a literary trope. As science, it's not even clear the concept of an uploadable mind (the materialist equivalent of a soul) even makes sense. This article reads like an advertisement for the transhumanism/singularity/cryonics belief cluster.

Suggestion: if the text can't have the overwhelming sense of reading like an Alcor advertising brochure taken out, then rename this to "Mind uploading (Transhumanist belief)" or similar and write an article about the concept in fiction (science fiction, fantasy, humour) with a small bit having the transhumanist belief as a subarticle - David Gerard (talk) 16:39, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Please be specific in your criticism. Exactly what formulations or sources are transhumanist belief?

Instead of renaming the article into a transhumanist POV stub, the article should reflect the status of Whole brain emulation and mind uploading in philosophy and science, and rely on scientific sources rather than transhumanist literature. As a first step towards that goal, all SciFi stuff was removed and put into a separate article a couple of years ago. I suggest that transhumanism beleif and sources (if any) also should be moved into a separate section.

I added some criticism of the concept to the article lead a while ago, but it is hard to find criticism in sources. Can you help providing scepticism expressed by the scientific community?

I suggest that the article should be renamed Whole brain emulation, since it is a more common term in scientific literature.

Mange01 (talk) 21:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a much better name, for sure. Will suggest surgery for the article later - David Gerard (talk) 23:55, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Whole brain emulation is not the same thing as mind-uploading. (They may turn out to be the same thing in practice, but are different in concept.) I won't try to give a totally solid explanation, but to get the basic idea, suppose we think of the brain as hardware and the mind as software -- then mind uploading means uploading software, but brain emulation means emulating hardware. I don't insist that anybody agree with the analogy (I don't agree with it myself), I'm just trying to get across the intuition for why the two are not the same thing. Also I don't think this article is only about transhuman beliefs. This is actually an article that draws significant interest. Looie496 (talk) 03:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The definition in the article lead is taken from an academic paper (or actually a technical report) about Whole brain emulation. Don't you think that this definition is valid for Mind uploading as well? Have you seen any source providing a distinction between the two terms? I believe the only difference is that researchers and philosophers use the term Whole brain emulation, while tranhumanists and SciFi people use the term Mind uploading, but they mean essentially the same thing. In both cases you define the mind or "soul" as the information content of the biological brain.

If we rename the article "whole brain emulation", would that have any effect on the lead or strucutre of the text? Should we add a section about Mind uploading? Mange01 (talk) 11:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I think to many people the concept of mind uploading is very interesting, and the concept of brain emulation is mainly interesting because it might provide a way of uploading a mind. To rename an article about a concept that interests people to a concept that is only secondarily interesting is pedantic, as I see it. Looie496 (talk) 16:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Whole brain emulation" gives 257000 hits according to Google, while "Mind uploading" only gives 26500 hits. In research papers, (see http://scholar.google.com ), these give 23 and 90 hits respetively, meaning that the relation is the opposite. In literature (see http://books.google.com) the terms give 6 and 192 hits. So both of us seames to be wrong...

Still we are waiting for concrete motivation of the NPOV template. Mange01 (talk) 17:07, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately Google Hit estimates for phrases are usually totally bogus -- you have to actually page through to see how many hits there really are. For "whole brain emulation" I got 348 before getting the "similar hits omitted" message; for "mind uploading" I got 719. Looie496 (talk) 01:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I never understood how you got these results. Did you really write the terms in quotation marks?Mange01 (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I put them in quotation marks and got similar results...just keep jumping to the highest # page of search results (i.e. keep clicking the highest number under the "gooooooooooogle" at the bottom of each page of results) until you run out. For "mind uploading" it stopped at the 62nd page of results, ending with the message "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 614 already displayed." For "whole brain emulation" it stopped at the 45th page of results, ending with the message "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 442 already displayed." Hypnosifl (talk) 05:34, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

But ok, then I was wrong and withdraw my renaming proposal.

What can we do to remove the NPOV tag? Mange01 (talk) 16:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that the NPOV tag should be removed, since my questions above has not been answered for three weeks. Once again: 1. Please be specific in the motivation of the tag. Exactly what formulations or sources are transhumanist belief rather than philosophy and science? 2. The article lead includes criticism of the concept. What kind of criticism is missing? Please provide sources with criticism. Can we copy some of the criticism provided by the Transhumanism#Controversy section?Mange01 (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Rename from "Mind uploading" to "Whole brain emulation"

As suggested above to what seemed like general approval, I propose we rename this article "whole brain emulation", which seems to be the more common term in the literature. I'll make the move in a few days unless there's significant opposition. ciphergoth (talk) 09:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

