Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have built a fully functional neuron by using organic bioelectronics. This artificial neuron contain no “living” parts, but is capable of mimicking the function of a human nerve cell and communicate in the same way as our own neurons do.
###“Our artificial neuron is made of conductive polymers and it functions like a human neuron”
Sweet, now I just need a high-enough bandwidth connection to an exascale supercomputer for it to be transparent, and I can migrate my process over and cheat death, booyah.
I, uh, wouldn’t go bragging about that. Death has some pretty powerful friends. I knew somebody that pulled a fast one on Death, but got drunk and talked about it. His shit got really fucked up later in the week. You don’t wanna go there. I mean like underwater-welding-accident fucked-up. Okay, so he cheated Death and all, but was it worth it?
I’m about ready to call bullshit on the universe. The probability that this is a simulation goes up every time a technological advance like this happens… I mean, sure there’s a chance this is the first iteration and we will create simulated universes in the future but… I dunno.
What would be the point? Training ground for humanising artificial intelligences? Weeding out the psychopathic minds? Or at least, the minds that can’t decide to behave in a moral fashion. And what does that mean for minds that start to suspect that they are in a simulation?
Sounds a little too much like the religious idea of heaven and hell for comfort. Except, well, it appears we all still have to live out our karma or at least deal with being the being that we choose to be… or maybe just the being we’ve been programmed to be.
If it is a simulation, would that mean the only way out is through some kind of enlightenment? Like the Buddhists and the Taoists think? Except once you’ve finally come to terms with yourself through however many incarnations you don’t finally get off the wheel, you just wake up in universe prime and a human in a white coat ticks a box and has a brief conversation with you:
“OK then, well it seems like you’ve finally proved yourself capable of being trusted as one of our AIs and we’re going to assign you to the Pleiades cluster to oversee the colonists settling there. Any questions?”
“Doesn’t it skew the results if I suspected it was a simulation?”
