The Special Issue on Mind Uploading (Vol. 4, issue 1, June 2012) of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, just released, “constitutes a significant milestone in the history of mind uploading research: the first-ever collection of scientific and philosophical papers on the theme of mind uploading,” as Ben Goertzel and Matthew Ikle’ note in the Introduction to this issue.

“Mind uploading” is an informal term that refers to transferring the mental contents from a human brain into a different substrate, such as a digital, analog, or quantum computer. It’s also known as “whole brain emulation” and “substrate-independent minds.”

Serious mind uploading researchers have emerged recently, taking this seemingly science-fictional notion seriously and pursuing it via experimental and theoretical research programs, Goertzel and Ilke’ note.

For example, Neuroscientist Randal A. Koene (a contributor of two papers to this volume) has formed a nonprofit organization called Carbon Copies (carboncopies.org) to promote mind uploading research.

At the request of KurzweilAI, the publishers have kindly made both the Introduction and the first paper by Koene, Fundamentals Of Whole Brain Emulation: State, Transition And Update Representations, open access, available in full text on the International Journal of Machine Consciousness website.

Editor Ben Goertzel has also gathered links to informal, “preprint” versions of the papers in this Special Issue, hosted on the paper authors’ websites. These preprint versions are not guaranteed to be identical to the final published versions, but the content should be essentially the same, he advises.

Introduction

Ben Goertzel And Matthew Ikle’

Fundamentals Of Whole Brain Emulation: State, Transition And Update Representations

Randal A. Koene

A Framework For Approaches To Transfer Of A Mind’s Substrate

Sim Bamford

Experimental Research In Whole Brain Emulation: The Need For Innovative In Vivo Measurement Techniques

Randal A. Koene

Available Tools For Whole Brain Emulation

Diana Deca

Electron Imaging Technology For Whole Brain Neural Circuit Mapping

Kenneth J. Hayworth

Non-destructive Whole-brain Monitoring Using Nanorobots: Neural Electrical Data Rate Requirements

Nuno R. B. Martins, Wolfram Erlhagen And Robert A. Freitas, Jr.

The Terasem Mind Uploading Experiment

Martine Rothblatt

Whole-personality Emulation

William Sims Bainbridge

When Should Two Minds Be Considered Versions Of One Another?

Ben Goertzel

My Brain, My Mind, And I: Some Philosophical Assumptions Of Mind-uploading

Michael Hauskeller

Seeking Normative Guidelines For Novel Future Forms Of Consciousness

Brandon Oto

Trans-human Cognitive Enhancement, Phenomenal Consciousness And The Extended Mind

Tadeusz Wieslaw Zawidzki

Why Uploading Will Not Work, Or, The Ghosts Haunting Transhumanism

Patrick D. Hopkins

Digital Immortality: Self Or 0010110?

Liz Stillwaggon Swan And Joshua Howard

Time, Consciousness, And Mind Uploading

Yoonsuck Choe, Jaerock Kwon And Ji Ryang Chung

Advantages Of Artificial Intelligences, Uploads, And Digital Minds

Kaj Sotala

Coalescing Minds: Brain Uploading-related Group Mind Scenarios

Kaj Sotala And Harri Valpola