It is sometimes claimed that it is impossible for people without strong wet-lab skills in biology and/or neuroscience to personally contribute to research associated with brain preservation. As this post will attempt to show, that is not the case! Specifically, here are three ways that purely computational researchers could help from a research perspective. This […]

In case you missed it, the latest issue of Skeptic Magazine [link] was focused on the question of brain uploading with three articles on the topic. The first article, by BPF President Kenneth Hayworth, argued that pursuing research into brain preservation and uploading is a rational choice given what we know about the brain. Peter Kassan […]

Reanimators, Uploaders and Uncertains — Which Are You? Take the Test, and See Where You Stand on the “Copy Problem” The first in a multi-author series on brain preservation technologies, options, and policy. John here: Brain preservation for the purposes of later memory recovery, and perhaps also full personality and self reanimation, is one of the strangest yet most future-important topics […]

Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.  He is also a longtime supporter of the Brain Preservation Foundation.  In this interview we talk with Dr. Hanson about his upcoming book, “The Age of Em: Work, Love and […]

The Less Wrong (LW) extended community — an internet community interested in the application of rational thinking — recently conducted a survey of their members, thanks in part to the hard work of user ingres. With 2565 respondents, what makes this survey interesting to those interested in the BPF is that a few of the questions […]

One of the key questions that I’ve had following the publication and success of aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation at mouse brain preservation is the degree to which the glutaraldehyde crosslinking step will lead to protein structure changes. In particular, I wondered about the prevalence of protein structure changes that would not allow inference about the original protein […]

Biography: Scott Aaronson is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally. He also has written about consciousness and personal identity and the relevance of quantum mechanics to these issues.   Michael Cerullo: Thanks for taking the time […]

Keith Wiley Author of A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading Brain Preservation Foundation fellow Feb. 10, 2016 On February ninth, the Brain Preservation Foundation (BPF) announced the winner of its small mammal prize for the successful preservation of a rabbit brain (See https://www.brainpreservation.org/small-mammal-announcement/). For a little more than a year I have had the privilege […]

With the announcement that the newly invented Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation (ASC) procedure has won the small mammal phase of our Brain Preservation Prize, many people have recently asked me “Should cryonics service organizations immediately start offering this new ASC procedure to their ‘patients’?” My personal answer (speaking for myself, not on behalf of the BPF) has […]

Let me start this post with a disclaimer: I am not a trained neuroscientist. As VP and co-founder of the BPF, I enjoy following the scientific literature on neuroscience topics. I am instead a technology futurist, with six years of postbaccalaureate and graduate studies in biological sciences, computer sciences, and medicine at UCSD, and a master’s degree in futures studies […]