[MURG] Re: MURG digest, Vol 1 #378 - 3 msgs

Sat Oct 9 11:39:34 EST 2004

Most of us believe that someday science will learn to upload memories,
personality, and feelings – all the non-physical elements that
describe a human being. But first, we need to identify the neuronal
activities that create and process these elements. How about awarding
a prize for neuron developments that bring us closer towards
understanding how to find and identify these neuronal activities?
Dick Pelletier, futuretalk at cox.net

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 12:01:02 -0400, murg-request at minduploading.org
<murg-request at minduploading.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. mind uploading x prize? (Eric Zilli)
>   2. Re: mind uploading x prize? (Sam Gorton)
>   3. Re: mind uploading x prize? (Eric Zilli)
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 21:40:12 -0400
> From: Eric Zilli <digfarenough at gmail.com>
> To: murg at minduploading.org
> Subject: [MURG] mind uploading x prize?
> Reply-To: murg at minduploading.org
> 
> The X Prize Foundation, which recently awarded it's $10 million dollar
> prize to SpaceShipOne is starting a new series of prizes. They're
> accepting suggestions for the nature of the contests on their site
> http://www.wtnxprize.org/
> 
> Here's a quote from the page:
> 
> "Potential types of challenges?
> Here is a very rough and incomplete list of the sorts of challenges
> that might be appropriate:
> * Medical challenges, such a cure for cancer or other major diseases.
> * Technological "holy grails", such as artificial intelligence,
> teleportation, molecular assemblers (true nanotechnology), cold
> fusion, or a believable virtual reality system
> * Major global challenges, such as the various UN Millennium
> Development Goals (MDGs) announced by the world's leaders at the UN in
> 2000 at the Millennium Summit."
> 
> I think mind uploading fits in nicely with the sort of thing they're
> after. Perhaps one or more of us should suggest it as a challenge. The
> exact challenge should perhaps be something like the automated
> scanning and emulation of a rat brain. The challenge naturally
> couldn't be about humans, but rats should make a reasonable test
> animal.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> --
> Eric Zilli
> Hasselmo Lab - Computational Neurophysiology
> Center for Memory and Brain
> Boston University
> 2 Cummington St.
> Boston MA, 02215
> digfarenough at gmail.com -- www.digfarenough.com
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 10:49:52 -0400
> From: Sam Gorton <sgorton at grey-havens.net>
> To: murg at minduploading.org
> Subject: Re: [MURG] mind uploading x prize?
> Reply-To: murg at minduploading.org
> 
> On Fri, Oct 08, 2004 at 09:40:12PM -0400, Eric Zilli wrote:
> >
> > I think mind uploading fits in nicely with the sort of thing they're
> > after. Perhaps one or more of us should suggest it as a challenge. The
> > exact challenge should perhaps be something like the automated
> > scanning and emulation of a rat brain. The challenge naturally
> > couldn't be about humans, but rats should make a reasonable test
> > animal.
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> 
> I think that's a really good idea - it does fit in well with the
> X-Prize theme.
> 
> The difficulty I see is in defining "success" precisely enough that
> there's no argument in who the first winner is.
> 
> This would also be an opportunity to talk to potential corporate
> sponsors and ask them to put up money for a mind-uploading X-prize.
> 
> --
> Sam Gorton
> sgorton at grey-havens.net
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 11:41:29 -0400
> From: Eric Zilli <digfarenough at gmail.com>
> To: murg at minduploading.org
> Subject: Re: [MURG] mind uploading x prize?
> Reply-To: murg at minduploading.org
> 
> Good point about defining success.
> 
> If we wanted to make it complicated, we could set some criteria for
> determining that, for instance, a rat has been successfully uploaded,
> to list two:
> * if the rat had an easily identifiable personality, one could check
> that the upload acts in the same way
> * if the rat was trained on tasks X and Y, but not W or Z, the upload
> should perform well on tasks X and Y, but poorly on W and Z
> * if the effect of drug X is Y (a list of reproducible effects on the
> rat in tasks or in general), the effect of simulating drug X on the
> upload should also be Y
> 
> Thus a successful team would be the first to demonstrate going from
> live rat to an upload that meets the above criteria (or others like
> it).
> A problem is that unlike with SpaceShipOne, there's no discrete,
> public event that can be held to demonstrate a success. The uploading
> would probably happen behind closed doors and we would only see the
> uploadee as the result. In this situation could the awarders of the
> prize be confident that the goal has actually been met and not faked
> in some way?
> 
> We could also go for a simpler goal: uploading and simulating C.
> Elegans. This goal is reachable even with today's technology, but it
> may not be big enough to have an effect. The technology actually
> needed to dismantle and scan a brain (or nondestructively scan it, if
> you're into that) wouldn't be needed here. This goal would only
> require the ability to simulate an organism, not to actually upload
> it. Behavioral criteria as described above would be less decisive here
> as the organism is almost too simple to determine if the upload
> actually reproduces the specific worm that was uploaded.
> Also, this goal has already been attempted by at least two groups
> (MURG and Kitano, Hamahashi, and Luke (1998)
> (http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/seanl/papers/pce-alife.pdf)) so it isn't
> as novel and big as I'd like to see an X Prize be.
> 
> Just further thoughts.
> 
> On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 10:49:52 -0400, Sam Gorton <sgorton at grey-havens.net> wrote:
> >
> > I think that's a really good idea - it does fit in well with the
> > X-Prize theme.
> >
> > The difficulty I see is in defining "success" precisely enough that
> > there's no argument in who the first winner is.
> >
> > This would also be an opportunity to talk to potential corporate
> > sponsors and ask them to put up money for a mind-uploading X-prize.
> >
> > --
> > Sam Gorton
> > sgorton at grey-havens.net
> > _______________________________________________
> > MURG mailing list
> > MURG at minduploading.org
> > http://minduploading.org/mailman/listinfo/murg
> >
> 
> --
> Eric Zilli
> Hasselmo Lab - Computational Neurophysiology
> Center for Memory and Brain
> Boston University
> 2 Cummington St.
> Boston MA, 02215
> digfarenough at gmail.com -- www.digfarenough.com
> 
> --__--__--
> 
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