So this was never done, but in case ciphergoth comes back or someone else is considering doing the move, I would say the discussion directly above did not reach "general approval" of the suggested move, see in particular Mange01's comment about "mind uploading" giving far more hits on google books than "whole brain emulation", and also Looie496's subsequent comment that if you look only at unique hits on a general google search, "mind uploading" also gets more hits than "whole brain emulation" there. Hypnosifl (talk) 23:13, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I abstain from voting for now, since on one hand I think renaming it to "whole brain emulation" would improve the article and make it more "scientific", but on the other hand, "mind uploading" is more common in scientific literature. Mange01 (talk) 23:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Someone added SciFi aspects again. Because of that I have eventually renamed the article to whole brain emulation, and also added a hatnote clarifying that this article is not about fiction aspects. I hope this was okay - no objections to the rename proposal have been presented above except my own. Mange01 (talk) 18:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Which edit are you referring to when you say "someone added SciFi aspects again"? In any case, please don't change the article's title without first discussing it here on the talk page and achieving consensus (multiple contributers weighing in, with all or almost all agreeing the title should be changed). I for one don't think it should be changed, based on the evidence from google of the relative popularity of the two terms which was discussed in the earlier talk section Talk:Mind uploading#NPOV tag - Overwhelming transhumanist POV Hypnosifl (talk) 18:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Chips chips chips

Can anybody elaborate and write on the use of chips for mind upload? There is a vaccum in the article due to the lack of mentioning of chips as a way of uploading the mind. A "brain port chip" "opens" up the mind which makes an upload possible. The article must include this or it leaves a big void of information that is essential. There are ports, brain/mind ports to the human body (via the ears) which can be opened up via chips as a way of uploading the mind. Ian pearson talks about this in his lecture and predicts that about 2040:s-2050:s mind upload via chips is possible. Of course the tech. exists already today... please elaborate. here is Ian Pearssons lecture on mind upload via chips ans so on [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.171.248.144 (talk) 14:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC) Cyrus111

"Chips" includes an enormous variety of logic circuits, so yeah, we can predict that chips would likely be used; wires, too. —Tamfang (talk) 22:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

rich and poor uploads

I removed this new paragraph:

In a capitalistic and non-regulated society of uploads, rich individuals would afford more computational resources, and thus run their lifes at faster speed, while poor individuals would suffer form computational resource starvation and thus show a slow-motion behaviour.

... partly because class-war language like that makes me itch and partly because we can't predict preferences with such confidence; maybe the rich prefer not to wait for events, and so run themselves slowly (or spend their cycles on richer detail in their virtual environment). —Tamfang (talk) 00:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. Marxistic language was not my intention. In computer science, terms like scheduling starvation (of processes or data flows), scheduling fairness, limited resources, etc, are common, without any political points. You don't have to be working class hero to claim that computational power would be the only limited physical resource in a society of uploades. Thnx for your improved version Pantergraph and Tamfang! Is it possible to reach a compromise that is slightly closer to the intent of my original version? Mange01 (talk) 00:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, if you had linked starvation (computing) in the first place ... —Tamfang (talk) 00:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I made a new attempt. Don't hesitate to further improve it. Mange01 (talk) 01:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm skeptical about "only limited physical resource"; there will still be some market for access to the world outside the "vat" – if nothing else, for hobbies such as gardening or birdwatching. —Tamfang (talk) 01:16, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

“ As speed depends on the availability of computing resources, wealthy or privileged individuals in a society of uploads might be able to speed-up. Others may suffer from computational resource starvation and show a slow motion behaviour, unless prohibited by regulations. ”

Regulations or courtesy or the invisible hand or charity or effects we haven't thought of! —Tamfang (talk) 01:16, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Today we have laws and democracy rather than anarchy because the invisible hand does not enforce human rights, existence minimum, life-sustaining measures and piece. We never know for sure, but I consider anarchy a less likely form of government in an uploaded society as well. (Sorry for my poor scandinavian English.) Mange01 (talk) 01:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to resist the irrelevant bait here. The point I want to stress is that political control of resources always creates privileged classes; it's far worse in that respect than market anarchy (which you say won't happen anyway). Remember Internet access before 1992? —Tamfang (talk) 02:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Your addition of "priviliged" to the paragraph was a good contribution, since political control combined with human nature (social inheretence) may result in almost as priviliged classes as market economy.

Internet access before 1992? Well, I was not priviliged to have it until 1993. But in those days the open market could not afford Internet, right? Its development required non-commercial institutions. Private persons had to settle for BBS based solutions instead. Still Internet access technologies and providers, just as any infrastructure, in many cases form natural monopolies. Whole brain emulation research and super-computer development also to a large extent rely on public fundings.

