We can live immortally for the next 30 years by uploading a brain into a robot

While tech giants dream about changing the way we live with smart devices or social networking applications, an Russian millionaire is trying to change nothing but our destiny. .

" In the next 30 years ," Dmitry Itskov promised, " I will make sure that we can live forever. "

It sounds absurd, but there is no hesitation from the gentle voice of this 35-year-old man, who has given up his business to devote himself to something more useful to mankind. " I'm 100% confident that it will happen. Otherwise I didn't do this ," he said.

That is a great ambition, but can it succeed? Itskov also doesn't have much time to learn.

Russian millionaires believe that 30 years from now humans can be immortal.

" If there is no immortal technology, I will die in the next 35 years ," he lamented. Death is a sure thing to happen - at least at this time - because as we get older, the cells in the body lose their ability to recover.

So Itskov brought a small part of his fortune into a bold plan to eliminate aging. He wants to use advanced science to unlock the secret of the human brain and upload a person's mind into a computer , freeing them from the biological limitations of the body.

" The biggest goal of this plan is to transform someone's personality into a completely new body ," he said.

Itskov was interested in the impossible turn that might have been since he was a child. " My biggest dream is to become an astronaut, to be flying in space ," he said. A scientific novel gave him a deep impression: " The hero took out some immortal pills and flew around the earth's orbit. I still remember I always wondered what I would do if I was immortal. ".

But does your plan allow all of us to upload our minds to computers like fiction? Scientific director of Its 2045 Initiative, Randal Koene - a neuroscientist at Boston University - laughed at anyone who said Itskov is too far away from reality.

Aim to unlock the brain mystery and upload the human mind to the computer.

" All the evidence seems to suggest it is feasible in theory - extremely difficult, but will be feasible," he said. "So you would say such a person has vision, not crazy because that's when you think something is utopian, and not true ."

The theoretical possibilities that Randal speaks are derived from questions about how our brains work without neurology still being able to answer. Our brain is made up of about 86 billion neurons, cells that connect and send information to each other by shooting charges that pass through the part of our skull like waves.

But how, the brain that creates the mystery of the mind is nothing like anything in science, says Columbia University neurobiologist Rafael Yuste. " The challenge lies in how it can be from the cell's interconnecting substrates in this division, to our mental world, our thoughts, our memories, and our emotions ," he said.

Itskov said that without immortal technology, he would die in the next 35 years.

To decipher this, many neuroscientists have approached the brain as if it were a computer. The brain will turn input, data from the senses, into output, our behavior, through calculation. This is where the theoretical arguments about uploading the mind arise. If this process can be outlined, the brain may be copied to a computer, along with an individual's mind.

It was the look of Dr. Ken Hayworth, a neuroscientist who had mapped the mouse brain slices during the day, and struggled with how to upload his mind at night. Ken believes that connectome mapping - the intricate connections of every neuron in the brain - holds the key, because he believes it encodes all information to make us human, even if it is not yet proven. minh. " My computer is really just numbers 0 and 1 in the hard drive, and I don't care what happens if those numbers reach the next computer, and this will be similar to the version. my body ", he said," I don't care if my connectome is in a living body or a software that simulates a robot body ".

Connectome map is the key for this project.

But Ken is a real person. " I am very far away from the connectome of human mapping," he admitted. "It's easy to understand, to draw all the flies' brains will take one to two years. The idea of ​​mapping the entire human brain to the current technology is simply unimaginable. ". And there's also a theoretical challenge. Even if we can create the connection diagram of the human brain, uploading the mind will almost need to read the continuous activity of all neurons.

Itskov might get some unexpected help, says Yuste, who helped bring the world's largest neuroscience project, the Brain Initiative. As part of a $ 6 billion project aimed at solving the mysteries of brain disorders like Alzheimer's, he hopes to map a continuum of neuron interactions in the brain. " We want to measure every size." like from all neurons at the same time, a lot of people think this is unthinkable ".

This approach does not depend on the connectome. In the unpublished study, Yuste first created an image of hypnotic electric flashes that make up the activity of nearly all neurons in one of the simplest nervous systems, a small animal called hydra. " It's really interesting ," he said. But " now it is not possible to say what these things mean. So it is almost like listening to a conversation in a language that you do not understand ."

Need to decode or download the human mind.

For 15 years, Yuste hopes to map - and explain - the activity of every neuron in a rat's cortex. But the biggest goal is still on the human brain.

" If the brain is a digital computer, to be able to upload the mind, you first need to decode or download it ."

But Itskov is far from successful. At Duke University, a leading neurologist thinks that the complexity of the brain cannot be copied. " You can't program visually, beauty, love or hate, " said Dr. Miguel Nicolelis. "You will never see the brain can reduce to a digital environment. It is impossible to put that complexity into a kind of algorithmic process that you will need to do ."

Yuste is also very far away. Because neurology has not been able to explain exactly why the brain can control us and prove that uploading the mind is possible. He believes that the community should begin to see what consequences might happen if Itskov's ambition becomes reality.

Uploading mind will also open a new world full of risks.

" If you can recreate the mind and upload it to another material, you can create copies of the brain, " Yuste said. " These are complex issues because they conflict with the core of what defines a human being ."

Itskov is more optimistic: " I will answer the moral question from Dalai Llama's own opinion. Your point is that you can do anything if your motivation is to help people ."

Iskov has also worked out a plan for his endless life. " In the next few centuries I envisioned having multiple bodies, one in the universe, one in the hologram form, my mind simply moving from one place to another ."

An estimated 107 billion people died before us. With our knowledge of the brain that has improved for several decades, it will become clear whether Itskov really has a vision like he said, or is it merely the latest name of those who dream about it? thought.