Hello everyone! I'm Xiao Wu, welcome back to brain hole utopia
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All week last week, my phone was going to be shown at the Neuralink product show by Elon Musk. The video of Musk walking a pig on the spot swept the screen. On August 29, Neuralink showed off its latest brain-computer interface device, Link V0.9, a robot that performed implant surgery, and the results of experiments on three cute pigs.
Today we will continue this hot topic to talk to you about a topic that has endured since ancient times, eternal life.
● 600 million years ago
The story begins 600 million years ago. The world was dead silent. Life was being conceived on Earth, but life at that time had neither nerves nor movement, let alone thinking and processing all kinds of information. Over time, the first animal with a neural network appeared on Earth, the ctenophore floating in the ocean. In April 2008, Biologist Kathy M. Lee of Brown University in the United States. Casey Dunn, in an article in the journal Nature, argues that ctenophores are the first ancestors of animals.
Their complex neural networks can collect important information about their surroundings, such as where obstacles are, predators, and food, and relay this information to various parts of the body.
Soon after, another, more thoughtful animal appeared, and it was the flatworm. The nervous system of flatworm has a big brother who can control everything, located on the head of the flatworm. All nerves have to report the perceived information to the "big brother". The "big brother" of the flatworm's head is the earliest prototype of the brain.
Soon the "big brother" of the nervous system also became popular among other species. After the Cambrian explosion of life, thousands of species with brains appeared on Earth.
● 50 million years ago
Fast forward to 50 million years ago. That's when primates began to evolve radially, from lower primates, proto-monkeys, to higher primates. About 30 million years ago, a creature called pliopithecus appeared on Earth. Appeared 10 million years ago, the original Proconsul. Later there were Ramapithecus and Australopithecus. According to evolution, the Rama ape is the ancestor of the orangutan, and the australopithecus is the ancestor of our humans.
Apes by this time already possessed complex bodily systems and rich emotions. Later, Homo erectus and Heidelbergers had learned how to make simple tools and discovered ways to make fires.
By this time, Australopithecus had actually diverged into several different species. Homo erectus and Heidelberger are two of them. There are also Neanderthals in Europe and Western Asia, Thoreaus in Indonesia, and Denisovans in Siberia.
But these are small supporting characters in the history of billions of years of evolution. The real big boss is homo sapiens, the ancestor of the humans who currently conquer the world, and with the emergence of Homo sapiens, other kinds of ancient humans have become extinct. So why is that? Let's move on.
● 100,000 years ago
The time came to about 100,000 years ago, our ancestor Homo sapiens, suddenly opened the trick, may be touched by God on the head, or may be some mutation in genes, in short, awakened a plug-in skill, that is, language. Don't underestimate this skill. The birth of language allows us to convey information more precisely, describe and express abstract things. By 50,000 B.C., humans could communicate in complex languages. When one person in the clan comes up with a great idea for hunting, his method is quickly passed on to everyone in the clan.
The existence of language, which enables the wisdom derived from the epiphany of the wisest of men, to be continued from generation to generation, is accumulated into the knowledge base of the race, and this may be the beginning of the formation of the collective subconscious of mankind. Each new generation of people is equivalent to standing on the shoulders of giants, further developing their civilization. Before the birth of language, the rate of knowledge accumulation of ethnic groups was a linear function with a slope almost approaching 0, and the rate of knowledge accumulation in the case of language birth was greatly improved.
The most important thing is that language also allows us to break through the "Dunbar numbers". The so-called Dunbar figure means that whether it is an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe or a modern metropolis, the range of individuals can be within 150 people. This is determined by the mammalian genetic code and also limits the size of teamwork. Dunbar's law also applies to other mammals, such as orangutans or wolves, which is based on mutual trust, which also determines that they cannot cooperate on a very large scale.
But language allows us to collectively collaborate between humans across time and space. Knowledge can be recorded, passed from one tribe to another, from one generation to the next. After hundreds of generations of effort, the first reminder that told people which wild fruit was poisonous evolved into how to grow fruit trees. The method of making spears, after tens of thousands of years of improvement, evolved into bows and arrows. Language gives human beings a collective wisdom pool that is more powerful than individual intelligence, and everyone in the collective can benefit from this wisdom pool.
