What is Ritchie's take on Neuralink? (Sorry to stray onto topics not related to optogenetics. I hope it doesn't irk him that Elon Musk has steered/captured public consciousness regarding neuroscience.)
To stray into sci-fi territory a bit, if money gets poured into the field, is there a chance we might see the Matrix or brain uploads in our lifetimes? And if not in our lifetime, is it ever achievable?
I'm extremely skeptical, but human BCI could be the best/most important development in our history. Any problem gradient with a chance of unlocking immortality should be leaned into. It's way more important than Angry Birds or iOS N+1.
With regard to studying already-alive organisms (we can't splice in the genes required for optogenetics), are there non-invasive techniques that can produce signal from humans? Deuterium NMR cerebral imaging seems low resolution and awkward to deploy.
Could ML / signal processing increase the resolution of EEGs? Could we ever extract video signal from an EEG?
Can an EEG induce perception into a brain?
With regard to optogenetics, what are the things currently being studied with the technique? What pressing questions can it be used to answer? Are there any improvements to the technique that could push it further?
Sorry for so many off-topic questions, but I'd love to know what an expert in the field thinks. I'd especially like to get a grasp of the future of the field.
I passed along this thread to Ritchie, so hopefully he can chime in as he has time. We actually talk quite a bit about Neuralink, and have colleagues that work there.
Speaking for myself, I love to see the resources increased in this area of research, but am nervous that expectations are too high. Brain surgery for a consumer product seems pretty far off and the early applications will almost have to be medically motivated. That said, Neuralink seems to be doing a phenomenal job in productizing and further developing off of current electrode techniques. I hope the technology becomes available for the research community!
Re noninvasive human neuroimaging, fMRI, fNIRS, MEG, or EEG are your best bet today. fMRI is probably the best of these in terms of what can be decoded from thoughts/perception, and has the highest spatial resolution. I think these have come down in size as to fit in a van, but certainly not very mobile and require powerful magnets. They also capture a proxy of neural activity, the blood oxygenation level, a proxy for neural activity.
ipad dying so will try to update this comment in a bit...
Edit (continued):
> Could ML / signal processing increase the resolution of EEGs? Could we ever extract video signal from an EEG?
The skull acts as a low pass filter and most of the high information content resides at higher frequencies. This seems to make it impossible to decode, say, speech or imagery from the brain’s activity. No ML can save you from a low pass filter.
> Can an EEG induce perception into a brain?
EEG is a recording technique, but tCDS has some mixed evidence for increasing alertness. Transcranial magnetic stimulation definitely can trigger a percept if done over visual cortex, but it’s not very fine in detail. Targeted ultrasound may do better in the future.
> With regard to optogenetics, what are the things currently being studied with the technique? What pressing questions can it be used to answer? Are there any improvements to the technique that could push it further?
> is there a chance we might see the Matrix or brain uploads in our lifetimes? And if not in our lifetime, is it ever achievable?
How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?. This overlaps with Transporter problem from Star Trek and the Prestige, it's not you who lives in there, just a copy.
>but human BCI could be the best/most important development in our history. Any problem gradient with a chance of unlocking immortality should be leaned into.
You would be creating a mirror of yourself on the computer, it wouldn't be you. An immortality for your brain image maybe.
Even without your previous experience, you are literally not the same cells that you were a few years ago. As such, to achieve the same kind of continuity of consciousness and become fully digital, I think one would have to gradually replace their brain.
It would not be necessary to gradually replace the brain, nor any other parts of the connectome. If you agree that cognition is due to physical processes of the brain, then it is impossible that consciousness is anything more than very advanced logic. You could devise a situation in which a person is gradually converted into a robotic form, and another where he is simply replaced with a robotic clone, such that you would end up with the same exact logical brain(contained within the robot) in both cases. So, in this instance, where does cognition diverge? If the gradual replacement results in the continuation of the stream of consciousness, but the creation of a robotic copy does not, then why can't that difference be physically measured? Would you suggest a supernatural explanation? Or is the experience consciousness as shallow as the belief that it has been preserved (which I say it is)?
I think you misinterpreted my comment. The poster I was responding to was talking about how it would not be the same consciousness, but a clone of that consciousness.
I am not making any unprovable claims about a spirit/soul, though I do not completely shut out the possibility there is something we haven't measured yet. I believe that externally, there is no difference in your scenario.
I think where there might be a difference, is to the consciousness itself. The continuity of that experience being the difference. In which case, gradually replacing the brain should be a solution to the continuity problem (like the Ship of Theseus). Where I think this is conceptually weakest, is when considering how much continuity of consciousness exists while sleeping or being sedated.
The structure of the body more or less remains the same. Ship of Theseus hits the same limits evolution does. We don't really become a completely different species from local changes.
What is the point of information if you can't embody it? I guess the desirability of immortality in a computer system completely relies on how faithfully the system can pretend on your behalf, that you have a body. An endless heaven without having a body to structure your sensations and grant you movement through space and time... seems lacking.
