Episode 51 - Uploading Yourself to the Cloud
This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the transhumanist concept of brain uploading, exploring everything from cutting-edge connectomics and artificial intelligence to ancient philosophical views on personal identity. We debate the metaphysics of “substrate independence,” “computational functionalism,” and religious views of the soul to weigh the prospects of preserving consciousness. They also examine the practical and ethical implications of creating digital simulacra, including duplication problems, machine suffering, and moral responsibility.
Connectome 2.0 Project: A National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative utilizing an advanced MRI scanner to map brain connections down to a single micron level.
Eon Systems Fly Cyborg: A simulated fruit fly connectome connected to a virtual body to simulate behaviors like walking and grooming.
Carboncopies Foundation - research and development toward whole brain emulation.
Blue Brain Project - a Swiss project to model the brain that concluded work in 2024.
Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality by Martine Rothblatt
State of Brain Emulation 2025: A comprehensive report featuring contributions from 45 authors and the Allen Institute that outlines the roadmap for animal and human brain emulations.
“The Soul of Trans-humanism” by Ted Peters, reflecting on the various interpretations of the soul in Christianity, and their compatibility with uploading
San Junipero - Black Mirror episode on uploading
Duncan Bell on transhumanism on David Runciman’s Past, Present and Future podcast
As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.
Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
Music & Production by Jake Burley
