Would it be possible to download skills into your brain like in the movie Matrix?

in #thoughts6 years ago


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Most of us have seen the matrix movies in which you simply download a program into your brain and can then kung fu, kick thai boxing or karate like the masters or you know how to fly helicopters without any training. Would that work? Maybe in the distant future but in the moment and in the near future it will be impossible.

Our brain is not a computer in the sense that we know it from our computers at home. Our brain, as far as we know, does not process digital informations. Our brain is a learning machine. We as humans must first learn to master a skill. This includes gaining experience, which our brain processes.

While your computer is as stupid today as it was yesterday. Your computer, on the other hand, doesn't learn, not even through its mistakes. You control your computer. But different is again with an AI. Depending on the development of an AI, it is capable of learning, but in turn it lacks the process of collecting experiences, as a human does. To compare our consciousness or mind with an AI is therefore not really correct.

Our brain has no windows, it has no software, it has no programming, but a mind that has to be filled through experiences that make people learn with the help of the senses. And over the years, it's the human being that develops. With a computer, you can immediately program in something that it must be able to do immediately. Of course it would be an advantage if we were designed like that, but would we still be human beings then?

There are the first steps of brain-computer-interfaces already today, but here it is the case that humans use the machine as an aid and not to download new abilities into their brains. And to control the aid technology, humans must first learn how to control it for the first time with a long process of training.

Would it be possible to establish a communication between brain and computer, where one could download information and programs of the computer onto one's brain? Most likely yes. But the interface between digital information and memory is a bit complicated, because both can be seen as two different operating systems or languages. We don't know exactly which language our brain speaks yet. We first have to find a common language between computers and our brain and that will take many decades.

So don't expect that you will soon become a kung-fu or karate master by simply pressing a button or that you will be able to download all informations from the internet into your brain that you want.

But such a technology would also be a bit dangerous. What would happen if you were able to reset your brain? And let's think further: What if a dangerous AI was developed, reprograms itself and hides itself in the wide spaces of the internet and then disguises itself as something that people want to download onto their brains, and people download the AI into their brains?

Or a simpler example: a virus?

Or a trojan with which a hacker can control YOU


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Interesting subject and mind-game. I do think that if we can stick around for long enough (with how much damage we've done to our ecosystem) that we could be able to create some sort of bio technology that does work with our brainwaves.

Perhaps a more fun and human-based method would be attempting knowledge transmission from one human to another through some sort of psychic or meditative trance.

I was listening to a podcast on the government funding of remote viewing earlier, perhaps some similar techniques could be used to watch and learn skills or techniques. Granted, not quite as quick as hooking up to the matrix machine!

I had read the remote vieving stories as well. But this should need a long and intensive training to be able to do it.

There are experiments with implanted chips in the brains of rats, where they can communicate telepathically over long distances.
Rats communicate throughbrain chips
If that is possible with rats, then certainly also with humans.

I've heard as well of plant experiments. Clones or plants raised in the same pot that are then separated can still send signals and know when the other is in distress even when they aren't in the same room.

We definitely underestimate our power!

I think it's more than possible, i think it's virtually inevitable. If you're familiar with the works of Ray Kurzweil he talk, in great detail, about some of the things you mentioned in your post. Through the use of Nanobots his belief is that eventualy technological intelligence will surpass that of man (the singularity he calls it) as this point the likelihood is that we will be able to do all sorts of things with nano tech at the core. potentially even restoring people to life with tiny strands of DNA, accentuating brains with nanobots. Curing diseases and even ageing and who knows what else. His work is really worth reading and his predictions have had a scary habit of coming true in the past. Great article by the way.

I'm incredibly interested, I'm gonna look him up. thanks for mentioning this man

ty @mealhound, and also for your recommendation regarding Ray Kurzweil. That sounds very interesting, let's see what I can find out about him and his ideas.

I would beg to differ, artificial intelligence will not surpass that of man because you cannot compare those two, you can only distinguish them. AI is different from human intelligence but not "better".

None of our current modern technologies in medicine are able to guarantee health or even immortality. We may have banned all kinds of diseases from the past but with changing conditions, environments and mental states they were just substituted with new kinds of illnesses and vulnerabilities. In the amount we find cures bacteria or viruses or mutations find ways to undergo that treatments. Both, physically and psychologically humankind is going to stay with dysfunctions. People will still get sick and die.

Sickness and age are not enemies but natural phenomena all living beings undergo.

Here is an interesting article I recommend to read:
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/

It might be possible to do so in the future. But whether any of us would be alive then is another story. And it would be very convenient if we could make it possible. I mean, if I'm a student, I no longer need to cram during exams. All I need to do is just download everything I need. Of course, it also mean that education will become unnecessary. Basically, such ability will have it pros and cons.

I'm thinking like you @yuki-nee, it'll probably only be possible after our lifetime. And surely it will change the world and all systems as we know them.

Didn't really think about the social implications. Good point.

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Hmm, some said it's possible to enhance our brain learning speed and memory up to nearly 90%, if you listen to those binaural beats (Super intelligence, super memory, super learning speed etc)

I didn't try it for this part, but I did manage to perform "Astral projection" after listened to binaural beats for more than thousand hours @oendertuerk :)

@wilhb81, 1000 hours is a lot of time... you have to find this time first, that is not every one possible :))

I think it's an inevitability. The rate of growth of technology is blazing fast.

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Even so fast that we humans sometimes can't follow.

I think Yes!!!

As per our Hindu mythology in ancient India some people have great powers which was related with mind and supernatural powers and some of those proofs also there. A person can show a full war to a blind man through his powers, chanting can give you powers and much more...

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People with extraordinary abilities are often heard. Last summer on vacation I met a young man who was a clairvoyant and he told me 1:1 things from my past that he could never know and things from my near future that arrived. that was very impressive.

Yeah thats impressive as well as interesting

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Interesting article @oendertuerk, I would like mention the anomaly of savants which displays that human beings have abilities which our untapped so there is a lot to learn about what are brain is really capable of but what is most interesting is accidental savants, these are people who are ordinary just like us but the they were they were turned savants by accident. Some of them could remember the calendar by heart like, on which day of the week a particular date was, one guy was beaten up on the head by muggers and afterwards he could see trails of events as if reality was playing frame by frame, but slowly; which allowed him to see mathematical patterns and all sorts of cool things. The point I am trying to make is that it is somehow possible to develop a skill without the traditional way of experience, processing,repetition etc. We just need to learn more about the brain maybe we have all the abilities we can think of we just need to know how to awaken them. I watched a documentary on this and found this article also : https://junkee.com/accidental-savants-inside-the-minds-of-the-worlds-most-unlikely-geniuses/55486

I had read about savants and I find it very interesting what some people have after an accident or blow to the head, all at once for skills. There was once a woman who fell at home and got a blow to the head, after that she could speak fluent french although she never had a connection to the language.

The brain is a mystery and maybe you're right, maybe we already have all the skills in our brain that are just waiting to be unlocked. :)

I think the probability that we have a few dormant abilities is high since we do use a small percentage of our entire brain.

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