I always thought it's an obvious and solid solution. And if we assume it's possible to do a snapshot and have a perfect mind clone in I can't see how there can be any doubt it'll work.
There's a 32 light year volume that encompass my whole history. The universe seems to preserve every point of my life to a resolution. If https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity turns out correct (or something like it), my life is preserved in perfect resolution across an increasingly large volume of space.
Separately:
There's no point in my life where I'm ever the same person. I've continually evolved.
With human history, the resolution of records continues to expand. Fossils, artifacts, writing, photos, and Google search logs all contain personal information. The resolution of historical information shows a clear trend.
Am I immortal if only a moment of my life is preserved, or am I immortal if all points of my life can be accurately be resimulated?
I would argue there is no difference. In order to resimulate me at any point in time, my context, my surroundings, must be considered. My context exists for historic reasons. In order for my brain to be interpretable its application in real world interactions must be considered the the world can only be understood by knowing its history.
To know me you need to know my life and surroundings at all points in time. Technology is slowing increasing the resolution of human immortality, although the universe seems to have already accomplished this perfectly.
Neal Stephenson wrote a science fiction novel "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" that came out in 2019 whose plot is about the uploading of people into computer systems. It covers a range of ideas and possibilities with plot lines outside and inside of the computer system. Highly recommended if you are interested in thinking about this topic in more detail. Also a pretty fun read. I still have the last bit of the book to finish.
An even more hellish vision is Iain Banks' _Surface Detail_ [1] where some civilizations upload the consciousnesses of thousands of their citizens into simulations that make them suffer (at least there are counterexamples that upload themselves into 'heaven').
An oft-covered topic in science fiction! My favourite take on it is Permutation City by Greg Egan... it's from 1994, but reads like it was written yesterday!
> How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?. This overlaps with Transporter problem from Star Trek and the Prestige, it's not you who lives in there, just a copy.
I don't think it would be a problem if it isn't the same you or if the old you dies. Linear continuity is rooted in our biology, and this would be something entirely new that requires new ways of thinking about it.
Reconstituting memories and information would be a game changer. Imagine manipulating them! Making them more efficient encodings, removing inaccuracies, etc. (There's a lot of potential for bad here too.) Cloning memories, merging them...
If you're extremely concerned about not being the same person, maybe consciousness can expand to fill a vacuum? I'm not particularly concerned, but there might be ways of dealing with the issue.
This is all so sci-fi that it probably makes the researchers laugh and shake their heads.
> You would be creating a mirror of yourself on the computer, it wouldn't be you.
It's possible that the new you would believe you are still you, even though you would be a separate new you. I think what we're really touching upon here is that it starts to go against our belief that we are exceptionally special. And of course we are -- we don't really know any better. But maybe it simply doesn't matter and it would be good enough. Think of it like going to sleep -- how do you really know, beyond theoretical doubt, that you're still "you" when you wake up?
I'm simply here to provide a perspective perhaps not often considered. More for sparking additional thinking on the subject than anything else. I too believe we're super duper special unique snowflakes ;)
You’re digital copy might not be conscious, if consciousness isn’t something we figure out how to simulate. It’s speculation at this point that a simulated mind would be conscious. We simply don’t know that to be true.
> How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?
In practice, people who received heart transplants are generally considered to be the same person as they had been before the transplantation, so it seems most of us have already accepted that you don't need the whole body.
"Three groups of patients could be identified: 79% stated that their personality had not changed at all postoperatively. In this group, patients showed masslve defense and denial reactions, mainly by rapidly changing the subject or making the question ridiculous. Fifteen per cent stated that their personality had indeed changed, but not because of the donor organ, but due to the life-threatening event. Six per cent (three patients) reported a distinct change of personality due to their new hearts."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00435634
Sure parts are replaceable, one at a time. Replacing them one a time maintains the body. The structure of the body is more than the sum of it's parts though.
The robots need a body to orient their brain in spacetime. AIs classifying images from pure theory requires a body to relate to all the other objects in the world. Tagging a door knob as 'turnable, openable' requires the robot to have a hand that can do it. A banana only looks edible and life sustaining because we have a body. A floating head loses all interest in a lot of things, I'd guess.
It hurts my brain to think about that. Simulating the brain is one idea, adding the body on too is levels of complexity I can't fathom. Biologists struggle writing 128 page documents just to characterize a single molecule, so they can construct a 5-6 part nano-vehicle.
The hubris of this idea is just so far off the charts I can't even call it wrong or insane. It's in the "FTL" bucket for me.
Um, in practice, the number of people who have actually received a head transplant is precisely zero. So how they are considered is about as relevant as how Harry Potter is considered.
> Um, in practice, the number of people who have actually received a head transplant is precisely zero. So how they are considered is about as relevant as how Harry Potter is considered.
In fairness, the context was uploading the brain, and whether the whole body was needed, so it was a semi-reasonable misread.