At the same time as language arises human cognitive abilities. Historian Yuval. Harari's book, A Brief History of Humanity, says that it was this cognitive revolution that allowed Homo sapiens to stand at the top of the food chain at war against all ancient humans of the same period. Countless animals have become the delicacies on our table. Homo sapiens rapidly expanded from East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and then swept across Eurasia. Each arrival at a new location is accompanied by bloody killings, from small and medium-sized animals to the local native ancient race. This slaughter lasted about 10,000 years ago, when there was only one species of Homo sapiens left on Earth.
At this point, it feels like our sudden ability to speak and perceive is like a grace from God. But it is said that food and clothing are lustful. Between about 4,000 and 3,000 B.C., the Bible recorded such a story.
● Tower of Babel Rebellion
It is said that after the Great Flood of about 5,000 BC, the first rainbow appeared in the sky. Noah's family came out of the ark, and God made a pact with mankind with a rainbow not to destroy the earth with a flood. Noah's children and grandchildren grew, and later began to move around. At that time, all the people spoke the same language, even the accent was the same. One day, Noah's son, Han, and his tribe came to the plains of Shena. That is, the location of ancient Babylon, in today's Iraq, Iran, Syria.
One of the tribesmen named Ninglu started inciting everyone to say, what if one day, the flood is coming? We can no longer drown like our ancestors. At this time, other people in the tribe said that there was a rainbow as proof. When we see a rainbow, we are reminded of God's promise that there will never be another great flood. Konin said, "How can we pin our future on a rainbow?" In this way, at the instigation of Ninglu, people began to build a tower of the gods, the Tower of Babel. Entering the top of the tower not only prevents the dispersion of the group, but also avoids all disasters and obtains eternal life.
Because of the concerted efforts of everyone, the Tower of Babel was soon built higher and higher. And the move also alarmed God. But Instead of forcibly demolishing the Tower of Babel, God used a clever trick. It is to confuse people's language, so that they no longer speak the same language, and communication barriers are created. People were scattered, everyone began to move to different locations, and the construction of the Tower of Babel naturally stopped.
In this way, God did not spare a single soldier, went straight to the point, and killed the delusion of eternal life of mankind.
Similarly, the Buzhou Mountain in Chinese mythology, like the Tower of Babel, is a sacred mountain that connects the human world with the celestial realm. Legend has it that the mountains are covered with heavy snow all year round and are extremely cold. As long as mortals can successfully challenge themselves to climb mount buzhou mountain, they will be able to feather into immortals and obtain eternal life. Later, in a big battle between gonggong and Gonggong, Gonggong lost the army. In anger, the red-eyed co-worker, who had already killed him, roared in anger and crashed into the Buzhou Mountain.
The collapse of Mount Buzhou and the suspension of the Tower of Babel are likely not just a coincidence of Chinese and Western mythology, but the same collective subconscious of human beings. This may be the first exploration of eternal life by mankind after the emergence of intelligent civilization.
● 238 BC
The time came to 238 BC, and the 22-year-old Qin Wang Zheng was crowned pro-government. In this year, he quelled the palace coup d'état initiated by the eunuch Yan Poison. The following year, he also took advantage of the poison incident to remove lü Buwei from his position as a xiangguo and take back the power of the government to his own hands. After that, Qin Wangzheng obeyed Li Si's advice, reused Keqing, and used the strategy of combining gold and sharp inducements with forced strikes, speeding up the pace of annexing the six kingdoms. From the attack on Han in 230 BC to the destruction of Qi in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang spent only 10 years to complete his ambition to unify the world and establish the first highly centralized state in Chinese history, and Qin Shi Huang also called himself the First Emperor. The implication is naturally that it is hoped that the Qin Dynasty can rule for thousands of years. Since then, Qin Shi Huang has also begun to look for the elixir of "immortality".
