谷歌工程師預言人類大腦意識2045年可上傳計算機
People have always dreamed about going beyond the limitations of their bodies: the pain, illness and, above all, death. Now a new movement is dressing up this ancient drive in new technological clothes.
人類一直在夢想着要超脫肉體的限制：不受痛苦、疾病和死亡的威脅。而現在，在新科技的幫助之下，這一古老的渴求又向前邁進了一步。Referred to as transhumanism, it is the belief that science will provide a futuristic way for humans to evolve beyond their current physical forms and realise these dreams of transcendence.
這一技術被稱爲“超人類主義”，簡單來說，就是科學技術將爲人類提供一種未來派技術，使人們超越當前人類生理形態，並且實現“超然”的夢想。
Perhaps the most dramatic way transhumanists believe that technology will transform the human condition is the idea that someone's mind could be converted into digital data and 'uploaded' into an immensely powerful computer. This would allow you to live in a world of unbounded virtual experiences and effectively achieve immortality (as long as someone remembers to do the backups and doesn't switch you off).
超人類主義認爲有很多方法可以改變人類的形態，而其中可能最戲劇性的方法就是能夠把某人的思想轉換成爲數字化數據，然後上傳到一個非常強大的計算機裏。這使得你生活在一個無限虛擬體驗的世界，並且獲得了數字化永生。（只要有人記得做備份，還不會關掉你的話）。
Yet transhumanists seem to ignore the fact that this kind of mind-uploading has some insurmountable obstacles.
不過，超人類主義者忽略了一個重要事實，意識上傳存在着一些不可超越的障礙。The practical difficulties mean it couldn't happen in the foreseeable future, but there are also some more fundamental problems with the whole concept. The idea of brain uploading is a staple of science fiction.
實際困難意味着它無法發生在可預見的未來，但是這個整體概念存在許多根本性問題，當前大腦意識上傳僅是科幻小說情節。The author and director of engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil, has perhaps done the most to popularise the idea that it might become reality – perhaps as soon as 2045.
谷歌公司工程部主管雷·庫茨韋爾是超人類主義概念的積極推廣者，他認爲人類大腦意識上傳到計算機最早將於2045年實現。Recently, the economist Robin Hanson has explored in detail the consequences of such a scenario for society and the economy.
近期，經濟學家羅賓·漢森探索了超人類主義對未來經濟和社會的影響。He imagines a world in which all work is carried out by disembodied emulations of human minds, running in simulations of virtual reality using city-size cloud computing facilities. It's a short step from the idea that our minds could be uploaded, to the notion that they already have been and that we are already living in a Matrix-style computer simulation.
漢森假想了一個世界，所有的工作都是由無實體的仿真人類意識來完成的，使用一座城市大小的雲計算設備進行虛擬現實操作。從人類的思想可以被上傳這個點子，到人類已經有了的概念、以及我們人類已經生活在一個矩陣式計算機模擬世界中的這一事實，並不遙遠。Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk recently revived this discussion by arguing the chance that we are not living in a computer simulation was only 'one in billions'. Of course, this is just a technological revival of the idea that reality is an illusion, which has been discussed by philosophers and mystics for hundreds of years.
而著名科技企業家埃隆·馬斯克表示，未來人類不存在於計算機虛擬系統的概率僅爲“數十億分之一”。當然，這只是從科技上對“現實是一種虛幻”這一概念的再討論，在數百年的時間裏，哲學家和神祕主義者們已經就這一問題展開了許多次的討論。But there are some serious problems with the idea that we could upload our minds to a computer.
但是對於人類可以上傳思維到計算機中這一想法仍存在着諸多問題。To start with, the practical issue: our brains each have trillions of connections between 86 billion or so neurons. To replicate the mind digitally we would have to map each of these connections, something that is far beyond our current capabilities. With the current speed of development of computers and imaging technologies, we might be able to do this in a few decades but only for a dead and sectioned brain.
首先，實際性的問題：人類大腦中有860億左右的神經元，在這些神經元之間有上萬億個神經連接。爲了複製數字化大腦，我們必須繪製出這些大腦神經元的每個連接，這遠超出當前我們的理解範圍。就目前計算機和成像技術的發展速度來說，我們可能在幾十年後實現這一想法，但是對象只能是一個已經死亡了的大腦的切片。