Still... there's a large distance from "I can have a heart transplant and still be considered the same person (even though 1% of my body now has different DNA)" to "I can have no body at all and still be the same person". The claim was that a body is a significant part of who we are as people, which is not a claim that a heart transplant addresses at all.
> [T]here's a large distance from "I can have a heart transplant and still be considered the same person (even though 1% of my body now has different DNA)" to "I can have no body at all and still be the same person". The claim was that a body is a significant part of who we are as people, which is not a claim that a heart transplant addresses at all.
All right, let's tackle it a bit more directly than replacement: Does amputation of a limb diminish an individual's personhood? Is your answer dependent on the use of a prosthetic?
I mean, I saw this guy who had both legs amputated. He entered the Utah Summer Games in the 100 meters in the "open" class, meaning he was taking on the best in the state straight up - no "handicapped" class. He took first in the preliminaries and second in the final.
If he thinks of himself as an athlete, he still is. But if he wants to play footsie under the table with his SO... that's something he lost.
So it depends to some degree on where your sense of personhood is. But I think for all of us, we're not a brain in a vat. We interact with our external physical environment. If you lose all of that... haven't you lost something that matters to you? If you can't enjoy a steak, can't enjoy a kiss, and can't enjoy the smell of a flower (or even the sight of one), then aren't you something less than you were when you could do all those things?
> How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?. This overlaps with Transporter problem from Star Trek and the Prestige, it's not you who lives in there, just a copy.
Does it matter of the substrate is replaced a bit at a time or all at once? If so, why? If not, how is the “transporter problem” any different than what every person goes through all the time?
Look up Altered Carbon, a scifi novel from which two high-quality TV mini-series were recently produced. It's the whole premise. Bodies become disposable "sleeves".
I was wondering myself what this research was about and how it compares to Neuralink. I'm going to refer to the tech in the paper as Deep transcranial photoactivation. Here's my take from what I know from both techniques:
-- Depth:
Neuralink is currently being tested on the cortical surface (up to roughly 2 mm deep measured from the surface of the brain), but the team has indicated that there's no reason why the technology couldn't be used much deeper in the brain in the future. All the way down to the brain stem. In other words: Neuralink depth: any. Deep transcranial photoactivation depth: 7 mm non-invasive. Any dept invasive. This means that if you want to go "deep brain" in humans (beyond the cortical surface) both Neuralink and Deep transcranial photo-activation are invasive (in contrast to what the title insinuates).
-- Deep transcranial photoactivation is brain write-only. Neuralink is brain read/write. Neurons can be made to emit light (or fluorescence) "upon trigger" as well (I think?), but in that case the read/write tech becomes invasive, because you need to get close enough to the neurons to "sense the light" and light location. Brain-read spatial resolution would probably be lower than what Neuralink can do, especially depth-resolution (Neuralink currently actually measures up to 8 depths per probe spread out over a depth of about 2 mm if I'm not mistaking).
-- Deep transcranial photoactivation targets all neurons of a specific type (regardless of location). Neuralink works on any type of neuron in a specific desired location.
My conclusion:
-- Deep transcranial photoactivation is going to be useful in academic neurobiology research on animals. The depth is enough to reach any brain region in small model animals such as mice or smaller. It'll make some research faster, cheaper and more advanced to do.
-- Deep transcranial photoactivation will probably help advance synthetic virus tech (designing and putting custom payloads into biological viruses with the goal to edit cell machinery and/or genetics).
-- Use of Deep transcranial photoactivation in humans is probably 10+ years out at least? Use in humans would involve human clinical trials, because we're talking about injecting virus into a human to go into neurons and modify them. It might require separate clinical trials for each type of neuron you'd want to stimulate. I'm estimating Neuralink is way closer to real life (medical) use on humans. I'm estimating some 5 years out tops.
-- I personally can't see where deep transcranial photoactivation has any real-life practical advantages over Neuralink tech for use in humans. Especially in the shorter term. In the longer term it may be useful to treat some human conditions that involve the cortical surface only. Anything deeper or anything that requires read-back Neuralink wins.
Disclaimer: I'm just an electronics / embedded guy with curiosity in neurobiology and BMI's. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm here to learn. I wish I could work in this field :P
PS: is anybody working on research that experiments with interfacing biological neurons to chips that allow the brain and chip to grow into each other? It would be cool if you could somehow have axons grow to and from such a chip.
> Any problem gradient with a chance of unlocking immortality should be leaned into.
Why? Death is an important, and probably the least appreciated, aspect of evolution. Humanity can't change if the powers-that-be literally never go away. And that's ignoring finite resources on the planet.
You can die if you want, but I'd prefer immortality.
> Would you rather live forever or have children?
This is a false dichotomy that is the product of thinking in human terms.
You don't know if immortal beings take up space. Or if they self-replicate. Maybe multiple conscious entities can even combine and then disentangle, for a sort of cerebral experience.
Who knows if we'll be confined to this planet if we don't have bodies? Will we have bodies?
If we don't, we won't even need earth like habitats. The entire solar system works. We might even solve the Jupiter radiation thing.
