2. Mapping The Brain
In the future, you might just be able to upload your mind to a computer and live a thousand perfect lives, we just have to map the damn thing first. The human brain is one of the least understood things on the planet and we have so far been unable to decode the majority of its complexity. Unfortunately, if it were simpler, we probably still wouldn't be able to understand it, because we'd be stupider. Mapping the human brain would be a breakthrough with implications far beyond medical science, but it's such a cataclysmically complicated process that we're still in the very early stages. There are a number of multi-billion dollar projects on the go at the moment, all attempting to map out the mammalian brain. Unfortunately, we're still struggling with challenge of a mouse brain, let alone a human one, using a technique that involves slicing, staining and scanning the brain in order to map the structures. However, a breakthrough in techniques could well speed the process and open the door to all kinds of exciting things. The practical applications of mapping the brain are awesome. With a working computer model of a human mind, we might be able to upload consciousness to computers, store and alter memories, creating flawless AI and even weirdly create digital "duplicates" of ourselves on a hard drive.