And no, you didn't succeed in resisting the bait, and neither did I. :) Mange01 (talk) 16:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Before 1992 (or was it 1993?) "commercial use" of the Internet was forbidden. When that restriction was lifted, suddenly Internet access was widely available even outside privileged institutions such as universities. (Whether the private sector could have created an Internet, if not for state-created communications monopolies, I won't debate here!) —Tamfang (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Disposition

I have issues with the disposition of this article. Are first things really first? I think "Speedup" and "Bekenstein bound" are not that important. "Backup/immortality" is the first thing people associate uploading with. Some things are also repeated.

Suggestions for disposition?

I still miss critics. See for example Transhumanism#Controversy

Does anyone have time to address the Deleted text that need sources. Some of these issues are for example mentioned in source number 1 (http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf), but I do not have time to read it now.

I also miss a section about upload societies inside space sonds/probes.

Mange01 (talk) 01:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Backup/immortality may be what most interests people about uploading on a personal level, but I think speedup would be likely to have more dramatic effects on civilization as a whole, since it could lead to a vast increase in the rate of technological progress and therefore a type of technological singularity. I agree that "Bekenstein bound" would only be a very far-future concern so perhaps it shouldn't appear first in "issues"; and the usefulness of uploads for minimizing payload mass in space travel (especially interstellar travel) would be nice to include, if anyone can find some good published sources discussing the issue (especially connecting it to the fact that fuel requirements increase very quickly--exponentially?--with payload mass if you want to make interstellar trips at relativistic speeds). And there are some criticisms but it would always be good to have more, again if we can find good published sources. Hypnosifl (talk) 22:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I am happy with the new disposition except chapter 1, the Introduction. It could be more focused on important issues. Some of its content could be removed, or clarified and moved to the end of the article. Mange01 (talk) 21:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Something important missing: When?

Could someone who knows about this topic address when would whole brain emulation occur, according to scientists? The article says that "some of the predicted dates have already passed", but there must be new predictions. I'll try to find the answer myself, but if someone knows already, or knows where to look for it, I think it would be very good to complement the article, because this is a very important issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.178.200.67 (talk) 01:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

There is no prospect of whole brain emulation occurring any time in the foreseeable future. It would require both knowledge and technology that we can't even see a path to getting. That doesn't mean it will never happen, just that there is no principled way of making a prediction of when it might. Looie496 (talk) 02:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

IP guy, see File:PPTSuperComputersPRINT.jpg. This is Ray Kurzweil's projection of supercomputer growth and he predicts a supercomputer with enough computational power for mind uploading at around 2025. Assuming Moore's Law-like exponential growth I think it takes about 10 additional years for a super computer-caliber machine to reach consumer prices. That would mean 2035 would be the earliest date for us to even have a computer powerful enough for mind uploading to be conceivable that's affordable to the general public. And of course it would have to be technically possible to transfer the information from brain to computer. And we would have to figure out how to actually do it. And there would have to be an absence of ethical, legal, or economic obstacles preventing it from being a practical consumer-grade technology. Then you got to remember there's already doubts about how much longer exponential growth in computing power can continue, not to mention the fact that Kurzweil's predictions are widely regarded as over-optimistic to the point of crankery. So basically 25 years from now is the most wide-eyedly optimistic scenario. I would tend towards a more "pray this will happen within your lifetime" type outlook. Abyssal (talk) 05:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Moravec?

Somebody should mention the formulation by Hans_Moravec. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.43.60.47 (talk) 09:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Which formulation? Source? Mange01 (talk) 06:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Duplication with Neuroinformatics article

Hi. I noticed this article's "Current research" section is a near-perfect copy/paste of Neuroinformatics's "Research achievements" section. I'm new to both articles, so I don't know which came first, but the full text should live in one place, with a summary and link to the other. Otherwise, maintenance is difficult. As I just learned, making edits in one place, before this discovery. I'll leave it to the domain experts here or at mind uploading to decide. Cheers. --Ds13 (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Video construction from thought

Shouldn't this be mentioned? http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/scientists-youtube-videos-mind/story?id=14573442 It has like 30 articles from a variety of news sources.

I would think something that important should be mentioned. 69.132.69.87 (talk) 00:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

That's already mentioned in our brain-computer interface article, a more suitable place I think -- there is no possibility that MRI could reach the level of resolution needed for mind uploading, so I don't think it is especially relevant to this article. Looie496 (talk) 03:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Exactly! Actually, I don't see the connection between Mind uploading and the #brain-computer interfaces section of this article. Unless the section is made more clear, I would like to remove it, including the illustration. In the main source of this article, "interface" is mentioned several times, but not as a tool for mapping the brain neural network. Mange01 (talk) 15:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Removed sections

Previously #Deleted text that need sources were removed, but may be put back if improved.