All of these things are way cooler than kids. Granted it's all a pipe dream, but I'd jump at the opportunity.
This world will not be a better place if the rich and powerful gain the ability to live forever. Every tinpot dictator, robber baron, internet tycoon, and rich bastard will hog this technology perpetually.
It is my hope that anyone who gains "immortality" is quickly assassinated. Death is not something one should be able to run from for very long.
Spitting the plot of altered carbon doesn't make what you're saying true. Here on HN some tech luminaries get this bad rap that they are purposefully trying to bring the destruction of society and morals - I don't buy it. But imagine what elon could do if he lived forever.
You mean a really long time since something will inevitably destroy or erase the computer system you and your backups run on. And The heat death of the universe awaits anything that somehow survives that long into the future. There is no such thing as indestructibility, and there are no perpetual motion machines.
That's not fair, I haven't watched (or even thought about) Altered Carbon in years!
You really think that humanity is going to selflessly and democratically release this technology for all or even most? You really think that the tycoons of today and tomorrow are going to let an opportunity to "live forever" pass them by? When they can continue to hustle and rule their empires towards perpetuity?
There is going to be an class imbalance, and it will be big, because the formerly cliched topics of life and death are the very focus here: the poor will die, and the rich will live on. It will start fires that will grow out of control in ways we have never seen before. Think of the environmental implications -- you think environmental destruction is bad now, wait until the planet ossifies under a parasitic species seemingly incapable of self-destruction, short of the kind of end-of-the-world scenarios that science fiction portrays.
Don't know why you got downvoted but I don't really buy the 'limited resources' argument either.
When I look around, I see an infinite universe. Vertical farming, solar, fission, fusion, astroid belt mining... The list goes on. If there's a glass ceiling it's not in sight or maybe it's after we strip the solar system. If I ask myself what the meaning of life is, it seems to me that we are it. Yees - We should use our resources efficiently but we shouldn't be afraid to see where this thing goes.
Also, people said that about the internet, electricity, whatever. 'Only the rich are going to have it, why would they givee it to the poor?' Cause competition creates pressure to lower costs and sell more people on immortality. However, that argument falls apart if some nuclear powered government monopolizes the technology for the reasons you said above.
You are missing the point. And no, you don’t want immortality, not really. You just think that.
The true immortality requires indestructibility, because otherwise you are likely to perish in an accident within a couple of hundred years. But being indestructible is even worse (imagine yourself stuck somewhere for a thousand years).
I'm not sure what consciousness is. I think of it as a transient emergent configuration of neural systems, like waves in an ocean, but I could be wrong.
Are you sure the you that wakes up in the morning is the same you that went to bed? Are you even the same person, moment to moment?
Weights change. Membrane polarizations are in flux. Microtubules, just one component in a deep sea of biochemical complexity, are dynamical.
> The true immortality
These are just words.
Evolution found genes as a solution. That's what your kids are. Humans have done even more with recorded words. I'd like to think that one day we can do the same with thoughts and minds themselves.
I like to imagine a future where you could download part of my mind and experience it yourself.
All of this is cute, but it's the kind of pseudo-philosophizing technobabble a high school student might engage in. You're making metaphysical claims, and very bad and incoherent metaphysical claims at that, so if you're serious, I highly recommend really digging into that material. Bland science fiction is no substitute for real, philosophically rigorous work.
I made no claim of scientific rigour, though we can speak in those terms if you like.
My undergrad was in biochem. I have a decent grasp of how complicated biological systems are. I don't even begin to profess to have adequate understanding. I am not a domain expert.
That said, I don't see how imagining an engineering solution where measurements are taken of a brain's "state" and replicated with an algorithm are metaphysical psuedoscience. It's out of the reach of today's tech for sure, but I'd like to think we'll eventually make progress and one day be interested in solving this problem. Evolution stumbled upon human brains as a solution for propagation. We're all a lot smarter as hill climbing agents than our genes.
I do not think we'll solve this in our lifetimes, but it's so much better to think of than optimizing ad tech, election fraud, and structural inequality.
> philosophically rigorous work
You lost me here. I don't think something has to be philosophically grounded to be identified as a problem space and tackled. Epistemology ontology whatevers don't fuel rockets.
> And no, you don’t want immortality, not really. You just think that.
Why not give me immortality but also allow euthanasia? Let me find out and make that decision. (I'm assuming immortality here really means stopping senescence)
I can only imagine an atheist or someone who isn't convinced of reincarnation would have this view? I am still afraid of death, but as a Hindu I know that my consciousness survives the death of the body and that I will continue to exist in other universes, planets, for many lifetimes until I realize the truth of existence.
A lot of people in this world say that they know with certainty what will happen after death.
For all we know we could already be dead, and Skynet has taken the trouble of resurrecting all of our minds. Right now we could be riding some eternal horror simulation, stuck on the roller coaster ride up, just before the plummet into extreme pain and chaos.
That's an equally valid guess.
