From time to time, many of us probably wonder about a fundamental question that bewilders us in this very scientific age: what is the human brain? What makes it special? And where does our personal ego, our consciousness, our soul, reside?

In some ways, the question touches on the work of one of my MIT idols, Marvin Minsky. In his book, Society of the Mind , he explores the complexity of the human brain, arguing that it is not one big computer but several hundred smaller computers linked together.

But the brain is also a biological organism. That has been a real bear of a problem for neuroscientists wanting to leverage AI in this type of research.

If you’re interested in this at all, I would advise you to read to the end. Because a presentation I saw recently put a lot of this on the big screen – spelling out, in large print, where we are headed with the possibility of uploading a human brain.

Yes, I said it: scientists are working on isolating what would theoretically be needed to help a person’s brain make a successful escape from the body.

Davy Deng, a joint doctoral candidate in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program, spoke at a recent TedX MIT event about this sort of science. One of his first points was actually intensely interesting to me: with ties to both MIT on the east coast and Berkeley out west, he noted that when he starts to talk about brain uploading, people on the west coast tend to sit forward and be receptive, where east coasters often cross their arms or show some kind of recalcitrance.

I thought that maybe it has to do with how we treat human history on each of these vastly separated coasts, but I digress. The bulk of Deng’s talk had to do with those essential questions: what would it take, and how would we do it?

The essential question, he noted, is whether a human brain is “substrate-independent,” whether you can unattach it from the body and give it some other source to run on. This leads to what Deng called a three-part engineering problem, which he articulated this way:

“What data define a mind?” he asked. “How do you measure them? And once you have all of those data, how do you make it run?”

That third one is a doozy.

Deng asked how we can even begin to approach something so complex, and then provided this interesting partial answer:

“If you ask a mathematician how they approach a very complex system, they might say, ‘well, solve a simpler problem first,’ or ‘convert that problem into a simpler problem.’ Not because the simple problem is the same problem, but because it forces you to understand what solved even means.”

He continued, in rather Frankensteinian fashion, to stipulate that, for the purposes of this experiment, you’d need a brain.

“For (this idea) to move from mere fantasy, mere speculations about fantasies and miracles into a scientifically defensible pursuit, we have to have access to an experimental brain with complete measurement, perturbation and prediction. In other words, we need ground truth as to what success even means before we can begin quantifying progress.”

The answer may lie, Deng suggests, with the tiny roundworm C elegans, a notable superstar of the AI era.

“With only 302 neurons, its entire nervous system has been mapped completely several decades ago,” he said. “And scientists have since tried to emulate its entire brain in a computer, to no avail.”

In terms of concrete research, Deng mentioned the use of expansion microscopy for a better view of brain tissues.

“Importantly, this technique also allows us to retain biological signals such as DNA, RNA, and protein, effectively making chemical and biological footprints for every synapse in the brain,” he explained. “So it's kind of like giving colors to otherwise black-and-white pictures of the brain, and it generates a much more detailed and information-rich map of the entire nervous system in C. elegans .”

Another solution that Deng promotes is building a microscope platform that integrates behavior and neuro activity and perturbation response, all together, in one experiment.

Can this type of research pave the way for a real human brain to function, with the person’s entire consciousness trapped inside, apart from the body that we are so used to moving around?

Exploring the Ground Truth

Having thus set the stage, Deng brought a series of insights about how close we may be, what it means for humanity, and how we might think about the practicalities. I want to quote this whole part, so bear with me: I’ll do it in pieces.

“That ground truth is the ingredient for compiling a digital brain using a biologically informed artificial neuronet network for each unique animal,” Deng said. “And then you can compare that and test its fidelity against the real animal. This pipeline of measure, compile, and compare is exactly what separates science fiction from science. And C. elegans is the only animal that we can run this pipeline through currently, in my opinion.”

“Is this finally real science instead of science fiction, with a real scientific direction, scientific instrument, and scientific hypothesis?” Deng said, of the grand mind uploading experiment, in theory. “Yes. Absolutely. Yes.”

“In this world of rapid technology development, both hype and doubts can be very overwhelming. But as a famous saying goes, ‘In God we trust. All others must bring data.’ As scientists, it is our social responsibility to bring reliable measurement, and interpret those data honestly. And that social responsibility gets even more salient when you consider the societal demand from whole brain emulation.”

All of this, he noted, will take time.

“Decades of well-collaborated, well-funded collaboration, as well as sustained public interest, will all be required for this goal to reach its finish line,” Deng said. “And in return, its impact on humanity will also be transformative—from neurological diseases to AI, from understanding emotions to understanding what it means to be human.”

Democratizing the Process

Here’s another main point that Deng made in concluding, one that tracks with what I have heard so often from people commenting on the future of AI, and the need for egalitarian technology:

“The impact of whole brain emulation will become increasingly disruptive as it progresses, which is why the discourse cannot belong solely to neuroscientists or tech billionaires,” he said. “It has to belong to all of us. Because for each of us, the biggest contribution of whole brain emulation may not need to be digital immortality. It may also be a profound appreciation of what makes you, you, and me, me. For the first time, we are being asked a scientifically measurable question that we have only asked philosophically before: ‘What is the minimum information required to be you?’ … and in trying to answer that question, we may come to realize not just how extraordinary it is to recreate a brain, but how extraordinary the mind you already have truly is.”

Yes, our minds are extraordinary. But wrestling with the question of that above philosophy is really, to me, fascinating. And the science continues to advance.