We Can’t Upload You, Sorry
Why we can’t put your mind in the machine
Immortality awaits. As you draw your dying breath, we will inject a preservative into your brain that will fix in place every one of the trillion or so connections between your 86 billion neurons. We will then trace those wires, building the complete map of your brain’s connections, your “connectome”. Upload that complete wiring diagram to a computer, simulate the brain’s dynamics upon it — and you live again.
Such is the promise of mind uploading. It is predicated on a common idea: that the wiring between neurons is what stores your memories, is what makes you, well, you. Companies and nonprofits are working on making mind uploading a reality by exploring how we can best preserve the complete wiring diagram, every little synapse made between one neuron and another. Enthused media articles, journal papers, and controversial figures proselytise the coming age of restoring you from your brain wiring. As Sebastian Seung claimed: you are your connectome.
Sadly, it’s not true. Mind uploading from a preserved brain cannot ever be a thing. Not just because we don’t have the technology (which we really do not). But because it is literally impossible to rebuild you from wiring alone.
The reasons are not hard to grasp. They all come down to the same thing: a…
