They are indeed! I'm not sure how far we are from brain storage, as that needs to be so perfect for it to be useful to us.

I believe memory storage is less than 2 decades away. In fact, I remember watching a science program about 10 years ago. A neurosurgeon and an ex-Intel employee, had got together, and made a chip for a person with anti-retrograde amnesia.

That is a type of amnesia, whereby your memories are in tact, up until the accident, however you can't form new memories. Made famous by the Guy Pearce movie...um... lol, I've forgotten the title!

Anyways, they made this chip for this guy who had that type of amnesia, and after having it inserted in his head; voila! He could remember again. So in my mind, it can't be long before there is a way to store long term, and more complex memories.

That surely will be the forerunner, to storing our entire mindstate. 2022 will be an important year, as it will be the year that Moore's law reaches it's limit. At that point you will only be able to fit about 22 lithium atoms, in the gap of an average transistor.

Hence, quantum computing will truly be born, as we use the uncertainty principle, to program, for the first time ever.

I think physical evolution, will, and is happening, however it happens at such a glacially slow pace, that we don't notice it. That's why we invented technology! :-D

Cg