In 219 BC, Qin Shi Huang cruised the Shandong Peninsula. There was a Taoist alchemist named Xu Fu, who was said to be a descendant of Oniguzi, erudite and versatile, with a master of astronomy and geography. Xu Fu informed Qin Shi Huang that there were three immortal mountains in Bohai Bay, Penglai, Abbot and Yingzhou. On the Immortal Mountain lived three immortals, who had the elixir of immortality in their hands. Qin Shi Huang immediately ordered Xu Fu to lead a thousand boys, girls and boys into the sea to find the elixir of immortality. Unexpectedly, Xu Fu never returned, established himself as king in a "plain and vast land" in the east, and never returned to his life. And this eastern "plain and vast land" is rumored to be today's Japan. It is also true that many statues of Xu Fu can be found in Japan.
But even if Xu Fu did not return, Qin Shi Huang did not die the heart of eternal life. In 215 BC, he found an alchemist named Lu Sheng and continued to go to the sea to seek medicine. Since Qin Shi Huang, from the emperors of all dynasties, down to the princes and nobles, and even the literati and hermits have begun to be obsessed with immortality. It's as if we don't know when it began, and eternal life has been a pursuit engraved in our bones.
● 20th century
Time flew by, and the time came to the middle of the 20th century. In 1940, we invented the world's first electronic computer. We have known before how to use slate, bamboo and paper to preserve memories and wisdom. But the advent of computers certainly ushered in another era. In the early '90s, we used the Internet to teach millions of independent computers how to communicate and connect. Every computer is like a neuron in the brain's nervous system. An invisible brain that cannot be seen or touched is quietly conceiving.
In the 21st century, human beings have overcome many diseases, and the average life expectancy has been increased to 79 years. But 79 years old, compared with immortality, is still far from the difference. Yuval. In A Brief History of Mankind, Harari proposes 3 possible ways to attain immortality.
The first is bioengineering. By changing the genes of individual human beings, life expectancy can be extended, which is still the immortal life of the organic flesh, but it is integrated into the power of science and technology. The second is bionic engineering. That is, the combination of the organism and the inorganic. Specifically, it is to assist our senses and abilities through equipment, and to create a kind of "cyborg" through technology. The parts that have been implemented so far include pacemakers, artificial retinas, and biochemical extension arms that we all have, mobile phones, and so on. The third method of immortality is the engineering of inorganic life, that is, the creation of completely inorganic life. Transform individual thoughts, consciousnesses, experiences, experiences, and so on into computer programs, stored permanently, retained permanently.
Due to the "Hayflick limit" limitations of cells, the immortality of organic life is almost impossible. In 1961, American biologist Leonard Hayflick discovered that even under very ideal circumstances, normal human cells could only divide about 50 times. Subsequent studies expanded this range to 40 to 60 times. Once these limits are reached, the cells stop dividing and move toward apoptosis. The average division cycle of human cells is 2.4 years, which calculates that the upper limit of human lifespan is 144 years. This is the "Havrick Limit".
Perhaps because of The Havreck Limit, in the 21st century we are beginning to set our sights on the engineering of inorganic life as a way to explore immortality.
In 2005, scientist Henri Berger of the École Polytechnique de Lausanne in Switzerland Henry Markram proposed the Blue Brain project. It is hoped that the mammalian brain will be reversed from the experimental data to achieve the purpose of treating Alzheimer's disease.
In 2011, Russian media mogul, young billionaire Dmitry Itskov, launched The Russian 2045 Project, also known as the Avatar Project. He spent a fortune and hired dozens of scientists to try to create a real version of the immortal. The Avatar program is divided into 4 phases, the first phase, from 2015 to 2020, is completed by controlling the machine through consciousness. The second stage, from 2020 to 2025, completes the transplantation of human brains into robots, out of the body. The third stage, 2030 to 2035, will complete the reconstruction of the human brain and consciousness. After death, the consciousness, personality, and feelings of the original owner can be downloaded into the robot to continue his life. The fourth stage, by 2045, has successfully created a holographic version of the virtual person. It will have emotions, thoughts, and consciousness, but it can exist completely out of substance. At this point, human beings will achieve eternal life in the true sense of the word, and will never die forever.
