86 Billion Neurons Transferred

The Dream of Cassandra: Can Human Thoughts Truly Live Inside Machines?

In the vast world of science fiction, some ideas are so powerful they linger in our minds long after the story ends.

One such idea is the concept of transferring human thoughts, emotions, and consciousness into machines.

Recently, I watched a web series named Cassandra, which beautifully explored this fascinating theme. The story was based on a strange but thrilling imagination — the combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human thoughts.

The main plot revolved around how a person's mind — including emotions, memories, and feelings — was transferred into a steel-bodied machine. This new entity could not just think logically like a computer, but also feel like a human.

It made me wonder:

Is this really possible? Can a human mind truly live inside a machine?

Mind Uploading: A Dream of Science Fiction

The idea shown in Cassandra is actually a famous concept in science fiction known as mind uploading or consciousness transfer.

In simple words, mind uploading is the process of scanning the physical structure of a brain in such detail that the information could be recreated in a computer system.

In theory, if you could perfectly copy everything about your brain — all the memories, habits, thoughts, and emotional patterns — and run that on a powerful computer, it would be like you are "living" inside the machine.

Some popular movies, shows, and books have explored this:

Black Mirror (episode "San Junipero") where people upload their minds to a digital heaven.

Altered Carbon, where consciousness is stored on devices called "stacks" and can be moved between bodies.

Ghost in the Shell, an anime masterpiece where cybernetic bodies house human consciousness.

Cassandra added its own flavour to this idea, giving the mind not just a digital space but a physical steel body to move and feel the world.

The Challenge: Understanding the Human Brain

While the idea is beautiful and inspiring, today's reality is very different.

The human brain is the most complex structure known in the universe.

It has about 86 billion neurons (brain cells), and each neuron connects to about 1,000 other neurons.

That's almost 100 trillion connections!

But it’s not just about copying connections.

Our emotions are not only in our brain — they are connected to our entire body:

When we are scared, our heart races.

When we are happy, hormones like dopamine are released.

When we are anxious, our breathing changes.

All these physical changes are part of what we call “emotions.”

So even if a machine had the exact copy of a human brain, without the human body’s feedback system, could it really feel?

Science is still debating this.

Some scientists believe that if you recreate the brain with enough detail, emotions could be simulated.

Others argue that emotions are deeply biological, and a steel body could only fake feelings, not genuinely experience them.

Technological Hurdles:

Even if we somehow solve the mystery of consciousness, the technical hurdles are enormous.

Scanning the Brain:

We don’t yet have any technology that can scan a brain without destroying it.

To map every neuron and every connection would require microscopes more powerful than anything we currently have.

Storage Space:

If you tried to store every detail of the human brain digitally, it would require an exabyte of storage — that’s a billion gigabytes!

Processing Power:

Running a real-time simulation of a human brain would need computers thousands of times more powerful than today’s best supercomputers.

Mind-Body Problem:

Philosophers have been arguing for centuries: is the mind separate from the body, or are they one and the same?

If they are inseparable, then copying just the mind is not enough to recreate a human experience.

The Emotional Side: Are Emotions Transferable?

Even if you copy all the memories and thoughts, how do you transfer feelings?

When you fall in love (Although Love is serious mental disease, I Think :) ) it's not just a memory. It's a chemical cocktail rushing through your bloodstream.

When you feel sadness, it's your gut, your chest, your entire physical being responding.

Machines don’t have hormones.

Machines don’t have a beating heart (well, unless you design a fake one).

Machines don’t have a gut that tightens in fear.

So even if a machine acts like it's feeling happy, or angry, or lonely — is it truly feeling it, or just pretending?

This is a deep philosophical question without a clear answer yet.

AI Today: Where Are We?

AI can "pretend" to have emotions by selecting words carefully.

But it doesn’t truly feel anything.

AI doesn't get sad when you insult it.

It doesn't feel pride when it solves your problem.

It processes text based on patterns, not emotional experience.

Similarly, robotic bodies — even highly advanced ones — can mimic facial expressions or voice tones, but they don’t actually experience emotions inside.

We are still very far from creating something like Cassandra’s steel body with real human feelings.

My Shower Thought:

After finishing the web series, I went for a shower (because deep thinking obviously needs soap and hot water).

Standing there under the shower, I couldn't help but think:

"If someday someone tries to upload my mind into a machine... will it also remember that I like the water slightly hot and hate cold showers?"

And then I laughed at myself, because:

If mind uploading was real, my steel body would probably short-circuit at the first sign of a hot shower!

Conclusion: A Beautiful Dream for Now

The idea of combining AI with human thoughts is deeply poetic and emotional.

It’s a dream of immortality, of defeating death, of preserving what is best in us — our love, our memories, our passions.

Cassandra reminded me how powerful that dream is.

But for now, it remains a dream.

We are still struggling to understand our own brains, let alone upload them into machines.

Still, dreams are the first step toward progress.

Maybe, centuries from now, people will look back at shows like Cassandra and say:

"That’s where the dream began."

Until then, I’ll just enjoy my slightly-hot showers and be grateful my emotions don't need a software update. :)