AABoyles also begins to address another important and much-discussed question:

Can the emulation interface with:

Sensory inputs unavailable to the human brain?

Reasoning, calculation, memory modules and other minds in more direct ways?

Rather than inputting data into computers and observing the outputs of computers and sensory devices as we do today.

Just laying some more groundwork... One distinction the discussion requires:

Who is in control of the components and the environment of the emulation?

Possibilities:

An outside entity, attempting to gain economic or other value by using the emulation to complete information processing tasks. (I'll call this "The Boss.")

-The environment was established to maintain the emulation, which is not "given a job," but was created for scientific observation by outsiders.

-The emulation is not given a job, but environment was created by outsiders as a platform for experimentation on emulations.

-Perhaps the emulation was created as an "upload" of a person, or as their designed child or progeny.

-The emulation has a greater or lesser degree of control over its own environment or composition.

Example of lesser degree of control: It can decide to select some of the content it sees and listens to.

Example of greater degree of control: It can directly alter one of its emotions by "twisting a knob."

One aspect of malleability: At a specific point in the forecast timeline, how easy or difficult is it to create an emulation with a replacement subsystem or component that is functional, but functions differently? Does the emulation continue to work if these sub-systems are replaced or altered to a lesser or greater degree?

Another aspect of malleability: How much can the structure and activity of the brain be influenced using means that we presently considered external or environmental? These influences would include sensory inputs and inputs through the blood.

Another aspect of malleability: How much can the structure and activity of the brain be influenced using means that we presently considered external or environmental? These influences would include sensory inputs and inputs through the blood.

One aspect of malleability: At a specific point in the forecast timeline, how easy or difficult is it to create an emulation with a replacement subsystem or component that is functional, but functions differently? Does the emulation continue to work if these sub-systems are replaced or altered to a lesser or greater degree?

One aspect of what I call "fidelity" is the degree to which the emulation incorporates various aspects of neurophysiology.

For example, the emulation might or might not incorporate:

-Good models of fluid flow within the brain, and between the brain, the blood and the cerebrospinal fluid.

-Good models of the components of the blood itself, and how these components would influence brain activity.

Future timelines could assume that a great deal of additional knowledge about structure and function of components of the brain is developed before functional WBEs are developed.

Or, perhaps scanning technology improves rapidly, allowing for higher and higher levels of fidelity, but our knowledge of how the brain actually works does not advance as rapidly.

We could imagine a timeline where extremely high fidelity emulations that function are created without functional, low-fidelity emulations being created first.

Or, we could imagine a stepwise process where lower-fidelity emulations that function are created first, then these are "improved" to the point that they represent the workings of the human mind more and more accurately.

Another distinction:

Many people have worked to reason about the level of "fidelity" of WBEs. That is to say, how near is a WBE to being and accurate representation of a human brain-what does it leave in, and what does it leave out.