Diana Bang's ETEC 531 e-portfolio

I’d like to think that anything is within the realm of possibility considering all the technological advancements that we’ve gone through and will continue to surely unfold. According to a CNN news article, brain downloads will be possible by the year 2050: http://articles.cnn.com/2005-05-23/tech/brain.download_1_computer-human-brain-downloads?_s=PM:TECH. Interestingly though, one of the key concepts that they’re trying to contend with is how to develop consciousness in computers. One of the aspects that needs to considered though is the fact that human memory is not accurate (i.e. people tend to forget things) whereas computer memories are more precise (i.e. the only real issue you may run into is where you last saved a document but it will still exist in the computer’s hard drive or on a usb key). I wonder then, how personal memories could be uploaded to computers. Computers have several ports in which you can save and upload files- however if you consider the human body, we do not have accessible ports for connecting to a computer via a usb key for example. The human brain could be examined via stimulating electrodes surrounding the head, but how exactly would we be able to capture memories like data files? Generally, computer files are encoded, and so would the contents of our memory be also encoded and if so, would it be as easy as a file transfer?

Thus, at this point in time I’m a bit uncertain whether it is truly realistic to upload our memories to computers as of yet since some have argued that doing so would mean losing the body and its situation in the world which is important to consciousness. Also, we still do not fully understand how the human brain operates and how we can mimic this in computers. This is critical to the idea of developing the connections between the human mind and a computer. If we can understand how the human brain functions and translate that into a computer- then perhaps we would be another step closer to achieving this possibility. Another issue that needs to be addressed is using different “technologies” (i.e. the human brain and computers) to simply make a connection and pass information between them. For example, N. Katherine Hayles (1999) contends that using a “white box” (like computers in which we can view and understand all the inner components) is not the equivalent of a “black box” (i.e. the human brain) in which we still do not understand the mechanics of it. Hayles (1999) asserts that AI researchers claim that the way machines imitate human behaviour offers a model for the human brain. There’s faulty logic in this however as we cannot consider these different aspects (a computer vs. a human brain) to function the same way.

Additionally, thoughts and memories are not something that can be merely produced or reproduced in an artificial setting (i.e. laboratory) outside of the natural world. Thus, it is difficult to consider that uploading memories to a computer will be a reality as of yet if we still do not fully understand how the human mind works. For example, Steven Rose contends that computers simply retrieve digital information whereas the mind works with meanings in a creative and imprecise manner. Currently, we are able to capture and record our memories through the aid of electronic devices (i.e. digital photos, journaling/blogging, and through the use of videos). Yet, it hasn’t come to the point where we can simply connect to a computer and it automatically downloads the contents of our brain. Plus, if it did- where would this information go? Who would be in control of it and who would have access to it? There’s a lot of questions regarding privacy and confidentiality concerns that may be raised because of this. Also, if this were possible I wonder how the computer would interpret the information contained in our memories. Would it be accurate? And how would we know the level of accuracy it achieved since our memories can already be faulty at times. After all, to err is human.