Nobody really knows. What I can see with my eyes and reason with my brain leads me to believe my consciousness ends with me. But who knows. Maybe we're all just NPCs in some sufficiently advanced game.
All that I know is that in my worldview there is some problem gradient that leads to engineered immortality. I'm not sure how steep that path is, nor where it lies. It might be towering over us higher than Mt. Everest. But it's there, somewhere, a problem waiting for progress.
Here's something fun to think about. Instead of evil Skynet, suppose the entity resurrecting long-dead brains is a benevolent entity. As such, it would avoid resurrecting people against their will. How would it determine which people wanted to be resurrected? One method would be to scan the memories for events such as accepting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. People who did that would be resurrected because it's obvious they want to be resurrected. Atheists who spent their lives preaching oblivion would be left alone, since resurrection would obviously torment them with cognitive dissonance :)
My mind is teeming with sci-fi / fantasy stories where Christianity is real, but it's a program. And we all live in that matrix. Somehow people find out and attempt to break free... Cue Christian angels and demon themes.
A progenitor being, first intelligence reaching 'Godhood,' uses the material universe it has come to mastery over to clothe intelligences (those being outside of time and our usual matter) with material bodies and imbue those passing a filter function with more power like unto itself, while those not passing the filter get life without the power.
The cosmology is very succinct and was presented by Joseph Smith at a funeral, the sermon has been come to be known as the King Follet Discourse[0].
Smith also preached against the idea of 'ex-nihilo'- creation from nothing. Instead he posited that the universe is material and God is not outside of it:
"Now, the word create does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos-chaotic matter, which is element. Element had an existence from the time [God] had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end"[1]
Mormonism is the rare religion where there isn't anything incompatible with religiosity and science. Other than the whole no physical proof/requiring faith thing, of course- but the theology itself fits fine within a scientific cosmology.
Would you be willing to share more about your fear of death? I'm curious about what that's rooted in alongside a belief in reincarnation. Fear of pain? Of getting a bad lot the next time around? Of the possibility of being wrong? Something else?
My own fear of death is fear of nonexistence (I'm atheist), and of the pain of loss (of myself and loved ones). A little bit physical pain too.
Mostly fear of pain during the transition out of the body and also not wanting to leave my current circumstances. I am not afraid of the next lifetime because I'm doing my best this lifetimr to prepare
Well I haven't independently verified that the world is round, but I "know" that it is. This is the same with Hinduism - I haven't verified all of the framework it provides, but I still know it
I guess the difference is that anyone can verify that the world is round (launch a balloon with a camera high enough and you'll see), but I don't see how we can independently verify any religious claims. You could have also used "I believe", but "I know" was the wrong choice of words.
Within Hinduism though these things are verifiable. Rishis and yogis have verified reincarnation. Though I realize to anyone outside of Hinduism that it is circular reasoning, or not valid.
> Within Hinduism though these things are verifiable. Rishis and yogis have verified reincarnation. Though I realize to anyone outside of Hinduism that it is circular reasoning, or not valid.
By itself that isn't circular reasoning, it is an appeal to authority.
It is when you are then asked why you trust what rishis and yogis say that things start to bend in on themselves into a circular argument.
A Western (specifically, Judeo-Christian) example:
"I believe X, because the Bible says so."
"How do you know that what the Bible says is true?"
"Because the Bible is the inerrant word of God."
"And how do you know that?"
"The Bible says so."
"And how do you know that what the Bible says is true?"
... etc.
By itself, the first statement is only an appeal to authority, but when you dig into the source of the authority, it (rather quickly) turns into a circular argument.
> At another point in the discussion, a man spoke of some benefit X of death, I don't recall exactly what. And I said: "You know, given human nature, if people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing. But if you took someone who wasn't being hit on the head with a baseball bat, and you asked them if they wanted it, they would say no. I think that if you took someone who was immortal, and asked them if they wanted to die for benefit X, they would say no."
> You can't kill them but you sure as hell can kidnap and torture them for eternity.
For many would-be Stalins, the main point isn't the torture, but the kidnapping and incommunicado imprisonment (eg. in gulags).
The utility of torture comes in when you want to ensure the prisoner's compliance when reintroduced to society.
So: please note that immortality by itself doesn't preclude either sequestration nor adversarial behavior modification.
Technical solutions to both of those (integrity checks to detect coercion, restoring from distributed backups, etc.), start to run into the same sort of arms-races we have with internet filtering, botnets, and malware. Except that so far as a totalitarian regime is concerned, the uploaded dissident is the malware, as is any sufficiently advanced freedom-preserving tech.
How do you have immortality in a universe with a finite lifespan? (so far as we understand). Any such thing would require a shift on par with the discovery of the existence of God (an equivalent). So really is it that the singularity isn't just a secularization of Christian apocalypticism at all, but a re-framing of the reality of reality?
I know that when I personally say immortality, what I mean is the ability to live for as long as I want. I highly doubt I would want to live as long as it would take to get to the heat death of the universe. I expect somewhere between a 10’000 and a few million years would feel about right, but for all I know it could only be a few hundred, or maybe billions.