According to the above discussion, I now removed the following section:

Brain-computer interfaces

Brain-computer interface (BCI)

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) (also known as neuro-computer interfaces, direct neuron interfaces or cerebral interfaces) constitute one of the hypothetical technologies for the reading of information in the dynamically functioning brain. The production of this or a similar device may be essential to the possibility of mind uploading a living human subject.

Ok?

Also, I would like to thank user:Ewigekrieg for nice contributions! Mange01 (talk) 19:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Random number generators in brain emulation

Has anyone thought about that the use of PRNGs instead of TRNGs at places where randomness is needed in brain emulations may severely restrict the range of possible experiencable futures for the emulated entity since this choice prevents quantum mechanical split-up of futures when the "quantum coin is tossed". Note that this applies for classical deterministic non-quantum brain emulation systems. If one beliefs in the recurrence of time beyond the thermal death of universes in the sense of the recurrence theorem (albeit with beyond mind boggling time scales, see: eternal return) insisting on the use of TRNGs might be a important personal matter. This would be a somewhat science motivated religious belief.

If anyone knows resources discussing this it might be valuable to add those to the article. --Login Mechadense (talk) 18:29, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

If you upload my mind and restart it over and over again under the same conditions (always in the same non-random simulated virtual world), and run each simulation for a very long time, I may potentially behave differently in each simulation run due to a random noise process in the emulated brain. If you use a truly random seed, a very large number of simulation runs would be required until I repeat myself, also with PRNG. So I don't agree that PRNG in practice "severely restricts" the range of possible experiancable features. I would percieve that I have a free will idependently of if PRNG or TRNG were used, or even independently of if a random or fixed seed is used. Do you really think that this should be discussed in the article? Mange01 (talk) 12:47, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Digital information processing devices are designed to prevent random noise to take influence. Bitflips will happen but only very seldomly and often in undesired cases. Using TRNGs (not time how it is often done) only for PRNG seeds is a compromise. It does indeed give you a number of paths equivalent to the maximum-seed-size for the next N quasi-random steps to the next true PRNG seed generation. Using TRNGs at every step gives you maximum-seed-size^N (minus overlaps?) paths which is vastly more though. Note that I was not talking about free will at all here but only about breadth of experience and the chance to ancounter special "places/times" which have only vew access points. One might come to believe that one is locked in a tiny fraction of the "real" world for eternity if this is disregarded, thus I think this is important. --Login Mechadense (talk) 11:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Mechadense, are you saying you prefer a true randomizer over a deterministic pseudo-randomizer because the former, but not the latter, causes a fork according to the many-worlds interpretation? —Tamfang (talk) 08:41, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes you could put it that way. --Login Mechadense (talk) 11:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

too organic oriented?

I'm looking for info. in this article that uploads & retains a person's mind in a more digital format. Pretty sure that since I use Google for everything for instance,-they or someone like it could data-mine pretty close to "thoughts" and looking ahead to Google Glasses type-tech, (predictive software tech. especially) and even current tracking technology, (physical gps AND regular data-mining), in reading this article it would appear that using one's (possibly damaged) brain, is needed to extract "thought"-information. Software programs based-on a previously uploaded digital version is basically what i was looking-for here.--- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.133.234 (talk) 00:36, 4 March 2014 (UTC) 24.0.133.234 (talk) 00:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

To predict human decisions and behaviour using datamining (machine-learning) technologies is used in many existing AI applications. However, it is to my knowledge not considered as a realistic approach to future strong AI, for the same reasons as psycologists and AI scientists have abandoned behaviourism, and prefer models from cognitive science. Both these aproaches to strong AI are fundamentally different from brain scanning and whole brain emulation approach described in this article. The difference betwee reverse-engineering cognitive models and performing whole-brain emulation is briefly discussed in this article. (What do you mean by "too organic oriented" and a "more digital format"?) For a whole brain emulation software program of a round-worm that you can download and try, see http://itee.uq.edu.au/~markw/celegans/. Mange01 (talk) 12:55, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank-you! By organic I guess I just meant that extracting info. from a brain might be the hard way to do this. I guess I'm just thinking for a reboot type situation that a saved "last best " version of what someone was basically doing and thinking might be an easier way to upload info. or even transfer info. from one mind to another. (or just let their computers talk to each other?)24.0.133.234 (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I guess you're saying that, rather than try to map the brain itself, it would be easier to use expert systems to infer from behavior what's going on in there? —Tamfang (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

And I think I was looking-for something like an artificial brain, but one that a person could upload to save their own brain's information in case they lost functions.(to go with the robot body of course)24.0.133.234 (talk) 20:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Removal of "Original research" ok?

