From Brain Preservation to Reconstruction Summary of the April 2018 Carboncopies workshop on whole brain emulation By Keith Wiley
O
n April 29th, 2018, Carboncopies hosted its second workshop of the year. This hybrid-format workshop, viewable both online via a live interactive video stream and in person onsite in the San Francisco area, had the theme of considering how a cryopreserved brain might be emulated via whole brain emulation (WBE). This topic was chosen in response to the recent announcement by the Brain Preservation Foundation (BPF) that they had awarded their Large Mammal Prize in March for the successful preservation of a pig’s brain (http://www.brainpreservation.org/large-mammalannouncement/). The winning preservation protocol, AldehydeStabilized Cryopreservation (ASC), lends itself directly to WBE and so the BPF announcement was chosen as the inspiration for Carboncopies’ second workshop of the year. The workshop addressed topics such as what sort of model parameters should be required of a whole brain emulation (WBE) so that the result may be judged a preservation of a person’s mind and identity, what features of a preserved brain should be required so as to provide the necessary information for an eventual scanned and emulated model, and what real-world contemporary examples can we draw from for inspiration or as an illustration of the potential progression of such technologies as our technological capability evolves.
the concept of a neural fingerprint, some objective measurement of brain structure or function that distinctly identifies an individual, such that if a WBE exhibited the same fingerprint we could judge it to represent the same person who preceded the preservation. What sort of validation test or data would inform us on such matters? Koene proposed that in addition to neural modeling and neural circuit validation, we might also desire (or require) psychological behavioral validation by comparing the WBE’s behavior to similar behavioral tests preceding the preservation process.
The opening talk, From Brain Preservation To Reconstruction, was by Dr. Randal Koene (founder and CEO of Carboncopies). This talk introduced WBE and investigated the technical aspects of how WBE would be performed on a preserved brain, with attention paid to the open questions, such as determining which information from the brain needs to be captured and utilized in an emulation. What information can be gathered from the brain to understand and recreate memory engrams? At a lower level, Koene asked what neural parameters are the determinant factors of how neurons accumulate and perform memory functions for the retention of information in the brain from past experiences, and with the effect of altering current behavior and subsequent state changes in the brain. What are the circuit architectures and neural or synaptic properties of memory and cognition? What library or reference guide might we build of neuron and synapse types and their varying properties? Koene emphasized the need to better understand large-scale organization, such as brain regions and algorithmic models of regional behavior.
Koene finished his introductory presentation with a reminder that WBE can serve multiple purposes. While longevity is an oft-touted goal, another huge source of motivational objectives is the almost limitless possibilities to improve and expand human cognition as the future unfolds.
Another question Koene broached was that of determining the success criteria of WBE. How do we know that a WBE has successfully reproduced an individual’s mind? Koene proposed
www.alcor.org
Koene also emphasized the importance of acknowledging model imprecision. No model is perfect and while this realization may shut the doors to philosophical acceptance of WBE as identity preservation for some readers, it certainly will not be considered prohibitive by others. For those readers willing to accommodate realistic variations between a model and its source data, what are the tolerable model variances in terms of error or generalized noise and randomness? How precise must one neural fingerprint measurement be to another for them to fall under the same identifying label? What parameters can we utilize in our model variance tolerance function?
Following Koene’s talk, Dr. Keith Wiley, a board member with Carboncopies, presented Why a Whole Brain Emulation from your Preserved Brain is Probably You. This presentation was purely philosophical. It did not touch on recent or ongoing neurological experiments. The focus of this talk was what Wiley calls the copy problem, the question of whether the best interpretation of WBE of a preserved brain isn’t identity preservation, but rather that some sort of metaphysical identity copy emerges in the WBE and that the original identity is left behind in the brain. Wiley’s talk was primarily a series of counterarguments to the copy judgment. Wiley tackled multiple concerns that are commonly used to support the copy claim. Such concerns include continuity streams of consciousness or of neurological activity, the question of how identity purportedly spatially relocates from the brain to the WBE computer, and what implications should be taken from the possibility of a nondestructive process in which the person
Cryonics / 1st Quarter 2019
37
