Philosophical Aspects of Human Brain Emulation and Simulation
By: Kevin Ann
Tags: Future, Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy, Science, Tds Narrated

Science Fiction explores many consequences of Artificial Intelligence, mind uploading, and consciousness transfer, but tends to relegate the scientific or technological mechanisms to some vague explanation or neglects it altogether. Futurists and Transhumanists eagerly await these ideas to become science fact so that that they may experience new vistas of consciousness or immortality, but they may ignore the difficulty of the groundbreaking science and technology required.

I take the view that neural prostheses leading to partial and full replacement of the human brain and eventual mind uploading is possible since it’s not anywhere explicitly forbidden by physical law, and is therefore mainly a matter of more advanced Science and Technology.

Even if these transhumanist and futurist visions that may change the very nature of humanity are possible in theory, there is no corresponding principle that says they’re reachable by humanity, nor in the near future and especially before we all die. We do not nor should not just wait for the future, but rather we must act to create it.

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” — Woody Allen

One important consideration is the interplay between emulation and simulation in mapping out the human brain via technology. Emulation concerns more technology, whereas simulation concerns more science.

I will explore the differences and utility in emulation and simulation of a human brain in mind uploads

Difference Between Emulation and Simulation

In order to best illustrate the difference between emulation and simulation of the human brain, let us consider the analogy of flight achieved by birds.

Emulation of Bird Flight

As an example of emulation to achieve flight, let’s say we simply copy exactly how a bird flies using its wings.

This would involve exactly copying all aspects of the physiology and anatomy of the bird that we see responsible for flying without any understanding.

We could go even further to copy such features as the color of the feathers, the exact size of the eyes, the function of the internal digestive system, and mating patterns, but this would be beyond the scope if we only care about achieving flight.

The difficulty here is to determine which parts of the bird help it to achieve flight and it seems intuitive that these other features beyond wings are irrelevant. In other contexts, however, it may not necessarily be so apparent which features to duplicate. For example, it is not so obvious by simple observation of how a kangaroo can keep cool and not overheat in the hot Australian sun since it has no sweat glands. (Kangaroos have a special network of blood vessels on their forearms, so they lick those forearms and evaporation of the saliva carries away heat.)

This simple emulation of bird flight may seem primitive, but consider that we’re copying something that nature has taken millions of years to evolve and is the culmination of advances from single-celled organisms to the distant ancestors of birds to flightless close ancestors of the bird, before finally reaching the current bird.

There’s much progress that can be made simply by observing and copying the shape of the bird’s wings without understanding anything else. The very existence of the bird itself is a proof of concept of flight.