Was it okay to remove the {{Original research}} top banner? Many questionable paragraphs with {{citation needed}} are now removed, and sources have been added since the banner was introduced in April 2013. Please motivate the banner better if you put it back.Mange01 (talk) 20:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

WBE

“ Whole brain emulation (WBE) or mind uploading ... ”

I've never encountered the initialism WBE; it does not appear elsewhere in the article. Is it really common enough to need mentioning? —Tamfang (talk) 20:41, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Apparently it is. Paradoctor (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

"Possibility of strong artificial intelligence"

The new "Possibility of strong artificial intelligence" section added is completely unsourced (already added "unreferenced section" tag), and in general seems entirely philosophical and therefore better fitting in the next section. Should it be deleted, or should it be moved and a "refimprove section" tag added? Tga (talk) 22:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Brain Preservation Foundation

Removed from article:

http://www.brainpreservation.org Brain Preservation Foundation was founded in 2010 and is offering a Brain Preservation Technology prize to promote exploration of brain preservation technology in service of humanity. The Prize, currently $106,000

I dont think this is a notable enough organization to be mentioned in wikipedia, per WP:UNDUE. $106,000 is a ridiculously small prize for the task that enormous. In any case we need secondary sources wahic talks about it. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Current Research / Brain Simulation should not be removed from the article

Staszek Lem is repeatedly removing the section that discusses ongoing research into brain simulation. This is absurd. The physicalist and functionalist theories of mind on which mind uploading is predicated directly enable the mind uploading concept. Consequently, ongoing research into the technical feasibility of brain simulations is clearly relevant to the topic in that it shows whether or not the technical requirements are possible (or at least whether research in that direction is advancing). It is simply ridiculous to that propose that brain simulations are "not relevant" to mind uploading. They are, in fact, a requirement and therefore their demonstration bolsters the mind uploading argument (the technical aspects).

Staszek Lem further stated that his problem with the section was that this relevance was not explained, but he is patently wrong in that the relevance is explained in the first paragraph of the 'Philosophical issues' section of the article, so the relevance is right there in the article.

Kebwi (talk) 22:21, 13 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

Please learn wikipedia rules and traditions before engaging in revert wars. First of all, wikipedia is not a book. Every separate subject is treated in separae article. Each article contains information directly relevant to the topic of the article. For example, article Sun does not contain detailed description about current research on nuclear reactions, despite the fact that nuclear fusion is vital to understanding how the Sun shines. The latter research is described in all relevant detail in article titled, as you may guess, "Nuclear reaction". Just the same, the text about brain stimulation belongs to the article Brain simulation. So please put your additions there. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:31, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Staszek Lem:

I agree that there is no point in repeating information between articles. There was even a note asking that the details of brain simulation experiments not be repeated on the mind uploading page. But I went to the trouble of removing those details and merely adding a reference to the other page, with the statement that ongoing brain research is occurring, so your argument that we should avoid duplicated information is well and good, but is also already satisfied at this point by my latter edit. In fact, in so far as I made that additional edit, you are now the one violating the repeated-reverts rule since we are no longer reverting your edit, but rather, mine. Regardless, what the mind upload page would benefit from, however, is the connection to the physical experiments that underly its philosophical assumptions. Your removal of my edit which consists of a single sentence linking to the brain simulation page indicates that you don't even believe the connection between the two should be mentioned. That is going to far in the "removal of duplication". You aren't even allowing a reference between two related topics. You said "put my additions there", meaning on the brain simulation page. But that's silly. If you won't let me mention brain simulation on the mind uploading page, why would you let me mention mind uploading on the brain simulation page. Somewhere, the connection has to be made. You should really allow this connection to be made. Considering that I already conceded to reduce the entire section to a single sentence containing links to the other article, you are bullying me over this issue at this point. You even said I had to "prove" the connection after I already pointed out that the relationship is explained in the 'philosophical issues' section of the article. Are you going to bully me into the ground on this or are you going to allow a single sentence tying the two topics together? --Kebwi (talk) 22:45, 13 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

You are welcome to add information which establishes the connection between brain simulation and mind uploading. Please notice that this information must come from a reliable source which explains this connection. In fact, you may add a very long text (not just a single sentense) as long as it speaks about the connection between the two subjects (again, the detail about this connection must come from admissible sources). Staszek Lem (talk) 22:58, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, for the third or fourth time now, I have already pointed out that the relevance you seek is explained in the 'philosophical issues' section of the article. You have ignored that point every time I mention it. Congratulations on your victory. The mind uploading wikipedia page will contain no mention whatsoever of ongoing or advancing research into brain simulations. No wonder people complain the Wikipedia articles are bad. The first thing many readers would wonder when seeing an article like this is what sort of technical advances have been made toward such ends, but the article will say nothing on the matter. Enjoy your laurels. --Kebwi (talk) 23:10, 13 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