In recent years, innovative companies such as those that study brain-computer interfaces have sprung up. Some of the more representative ones include NeuroPace in California, MindMaze in Lausanne, Switzerland, Kernel in Los Angeles, Neros Medical in Ohio, and Elon, who we know best. Musk founded Neuralink.
On August 29, Elon Musk. Musk demonstrated Neuralink's phased research results at the press conference. He moved out three piglets, the first is a piglet that has not been implanted with a chip in the brain, the second is just a piglet that has been implanted with a chip and has been removed, and the third is a piglet that still has a chip in the brain.
The three piglets are all bouncing around alive, indicating that the chip is safe. Neuralink's Link V0.9 chip is minimally invasive, the procedure takes only an hour, and from the outside no one will know that you have installed the chip inside your brain. At present, the Link V0.9 chip has received fda approval and is about to enter the human trial stage. Elon. Musk's outlook for brain-computer docking can be roughly divided into two parts. The first is to solve some problems in the medical field through the implantation of chips, including amnesia, hearing loss, anxiety, depression, pain, paralysis, epilepsy, and other diseases caused by brain damage. It should also help with the treatment of lock-in syndrome that we mentioned in the previous video. But Elon. Musk's bigger ambition is to build a direct connection between our consciousness and the outside world. At that point, ECG induction will exist among all of us individuals. I can share everything I see with my friends in real time. Just send a connection request to their brain, like a wifi, and then send the information from my retina directly to her visual cortex.
Most importantly, when people and people's brains can be directly connected, we can communicate with our minds without any language barriers. With Elon. Musk's own words are that I don't have to use my lips to let the other person know exactly what I want to express. Thousands of years ago, during the Tower of Babel Rebellion, the language barrier that God placed between us would disappear completely.
In fact, in recent centuries, the level of development of human science and technology has risen exponentially. But only the language barrier, we have not yet broken through. About 4 million years ago, Australopithecus appeared on Earth. It took more than 2 million years for the ancestors of mankind to understand how to use stone tools. Suppose we take Homo sapiens from 10,000 years ago to the 21st century today. Take him on a plane, take a submarine, watch a 4D movie, play with an iPhone, and he might be scared out of heart disease in minutes. After the rescue, you can't help but sigh, what a high-tech era this is! But on second thought, he may ask us again, your technology is so developed, how can you still communicate in language like we did 10,000 years ago? If 20 years ago, we might have been dumbfounded about this issue. But the inorganic bioengineering that comes with brain-computer interfaces has the potential to answer this question in the near future.
Standing at the inflection point of the development curve of civilization, science and technology are changing with each passing day, and how is this higher and higher technological ladder not an invisible Tower of Babel? So what kind of punishment will God give when humanity tries to climb to the top of the tower again?
By then, maybe we won't have to spend more than 20 years going to school, taking exams, and getting a diploma. Just connect the computer and our brains, click the "download button", and you can have the same level of knowledge as Einstein in a matter of minutes. We can even connect our brains to the entire subconscious knowledge base of humanity, and after frantic downloads, everyone is a top scientist and prophet. But at the same time, we also lose the joy of learning the process. Further, when we can even control joy and pleasure, what will life become?
Two Psychologists in the United States, James M. James Olds and Peter. Peter Milner once did such an experiment with a mouse. An electrode is implanted deep into the mouse's head, stimulating areas of the brain that control pleasure. Experiments have shown that mice are addicted to the feeling of this electric shock and frantically press the electric shock lever until they are exhausted. Isn't the electrode inserted in the mouse brain a new type of electronic drug?
Conscious eternal life may be a key for us to open the door of life at higher latitudes. But this will eventually change the nature of our human beings, representing that Homo sapiens will also end on the stage of history. All the orders, religions, ideologies, nations, and classes of today's society may also disappear. With that comes more new ethical questions. And are we really ready for these ethical questions?
"If you have the power of God, but you are irresponsible, insatiable, and don't even know what you want, the world is in danger."
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