Well this question has a little to do with the story line of my game and also I'm just interested in the concept. I imagine the most likely way of mapping someones mind would be with an incredibly high resolution MRI but I'm not sure if it's possible. Any thoughts on how this could be done?

In France it's called a guillotine.

There was recently an article on slashdot about mapping the memory of the mind. The link was this: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/mu-sct061809.php.

Might be interesting for you :)

If your story is sci-fi just make up something that sounds plausible.
Here's a good start: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading

You need to be more specific on what "mapping" means to you. Scientists and doctors have already mapped what regions of the brain are responsible for various actions and storage. They can also already map out what areas are active during certain types of activity, both mental and physical. Are you asking about mapping memories so others can view them? I'm not sure what mapping means to you here.

Quote: Original post by nsmadsen
You need to be more specific on what "mapping" means to you. Scientists and doctors have already mapped what regions of the brain are responsible for various actions and storage. They can also already map out what areas are active during certain types of activity, both mental and physical. Are you asking about mapping memories so others can view them? I'm not sure what mapping means to you here.

Mapping the neural path ways of someones brain in order to simulate it in a neural network, like what Hollower linked.

Just like in The Matrix. You simulate the universal physical laws and matter to its mollecular (or atomic) level, then you just virtually assembly a bunch of mollecules as they are in the real world (say a person) through a really kickass scanner and that's all.

It's really simple. I do it all the time!

The movie "Eternal sushine of the spotless mind" is actually pretty ascuarte in what we can do and how it would work. I'm not a big fan of the story myself, but it is a well made movie. The lead wants to erase his memories of his girlfriend. They do this by asking him questions about her and showing him all the objects that make him think of her (which he brought along), while mapping the active regions and later severing exactly those regions.

If you wanted to map the entire brain I imagine you'll have to have people experience the feelings you want capture while scanning. You'd have to do this for every individual brain though.

I once thought about using something like this to capture the feelings (memories) people have when we suddenly catch an old forgotten smell which can trigger these incredible nostalgic memories, which you thought you'd long forgotten about. Problem is that the brain is dynamic in assigning it's function (functions are not always in the same location), so you can't transfer the experience to somebody else.

Sorry, but this makes me think about the nature of our experience. Sure it's the big machine in our head that allows us to experience our world, but trying to understand how the inanimate becomes animated (with experience to boot). We as people are aware far beyond a mosquito, however, what ever is taking place inside our heads that lets us experience is also taking place inside the itty bitty nervous systems of mosquitos. Conscienceness; the last frontier, the cause of all our drama and unfortunately, beyond the grasp of science. One day we may learn this great secret and begin our own design, of our own creation.

Makes me think of a cool sci-fi story I came up with that tracks the evolution of awareness and the repeated conclusion is an insainly advanced alien race that re-sets and tweaks the laws of the universe and ignites the spark in hopes that the universe will finally find God.

Quote: Original post by Awoken
Sorry, but this makes me think about the nature of our experience. Sure it's the big machine in our head that allows us to experience our world, but trying to understand how the inanimate becomes animated (with experience to boot). We as people are aware far beyond a mosquito, however, what ever is taking place inside our heads that lets us experience is also taking place inside the itty bitty nervous systems of mosquitos. Conscienceness; the last frontier, the cause of all our drama and unfortunately, beyond the grasp of science. One day we may learn this great secret and begin our own design, of our own creation.

Makes me think of a cool sci-fi story I came up with that tracks the evolution of awareness and the repeated conclusion is an insainly advanced alien race that re-sets and tweaks the laws of the universe and ignites the spark in hopes that the universe will finally find God.

Your speaking as if we would need to understand how the functions of the brain work in order to map them but all we really need to know is which neurons are connected to each other and the amount of stimulation each connection has.

They have mapped the brain of a worm and it acts just like a worm when simulated but I'm pretty sure all they did was cut open a few worms and look at the brains under a microscope in order to understand how they are connected.