Well, you asked "are you going to allow a single sentence tying the two topics together? " And I answered you: "yes I do". So I have no idea about what "victory" you are talking about. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:19, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

re: "The mind uploading wikipedia page will contain no mention whatsoever of ongoing or advancing research into brain simulations". You are right; this is how wikipedia works. All this information is one mouse click away, right here-->brain simulation (you know what a wikilink is, right?) Staszek Lem (talk) 23:19, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what you're claiming at this point. You said you would allow a single sentence reference to brain simulations, but you also erased the very same edit I made to offer that, so clearly you won't allow it. You then said that while the mind uploading webpage wouldn't contain any mention of brain simulations, that's how wikipedia works since the information was one click away, but you won't let me add the "one click"! You can't have it both ways here. Either you allow it or you don't. Repeatedly erasing the link from the page sets your policy on this issue. Saying otherwise here makes no difference. Sure, the brain simulation page exists somewhere else, but you won't allow us to help the reader find it. You are requiring the reader to think of the relevant search term for themselves and go look up "brain simulations" on their own. When I attempted to add the relevant link to the mind uploading wiki page you summarily eradicated it. I honestly don't know how you believe you are allowing anything when you are simultaneously erasing everything, even a single sentence with a link to the relevant other topic. Your only reason seems to continually hinge on "justifying" the link, but since I have repeatedly pointed out that the justification is already present in the article, your reason is empty. I've explained this already. I don't have any more time to argue about a tiny correction I attempted to make to an article so as to round out the article's coverage of its topic. I tried, you blocked it, now the connection won't be made and readers will have to deduce it on their own since you have seen to it that no such connection is visible (or clickable) in the article. What else is there to discuss? --Kebwi (talk) 23:43, 13 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

re: "I honestly don't know what you're claiming " - that's your real problem. Please learn to read and comprehend what other people are saying. I mean, read carefully. So... I did not write that I "would allow a single sentence reference to brain simulations" Please re-read what I wrote and try to see the difference from your interpretation. YOu wrote : "but you won't let me add the "one click"!" Once again, do you understand what a wikilink is? Do you realize that I wrote "One mouse click"? Please explain how you are going ot add a "mouse click" to the article. YOU wrote " brain simulation page exists somewhere else, but you won't allow us to help the reader find it." Once again, do you understand how pages are found in wikipedia? The term "brain simulation" is already used in the article. (and I suppose you have already read the article "wikilink", so that you know now how wikipedia readers find another article which "exists somewhere else". You wrote: "no such connection is visible - Now you contradict yourself. Please re-read your post starting with "for the third or fourth time now,". Staszek Lem (talk) 00:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I wrote: "no such connection is visible". You replied "Now you contradict yourself" in reference to my claim that the justification for a hyperlink you requested was present elsewhere in the article, but when I said the connection would not be visible I was clearly referring to a hyperlink (aka, a connection) to the brain simulation article...so, actually, no contradiction, despite your accusation. You seem to think that the mere presence of the word "brain simulation" at various points in the article (properly hyperlinked elsewhere in wikipedia) is sufficient, but that is cognitively inadequate. It doesn't make the proper connection. The mere presence of a term does not immediately imply a strong relationship between research into that term's field and the article's central topic. Such an implication is weak. A strong relationship implies that research into one is of direct relevance to the other (and spare me the demand for a justification again, we've been over that). --Kebwi (talk) 00:37, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

@Kebwi: P.S. Only now I realized that wikipedia does NOT have article "Brain simulation". This link in fact redirects to a more general page, Computational neuroscience. Therefore I strongly advice you not to waste time here and create a new article by clicking this link and starting with all content you tried to add. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Staszek Lem: The original link from way back when this all started was to 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroinformatics#Research_achievements'. I didn't find that on my own, I took it from the version of the webpage you erased. I'm not sure why you think the link was ever 'brain simulation' or 'computational neuroscience'. It was never either of those to begin with. I think it's ironic that you lost that link by removing it from the webpage. You yourself don't seem to realize where the original link came from, all because you erased it. Doesn't this tell you something about the ostensible utility of including the link?!--Kebwi (talk) 00:42, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