But yes, all signs point to the idea that death is inevitable. I would just personally like to be able to increase my time in this universe by a few orders of magnitude.
Immortality seems like a better problem to have than mortality. Easier to solve if it goes awry. And I would rather live forever (well, indefinitely) than have children, acknowledging that some would prefer the latter or insist on both.
But fiddling with the brain, maybe there's a way to implant the sensation and memories of having lived for thousands of years when it was really only 80. Or maybe implant a couple hundred years and trim the actual life down to 2 or 3 years for ethical reasons if living is so unethical.
Even with immortality everyone can have one child. It takes two to make one. And the infinite series 1+1/2+1/4+1/8... converges to 2. So the population would just double.
Perhaps but that makes a rather odd assumption that every pair of adults would be allowed to select one mate with which to have one child.
Supposing everyone obeyed that, some number of generations in the future, which would be a blink of an eye compared to eternal immortality, you would end up with a strange selection problem of there being very few people in the most recent generations, and most of them having a large overlap in ancestors.
There’s a valid point that is being overlooked by all the replies here: social change happens almost entirely between, not within, generations. While any individual would prefer to live forever, human progress would likely be greatly reduced if we were not mortal, and did not have the personal imperative to “make something” of our short time on this earth, nor the infusion of fresh perspectives and ideas that come from new generations.
We don’t have any 500 year olds to look to. If we did, we might find that humans who have lived healthfully and richly for centuries, raised many children, participated in my adventures and pursued many ambitions, might look nothing like the cached expectation of a 100 year old elderly decrepit person, or a 70 year old cantankerous political reactionary. Then again, they might; we just don’t know. I would rather find out, rather than continuing to bury potential wise old elves in the ground because we find the elderly tiresome and unsightly and subconsciously want them permanently out of sight.
There's nothing to appreciate in an unmaintained system with exponentially increasing number of issues that lead to the whole collapse of the processes running the system.
I'm much more appreciative of the fault tolarence that it achieves, but prefer maintaining it in a great state.
> Humanity can't change if the powers-that-be literally never go away.
But they never go away. Sure, individual people in charge may go away, but the systems are far more resilient than that. Even when Kings existed and held the position for life, the institutions they represented pre-dated them, and in many cases lasted long after they were gone.
Their assets also live on, for the most part, and heirs get a huge headstart, compared to the overall population.
"Progress is made one obituary at a time" is both true and false. People dying of natural causes do enable other people to fill their position, but it is not the only mechanism.
> And that's ignoring finite resources on the planet.
Reproduction is exactly what exhausts resources. And, for now, we don't have a solution. Population aging requires people to reproduce, but they don't age quickly enough. The number of people who are still alive but no longer productive only grows, as does the overall population number. In the past, mortality rate was high enough that this wasn't really a problem, the overall population age was relatively low.
Now, if people are not only immortal but also operating at a level that enables them to be productive, then we only need to reproduce to replenish losses by attrition. We wouldn't have to make a 'savings' tradeoff, except to account for disabilities (if those aren't also fixed). We wouldn't have to save enormous amounts of cash to use when we can no longer work, which means social security requirements would be lower.
Why would not having to have children be a bad thing? Yes, it's been ingrained by both nature and nurture, but is that what most people actually want, or are they just doing what's "expected" of them.
Once there's no need to pass down the family name to the next generation, or to have "someone to take care of you when you are old", and you are young forever(so no 'biological clock ticking'), I bet most people will realize that it is actually a choice, and won't bother.
- Several species have longer lifetimes than us. Doesn't seem to be a large disadvantage.
- We've proven that we change faster culturally than biologically. If this weren't true most Americans still wouldn't be okay with gay people, black people, or pot. Beliefs seem more related to local tribalism than to age. I've seen plenty of older and younger people radically shift (for good or bad) their positions based on who they consider arbiters of truth.
- We've heard this finite resource in the past. It has been solved many times. Fertilizer was the most recent one if you want to go back to 19th century history. We have hydroponics, aeroponics, etc on the way. We can also go into space.
- Every first world country has a population growth below 1 (and are decreasing). The average EU is 0.15% and the US is at 0.5%[0]. There's no sign of it turning around and I imagine immortality would just accelerate this. (People will still kill themselves btw. Accidents will still happen. Bad health. Etc)
- IDK about you, but I'm fine waiting till I'm 100 to have kids if I can live forever. Maybe even 200. I'm unsure, all I know is that if we make such a change that we'll completely reconsider things like adulthood and what we do with our life (how long does it take to live off of passive income?). It will be a radical change no matter what, but also one that seems inevitable. If your argument is that it is going to be bumpy, well if history has taught us anything it is that we don't confront problems until they are problems, so I don't think it'll become any less bumpy. But hey, maybe things like Climate Change won't be existential threats because then "50 years" isn't a long time. Unfortunately we won't know how this changes us until it happens, be that for the better or worse.
