Indirect Mind Uploading:
Using AI to Avoid Staying Dead
Paul Almond
page 7 of 13
We can now consider how to get the massive number of observations needed to cause a very high similarity between the 
model that results from indirect mind uploading and the original biological brain on which it was based. Each time we add any new data to our collection, large numbers of "possible models of your mind" are eliminated and we get closer to our goal of creating a computer model that resembles, as closely as possible, your mind at the time when this gathering of data ended. For this reason, we should try to use methods that create a large amount of data.
Audio recording of your activities and experiences, particularly conversations in which you take part, would make a significant difference, so carrying some sort of audio recording device around and using it as often as possible would seem to be useful. Video recording of as much of your life as possible would be even better, perhaps by wearing a small video camera which can record events in approximately your field of view and obtain a reasonable sort of record of the sorts of things that are happening to you.
How Accurate Would Indirect Mind Uploading Be?
Audio and video recording alone would seem to demand that any computer model built, based on that information, resemble you to a very significant degree. This may sound unreasonable to some people who might say, "That cannot be me. Even if it remembers saying everything that I ever said, it has not actually been made by looking inside my head. It will be nothing like me." To such people I say this:
Imagine someone else existing who has memories and a mind consistent with having experienced situations similar to yours and having made the same sorts of decisions in response to them. How similar would that person be to you? Now imagine this person having a mind consistent with having said everything that you said over a number of years, not just with regard to the words spoken, but even with regard to their inflexion and the duration of pauses between them. Furthermore, imagine this other person’s mind being consistent with having made the same gestures that you have made at various times to a high degree of accuracy, possibly even moving the same way while sleeping. How similar would this person’s mind be to yours? Surely, this other person would have a very high degree of similarity with you, possibly enough so that any process that can create such a mind can be considered to be creating a continuation of your mind.
Using Indirect Mind Uploading Now
There is one way in which it may actually be possible for an individual who is alive now to use this technique. The idea is certainly not new. The idea of reconstructing a human mind from archived data about a human life appears to have occurred to a number of people, including Timothy Leary (1920–1996CE), a psychologist who is probably better known for advocating the use of hallucinogenic drugs.
The process would have two stages -- recording of the data and using computers to generate the model from the data. It may be possible to record the data today, which, after all, merely involves making such things as audio and video recordings that could be captured by conventional equipment, possibly with some modifications to enhance portability and convenience, and then storing the data for a period of time, during which computing power will increase to such an extent that it will be able to use the data to construct a mind from it. The hope would be that the data recorded today could be used to make a mind in the future, effectively achieving what may be regarded, to some extent, as an uploading of the mind of a person living today, without any technology beyond our own being required until centuries after biological death.