@Staszek Lem: So, now that we have established that you didn't even know which link we were arguing about, that you thought this was about either the 'brain simulation' link or the 'computational neuroscience' link, where do we stand? You comment above demonstrates that even you, a hallowed Wikipedia sage, failed to realize (and therefore to discover) that there was information on a related topic in another article (the 'neuroinformatics' article shown above). You are advocating for making sure that the subtopic URL on animal brain simulations (or associated internal wiki link) does not appear anywhere on the 'mind uploading' article. You wrongly believed it occurred in other places (in the 'brain simulation' tags, but those tags links to a different article). You erased every attempt and when asked for justification, resorted to erroneously assuming the link occurred in other tags ('brain simulation') or carefully ignored my claim that the very justification you sought already occurred in the article. Honestly now, we can safely assume that essentially no reader would ever discover the relevant information on the other page ('neuroinformatics') since, if you could not find it, surely no one could. You have insured that no reader would ever easily jump from one article to the other. Does that represent a good hyperlink network design to you? It doesn't to me. So, are you going to allow a link to the description of brain simulation experiments on animals in the 'neuroinformatics' article or not? As a published writer and public speaker on the field this article covers, I can say with some qualification that there should be a connection made between the two articles, and I pointed out that the justification for such a relationship already occurs in the article. So, if you will not allow the link, then it is time to pursue formal channels of dispute resolution. I am confident that without an explicit link connecting the two articles, virtually no reader will discover the connection quickly and easily on their own (who in the world is going to think "I should look up 'neuroinformatics' next?"). After all, you couldn't do it. You got confused about two other completely unrelated articles. Frankly, this experience has completely soured me on Wikipedia. I assumed that if someone knowledge in a field saw an opportunity to improve an article on their own field, that they could do so with relative ease. Instead, my attempt to add a single sentence with an associated hyperlink to related material elsewhere on Wikepedia has met with half a day of pedantic arguing. This is ridiculous and I doubt I will ever make another contribution to Wikipedia again, but I wish to see this particular dispute settled, and for the better in my opinion. So, will you allow the link or do we need to find someone else to moderate this disagreement? I'm sure that you are good buddies with all the moderators and that I won't stand a chance at a fair hearing, but I want to at least try, because it is clear to me that I can't possibly make any headway working only with you on this.--Kebwi (talk) 03:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

• @Kewbi:: I agree that the best thing for you to do is to create a proper article on brain simulation, rather than inserting the material here. As Staczek said, you can do that by clicking this link and replacing the redirect with the material you had here -- a few format changes and then you have a proper article. Any text added here should explicitly discuss the relationship between brain simulation and mind uploading. Let me add that I think the material you wrote is good stuff -- it just doesn't belong inside this article. Looie496 (talk) 12:30, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• @Looie496:: First, let me thank you for assisting here. I really haven't been able to reason with Staczek very effectively in my opinion. Nevertheless, there must still be some confusion here, because I never "wrote" anything, certainly nothing worthy of an entire article. Here's what I attempted to add (back) to the article with ref 685611019:

There is ongoing work in the field of brain simulation, including partial and whole simulations of some animals. For example, the C. elegans roundworm, Drosophila fruit fly, and mouse have all been simulated to various degrees.

That's it, that's all I attempted to add (back) to the page. First, you said you thought I wrote some good material. What are you talking about? All I wrote was two sentences with a reference to a section on another article, material that has been around for quite a while I believe. You said we need a new page for this, but that would be a criticism of the other article (Neuroinformatics), not this article. If someone wants to remove all that information and from that article and put it on another webpage, that's fine, but it has no effect on a one sentence reference in this article, a link that can just as easily point into the middle of the Neuroinformatics article as it can to some eventual stand-alone brain simulation article. Why should we be required to clean up the other article's possible organization problems in order to merely link from here to related material wherever it may reside? For now, the minimum and simplest change is the establish a link from this article to the brain simulation material which already exists in another article (an article I don't feel I have any authority to edit since it isn't in my field). Staczek used the relationship between the sun and fusion above. What he is attempting to prevent here is analogous to preventing a mere link from the sun article to the fusion article, not a duplication of the fusion details. Do you think the sun article shouldn't have a link to information on fusion, regardless of whether that information currently stands on a top-level fusion article or instead in a subsection of some other article (same an article on something broader like radioactivity)? Wherever the fusion information is, the sun article should point to it, right? All I'm trying to do here is make the most minimal and innocuous connection between two related concepts. If the only way to add a single sentence to the mind uploading article is to lift the brain simulation material out of the Neuroinformatics article and make a brand new page out of it, then that is far too much friction for me to withstand. I don't want to add entire articles to Wikipedia. What I am happy to do is add quick straightforward links between related articles, but if the low-friction approach is not allowed, then frankly, I don't have time to write whole Wikipedia articles from scratch. My life doesn't allow time for this. Once we get this settled, I'm done here for good. I just can't believe the inanity I have faced in my attempt to add a single sentence with a link to material on a related topic. The question here is, can Wikipedia be incremental, rapid, and easy (by separating the two steps of adding a link to related material here and then isolating or consolidating that material from a different page into a third page in a later editing step), or can it only be whole-parcel, time consuming, and difficult (by requiring that the other material be completely re-edited and finalized before any quick references can be made to it)?--Kebwi (talk) 14:21, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