I don't exactly identify with the parent post, however, I do not think humanity as a whole would wield immortality well. It is not impossible that I watched Altered Carbon a little bit too much and internalized its message a little too well.
Still, while I am sure every single one of us loves the idea of not dying, I am relatively certain that mass immortality does not scale well.
There's a story about a dragon that was posted on here on HN that deals with the issue of solving death and answers your question quite elegantly. Anyone else read that who can find the link?
For the mouse or rat brain, most everything :). For primates/humans, the skull is a lot thicker, but perhaps cortex is still reachable / longer wavelengths of light might be able to penetrate deeper (multiphoton techniques)
Since infrared neuromodulation has been shown to be able to directly modulate neurons without genetic modifications, what is the advantage of optogenetics?
The question sounds adversarial, but it's really just due to my lack of knowledge in this area haha
I’m not too familiar with infrared neuromodulation, but it isn’t a widely used technique in systems neuroscience. My guess is it would be hard to target individual neurons, let alone target a genetically defined population of cells. Heating is usually what causes damage from light stimulation, so we try to minimize heating as much as possible—the brain very tightly controls temperature
Karl has said publicly a few times that he sees optogenetics as a tool for basic scientific discovery, that then inform treatment of human patients, ie where to use transcranial magnetic stimulation. Any method that requires genetic manipulation in humans will be tricky. PNS seems likely to be the first application in humans, although there are also clinical trials going in the retina, not sure how they’ve progressed though.
That's unfortunate, because the resolution and fine control you get with optogenetics are really good in the periphery, offering high therapeutic potential for amputees and paraplegics. The main roadblock is the understudied immunogenicity problem, IMO.
Do you think this could solve Tinnitus and other ear related diseases? How long do you think it will take to heal several brain-/nerve-related diseases?
Unfortunately, tinnitus is usually caused by hearing loss which comes from the death of neurons in the ear, and we are a long way off from finding a solution. But to the extent that the percept of ringing comes from recurrently firing ensembles in the brain, than neuromodulation techniques may bring relief from the perceptual aspects.
Our lab has done work with using optogenetics for inhibiting neural activity, and I wonder if the inhibition approach might be better than disruption. It’s a bit hard to figure how TMS does inhibition vs excitation, even with electrical stimulation it’s complicated and varies by celltype!
Just a few years ago I remember being very impressed by 500 microns.
I am curious to see how well this is tolerated in the long term. It is possible to damage tissues with very intense light, especially over time, but there are ways around this like 2-photon.
I am just a interested observer - I remember the issue w/ the old viral vectors were concern re longevity of the cells, i.e. the optogenetically active ones you could do experiments on for several weeks, but then they'd poop out and die off for some reason, but this was just word of mouth chitchat with a postdoc who was working on this. Not sure if this was because of the light intensity or that mutating the cell with channelrhodopsin just made it weaker in general....
granted, not sure how intense of a light you'd need; I'd think the channelrhodopsins activate w/ just a few photons at the right wavelength...
Coming from the clinical/Parkinsons' disease world, if someone made a stable viral vector specific for the basal ganglia though, that would certainly help w/ one of the biggest problems of clinical DBS - after 30 years of doing this, the biggest biggest biggest problem in whether the implant will work or not is still the +/- 2mm accuracy of the stereotactic frame implanting the electrode...(no matter what surgeons/stereotactic engineers claim...)
that is properly impressive. cheers to the team for sure!
I have done a little bit of corticofugal recording where we'd stimulate thalamus and record from cortex, and i was impressed enough at that. This opens up whole new frontiers in the game, though.
I'm almost completely unfamiliar with brain science. Could you explain the basic idea of what they're signalling 7mm deep? The brain is a good deal larger than 7mm, so are they just targeting certain areas towards the surface of the brain?
more or less, all the "compute" stuff is towards the surface of the brain.
The last time I did any of this work, in about 2017, 500 um was considered "deep brain" for optical stimulation. This is an order of magnitude deeper in one shot.
I don't know about you but I consider sticking a needle deep through the brain to be a surgery. I guess the authors are using a more technical definition. No doubt this will help speed up research in labs.
For actual no surgery stimulation of deep brain tissues there's arrays of low powered ultrasound and interferometric transcranial alternating current. And if 4.5 mm deep is the goal-line even the current practice transcranial magnetic stimulation with a butterfly coil can do the job (more awkwardly).
"To avoid this, the Stanford team used a type of PHP virus developed at CalTech that can be injected in the blood. The virus then crosses the blood-brain barrier to deliver its payload, an opsin gene, to brain cells. In this case, even the delivery of the gene is noninvasive—no needle penetrates the brain."
Oh. So I missed the entire point of the paper. Yikes. Thanks for the correction. But how is the transfection localized to the VTA if it's administered peripherally and not within the target tissue?
Alarm bells should be ringing about this. If they can breach the blood brain barrier with viruses, imagine what they can do with contaminated food, gas, and drink.
I've spent more time actually reading the papers and extended data. This statement written above is factually untrue. This procedure does involve needles in the brain. It is invasive. It is surgery. The press writers you quote misunderstood.
