[extropy-chat] "The Spike" - Raymond Kurzweil

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> Doesn't the concept of replacing the brain's neurons
> with artificial ones, one at a time, date back to
> Turing?  This is one concept of uploading (and the
> closest to reality, from what I've seen - even if it
> is a fair ways off).

Quite possibly.  But it would take someone like Damien to
comment on when sci-fi concepts begin to make it from
a fuzzy fantasy concept into reality when people really
need to take it seriously.

We could go through a list of people (Turing, von Neumann,
Good, etc.) trying to document the thread(s) that uploading
or neuronal replacement depend upon -- and it might be a
quite educational exercise.  [Not one I am opposed to it mind
you -- but it would require some serious intellectual legwork.]

It seems to me the more interesting question is *when* do
we get the technology -- even if it is not nanotech (cochlear
implants come to mind) to make this start to happen.

And on the front of human "enhancement".  We can take HGH
(within some limits) but not various steroids that would
improve athletic performance (perhaps with some downside
in longevity, violent tendencies, etc. etc.).  And certainly
we should not be selling on street corners "do-it-yourself"
injections for gene therapies to turn yourself into Hulk Hogan.

Natasha -- you really have your work cut out for you if you
plan to sell the fact that anyone can have a body that will
give them a career in the WWF or a mind that will get them
into MIT.

R.