Excuse me, I misunderstood. Part of the reason why I misunderstood is that your statements here are so long that I got lost -- I really urge you to try to say things more concisely. Anyway, it seems to me that since you didn't write the material, I might just as well handle this myself, by spinning it off into the brain simulation article. The basic point is still that the material doesn't belong in this article unless it explicitly discusses mind uploading. Looie496 (talk) 14:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Update: I have now placed that material in Brain simulation, as well as the related material from the Neuroinformatics article. Hopefully this will resolve the problem? Looie496 (talk) 14:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I still don't see any reference or link from the mind uploading page to the new brain simulation page, so merely cleaning up the neuroinformatics page's organization doesn't really address my original concern at all, that of showing that the physical underpinnings of mind uploading philosophy are further bolstered by ongoing computer and neuroscience simulations. Put differently, none of the changes you made have had any effect on the presentation of the mind uploading page at all? Readers who come to the mind uploading page will wonder what advances have been made in such simulations, but they will have to find those references separately and externally because there will be no mention of such a connection anywhere on the page...but I don't care anymore. I wanted one sentence with a link to related material elsewhere in Wikipedia. That's all.--Kebwi (talk) 16:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

@Kewbi:, please tone down your belligerent attitude. You are new to wikipedia, therefore please listen what other people are telling you to do. With all this typing you could have written 10 new articles instead. Now that Looie496 (talk · contribs) did one part of your job, which I advised you to do, there is the second part you must do:

• Step 1. Please read and understand Wikipedia:Summary style.
• Step 2. Create a subsection "Brain simulation" in section "Relevant technologies and techniques".

Step 3. Describe connection between mind simulation and uploading as described in secondary sources.

• Step 4. Write a summary of the article Brain simulation, in the subsection "Mind Uploading/Relevant technologies/Brain simulation".

Please keep in mind that all info in the summary must be present in the "main" article, Brain simulation. This is the proper way to achieve your goal as I understand: to prominently demonstrate the link between two concepts. By the way, if you cooled down sufficiently enough, you can do a mirror job: In article Brain simulation make a section "Possible applications" and make a subsection "Mind uploading", where you briefly describe mind uploading and reasonable summarize how mind simulation is relevant to it. Please don't forget that all connections between mind simulation and uploading must come from secondary sources. 17:24, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I am genuinely sorry that I perceive me as belligerent. From my point of view, I saw an opportunity to spend thirty seconds adding a hyperlink from one article to another that contained information on a closely related topic. What you see as belligerence is my frustration that incredibly trivial edits seem to be all be impossible to accomplish. This does not encourage people to help make quick small improvements to articles when and where they see fit. I see the necessity to spend hours reorganizing other articles (not the one I sought to improve with a single sentence) as a tremendous impediment to the possibility of small incremental changes when opportunities arise. Not all progress must consist of major article reorganizations. It should suffice, at least sometimes, to simply point from one article to another where a relationship exists between the two. I do not feel that my frustration in such a circumstances constitutes belligerence and am hurt that you see it that way. At any rate, from here on out, I leave it to you. In so far as the two of you are sort of "designers" of the Wikipedia experience, I encourage you in the future to seek ways to enable minor editors to make quick minimal improvements to articles where obvious opportunities present themselves. Good luck.--Kebwi (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

• re: "to spend thirty seconds adding a hyperlink - I have no idea what you are talking about. This and this are your edits in question. They are way beyond a "hyperlink" "to simply point from one article to another". Staszek Lem (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• @Staszek Lem: That is an absolutely false accusation. I very quickly caught that the content was duplicated and reduced it to a mere summary, but you persisted in erasing my edits anyway. The change I attempted to make was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mind_uploading&type=revision&diff=685611019&oldid=685609569 --Kebwi (talk) 20:04, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

• It is not a false accusation. Did you see the diffs I listed? Your small summary was part of a larger change. So let us call this a miscommunication. I would have no objection to the small part. I restored it, with correct sectioniong. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:53, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry for any miscommunication. I agree that it took a few iterations to get it nailed down, but by then we were already mired in a rapid undo-cycle that neither of us could easily escape. I can see how some confusion could have arisen there.--Kebwi (talk) 22:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Kebwi

• re: small incremental changes when opportunities arise. - These changes must be done in the most adequate places. I explained why and how and where. You chose to ignore my explanations, which led to your frustration. Wikipedia has a certain structure. If it is not maintained, the information randomly piled in will quickly make it unreadable. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)