Since genetic engineering is necessary to first put light sensitive ion channels in the brain, I don't see how this is "way better" if you're targeting applications in humans like neuralink.
OpenWater doesn't have enough resolution. I find their PR kinda sketchy because it makes a lot of emphasis on laser and optical things, which they use, but rarely mentions that the fact that they rely on an ultrasound beacon makes their best-case temporal and spatial resolution not as exciting.
The tech is really cool, as in a portable MRI-like device is really cool even if it's resolution is way worse than a big MRI machine. But it's nowhere near "brain scanning for brain upload" territory because of fundamental physical laws that they actually choose to work withing the constraints of.
I would really like to see something like OpenWater but used to help with de-scattering LiDAR on rainy/foggy days. I'm not sure if it's possible but from my limited understanding I think it's worth the try.
From the talks/podcasts I've heard, the goal is for the resolution to be good enough to measure and target individual neurons.
Not sure where you get the ultrasound beacon part, but the images they have on their are using only red/near-infrared light.
That being said, all of these is based on their own advertising. Curious to know, what are the fundamental physical constraints you are referring?
So if I don't misunderstand they heal the scattered wavefront by knowing that they are applying ultrasound to relax/contract a specific blood vessel. So while the image is created with information coming from reflected photons in the red/NIR spectrum they also know how to locate that physically by using a beacon.
This is all from old tech-talks and material that I saw. They were even very vocal about how they were able to do this because they were using this new piezoelectric microphone/speaker chips in the ultrasound frequencies.
Well, this is terrifying. The next advertising gimmick involves a virus with a payload that stimulates dopamine when a licensee's TV/Facebook spot is seen.
You could hit the entire population with this kind of thing.
Brain mapping [1] + opsin gene delivery to brain using virus that crosses blood brain barrier [2] + advanced network tracking using phone ect to determine location of head [3] + ??sensitive networks to constantly scan a users head?? + ???networked lasers, em waves to alter thought or behavior in public??? = Telepathy and brain bullying
Imagine using media such as popular netflix shows, meme's, and other attention grabbing media to map someones brain passively and retain that data. Dope individuals with food, water, air that have virus. bam mind reading/bullying
Again the science (brain science, sensors, and em netowrks) probably need to be done to do this
We 10000000% need more monitoring of vectors like this. Viruses et all need to be constantly monitored for public safety. Sure we probably do it in wastewater but thats terribly imprecise and a stupid high LOD. Wonder if there are automated jigs that do this in waste water.
You don't even necessarily need the temporal interference--we got it to work reasonably well in awake, behaving monkeys (where we could measure single-neuron activity directly).
1. To what extent does your work imply the ability of local field potentials to entrain neural activity? Are the electrical fields strong enough?
2. The fact that humans and the occasional cockatoo/seal are the only animals capable of entraining to a beat is quite remarkable, given that brains are basically collections of powered oscillators (which naturally synchronize and entrain). This makes me think that there must be some elaborate set of defenses against entrainment - - defenses that only humans (and the occasional cockatoo/seal) are able to lower.
"Deep" in the mouse is a few millimeters, while deep brain structures in primates are 10-15x deeper. In primates, the fields would be harder to precisely interfere because of our thicker skulls and larger, more convoluted brains.
The level of c-fos activation in the Cell paper is also a little crazy--it seems way too intense to be correct, especially when compared against direct electrophysiological measurements.
It's also not 100% clear that the high frequency fields do nothing--there are some claims that they have DC-like effects due to hysteresis in the neurons' membrane potentials.
>Then, they shined a red light outside the skull and were able to activate neural circuits in the midbrain and brainstem at depths of up to 7 millimeters
This appears to be extremely dangerous. One strong NIR lamp in a public space would drive people with this insane. Everyone would have to wear special hats. What if it was possible to implant memories this way? A new type of crime: catch someone, take their hats off, reprogram their brains and make them forget the hijacking occurred.
A surgical implant seems way safer in practice.
I don't know much about far infrared, but the 6-7mm penetration in this paper seems deeper than the ~4mm penetration I recall reading about for UCNP-NIR.
To add: Water has an absorption band that is clear to most visible light and the near IR, but it starts to absorb as you go deeper into IR. Many tissues and their light absorption curves can be seen here:
People have actually used infrared to stimulate neurons directly. The mechanism is a little weird, and may be a combination of direct heating (e.g., causing chemical reactions to run faster) and activation of temperature-dependent ion channels.
Radio is probably much too fast--the time constant of a neuron is on the order of 10ms, so unless you're pumping a lot of instantaneous power into the neuron, the net effect is likely to be zero.
If they could find opsins that react to submilimiter radiowaves and if we could design emiter/reciever array that you could put on your skull, we could have really amazing man/machine brain interface.
Edit: for anyone that wants to read the paper, here’s a non-paywall link: https://web.stanford.edu/group/dlab/media/papers/chenNBT2020...