A Critique of Mind Augmenting Technologies

Definitions

There are four major technological approaches to augmenting the mind: Capacity, Capability, Relocation, and Longevity.
        Some qualifiers: I'll be discussing the INDIVIDUAL human mind; not any variations on collective mind. Also I'll be concentrating on computer-related technologies since that's my area of expertise. I'll skip other technologies, like chemistry and nanotechnology, and other methods for augmenting the mind, like meditation and spirituality.

Capacity means expanding the mind's storage. Most of my thoughts about this paper were on my COMPUTER. Not here (GESTURE to head) but there (POINT to laptop). So I used a mind augmenting technology to write this paper.

The enhancements to Capability are only limited by imagination.

Relocation proposes to upload the brain (or mind or consciousness) to a computer. More than just relocating the brain, this is also copying and more than one copy is possible.

A by-product of uploading the brain is immortality in digital form. Therefore, Longevity is one of the mind augmenting technologies.

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