Last night I finished reading Greg Bear’s “Eon”, in which the memories of the ‘dead’ are stored in a large database, affording the citizenry with a sort of non-corporal eternal life. That got me thinking about my own pending immortality (as I fully intend to live forever). It occurred to me that if any fatal mishap befell me in the next fifty years or so, it will probably not yet be technologically possible to ‘copy’ my brain into a computer. I would therefore be really dead, which would put a serious crimp in my immortallity plans. A possible loophole then occurred to me: if the entirety of our memories, personality, etc. are contained in the physical interconnections of our neurons (granted, an arguable proposition in itself), then it should be possible to make a ‘backup’ of one’s self merely by obtaining a sufficiently detailed brain scan.
Finally we get to the OP: can one obtain a CAT scan, MRI, or other scan with sufficient resolution to show every individual neuron and its connections? Is this resolution yet technologically feasable? If not, is it foreseeable in the near future?
This question is of vital importance to my plans of immortality, so your considerations are appreciated. Thanks.
CT scans and MRIs do not show neurons, or even neuron activities. An MRI is able to image soft tissue, something ordinary x-rays cannot, by the orientation of protons. PET scans do show neuronal activity, but by the imaging of their using of glucose. Even they do not show individual neurons. Someone with an MD after his or her name can give you a more detailed answer.
Back in the mid-1980’s Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine ran a series of (very) speculative non-fiction “Viewpoints” by Dr. Tom Rainbow, a 30-year-old neurobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania. They had titles like “Superpowers!” and “Sentience and the Single Extraterrestrial”, and had lots of sophomoric jokes about Mad Scientists, nerdish science fiction fans, using pesky undergraduates as experimental research subjects, and turning people into Twinkies. I always liked them quite a lot. (And I can’t help but think he would have fit in very well around these parts…)
At any rate, from the June 1983 IASFM article “The Feasibility of Mind-Transfer”:
Bryan, you are going to die, regardless of the answer. You can spend the remaining years contemplating your death, but you better be doing something else. Your idea is too foggy: if the answer is Yes, what are you going to do? A lot of brain activity is in biochemical reactions and electical impulses. Stick to computers.
Barbi, before spelling out “MRI”, look it up in the dictionary.
Bryann, before “copying” your brain in a computer, you have to conctruct a computer which would accept a copy, right?
It should not be a problem, given your unlimited lifespan.
OK, I meant magnetic resonance imaging, but there is no reason it can’t be magnetic resolution imaging. They both describe what it does. And it is the same thing as NMR.
Barbi, we all are human and are prone to making mistakes. But we aknowledge them. You might be an M.D., but you are not one of the stubborn idiots, who insist on them, right? (you see, mods, no personal offence).
“Magnetic resonance” is the physical term used to describe the phenomenon on which the clinical application is based. “Resolution” is not used for this phenomenon; my search under “magnetic resolution” brought exactly 0 results. None of the standard English meanings of “resolution” did not describe the phenomenon either.
To get the resolution they get already, your body is placed in a 3-dimensional gradient magnetic field which at its strongest point is, if I’m not mistaken, abut the same strength as the field produced by the entire Earth (a few teslas). Then you’re bombarded with radio waves from different angles.
I don’t think you’d have to step up the RF intensity, but you’d have to significantly increase 1) the number of sensors and 2) the intensity of the magnetic field in order to get the sort of resolution you’re looking for. I mean seriously increase that magnet, to the point where metal fillings in your teeth, even though they aren’t magnetic, start to sympathize with the field and blow holes through your jaw.
I don’t think we’ll ever try that sort of resolution
