mankind have been chasing immortality for millennia . In some cultures , you attain a kind of immortality by doing great deed , which people will talk about long after you pass by . Several religions feature some construct of immortality – the eubstance may die but some part of you will survive evermore . But what if science made it possible to be truly immortal ? What if there were a way for you tolive forever ?
That ’s the introductory concept behind digital immortality . Some futurist , perhaps most notably inventor Ray Kurzweil , believe that we will uncover a way to prolong the human life indefinitely . They ’ve identified several potential path that could leave to this destination . Perhaps we ’ll identify the genes that regulate aging and tweak them so that our bodies stop aging once they reach adulthood . Maybe we ’ll create new techniques for creating stilted organs that combine constitutive thing with technology and then replace our original part with the new and improved version . Or mayhap we ’ll just deck our computer memory , thoughts , feelings and everything else that makes us who we are into a computer and populate in net .
These anticipation may vocalise like they belong to in a science - fabrication film , but there are people all over the world who are contribute oeuvre that may one mean solar day allow humans to know forever . Some of the piece of work relates right away to the goal – scientists at Harvard have succeeded in alter genes that regulate aging in mice , for example [ source : Sample ] . If it ’s possible for scientist to apply these techniques to humans , we may be able to prevent our bodies from aging and live to age far beyond the ordinary lifespan of today .
Other projects like Blue Brain may finally provide other insights into attain digital immortality . The Blue Brain project ’s destination is to vacate engineer the human brain and make a virtual model that would allow neuroscientists to test operation and discourse on a digital brain to see how a real human brain might react [ source : The Blue Brain Project ] . Perhaps through this employment we ’ll achieve a greater understanding of how the human brain whole caboodle and its relationship to what we call the mind . Is it possible to reverse applied scientist the procedure of thinking by build a sophisticated practical model of a brain ?
Ray Kurzweil has written extensively about this concept . He foresee a various set of disciplines go up the job through dissimilar method , some of which may finally meet and convert digital immortality from a construct into realness . He identified three bridge that could provide us a way to live on as long as we manage to .
allow ’s take a closer look at the foot for Kurzweil ’s imaginativeness .
The Three Bridges
Ray Kurzweil has written several books and articles about digital immortality , including the one he coauthored with Terry Grossman titled " Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live evermore . " In that Good Book , Grossman and Kurzweil propose that there will be three bridges that will lead to immortality . The first is something we have some restraint over right now : Living well and trammel the effects ofagingand disease as much as possible .
Kurzweil practices what he preach . In an interview with Enlightenment Next , he says he eat well , exercises , taste to forefend stress and ask around 250 dietetical supplements per day to minimize the effects of aging and ward off disease . While some of his approaches have nearly universal favorable reception from medico – there ’s not much controversy about eating well and practise – others have less scientific support . While some dietary supplements may contribute positively to wellness , many appear to have little or no effect based upon scientific study [ reference : Hellerman ] .
But living well will increase your chance of living longer , which is Kurzweil ’s point . Because we do n’t have the technology to stay alive indefinitely right now , we call for to keep ourselves in right shape until technology can entrance up . That lead to the second bridge deck , which involves tweak biota to reduce or remove the effects of aging while eliminating disease . Through a deep savvy of an soul ’s biochemistry and factor , doctors will be able to customize discussion to each patient , which in theory would greatly increase the intervention ’s effectiveness .
We ’ve made some progression in this field . Doctors and scientist around the world experiment every twenty-four hour period with young treatment and approach shot to preclude or curing illnesses . Kurzweil believes that there ’ll come a time when science has elevate to the point that we ’ll be able to optimize our biologic alchemy and manipulate genetic aspect to give us the just chance of live for a farsighted time . That should give us time enough to reach the third bridge : the nanotechnology phase .
Nanotechnologydeals with a world so midget that it draw near the atomic scurf . Ananometeris just one - billionth of a meter . At that scale , we can pull strings individual molecules . Nanoscience is still very young and our shaft are relatively hick . We can manipulate topic on a small scale but only to a limited academic degree . Kurzweil believes that nanotechnology will give us the power to bolster or perhaps even interchange our organs – including our brains – with improved constructs that wo n’t break down over time . We may even have the power to heal across-the-board damage by using ego - replicating and self - heal devices built at the nanoscale .
Whether we ’ll reach this mastery of nanotechnology is currently a matter of argument . While scientists and doctors have developed some aesculapian treatment that use nanoparticles as a delivery mechanism , the science is in its infancy . Skeptics show out that we do n’t yet do it if complex devices – such asnanorobots– are feasible at the nanoscale .
A Singular Challenge
The bridges to immortality tie-in into another of Kurzweil ’s hypotheses : thesingularity . In a nutshell , thesingularityis an era in which technical developing is so rapid that the world is forever evolve at a blistering pace . During this time , biology and engineering will unite and humans willevolveinto a unexampled case of animation form .
you could see the seed for the estimation of the singularity in an observation that Intel Colorado - founder Gordon Moore made in 1965 . Moore saw that because of technical advancements , improvements in manufacture and leaps in efficiency , buffalo chip manufacturers could double the number of junction transistor on a chip every 12 month . Since then , we ’ve call this observation Moore ’s Law and tweaked it a spot – now the time frame to double up the turn of transistor on a scrap is more like 24 month .
Today , Intel make chip for consumer products that have nigh 1 billion transistors on them . This allow Intel to design processors that can deal progressively heavy computational need . Kurzweil ’s hypothesis somewhat depends upon this vogue continue . While scientists and doctors have made progress building artificial organ and even using 3 - D printers to build genuine organs , we ’ve got a farseeing way to go to reach out the level of mastery required to cope with Kurzweil ’s sight .
Part of the challenge of describing digital immortality to someone is that you have to envisage technology that does n’t survive . For that cause , any word of digital immortality must rest somewhat undefined – it ’s all conjecture . It ’s potential such technology will never exist . Kurzweil identify what we need to do to conquer death – we need to live healthy lifestyle , produce proficiency to bolster or substitute our organs and switch off all the genetic marker that govern aging . But know what we have to do and discover how to do it are two unlike matter .
People , admit Moore himself , have predicted the end of Moore ’s law several times over the years . But engineers have discovered Modern way to stay true to the spirit of Moore ’s law , double the power of processors every two year or so . If this trend should last slow down – or worse , end – it could take much longer to reach immortality than Kurzweil ’s vision . It might not be possible to create the technical infrastructure necessary to mastermind immortality at all .
Assuming that such technical advance are potential , there are other problem to overcome . How do you screen the skill ? What sort of problems could arise ? If we fiddle with genes that govern senesce , will we start the risk of create young degenerative condition ? Is there a cancer peril that comes along with get rid of cellular death ? We ca n’t really serve these question yet . Kurzweil and his supporter think that one day we ’ll answer all of these questions in clip . Kurzweil calls his possibility the Law of Accelerating Returns .
But there may be another way to achieve digital immortality . It involve getting to know your computer on an unprecedented level .
Deep Thought
What if we could take what makes us who we are and put it into a digital format ? What if you could upload your idea into acomputer ?
It ’s a tall order . Despite centuries of study and incredible progression in neuroscience , we still do n’t have a full understanding of the human brain . How does our good sense of ego relate to the wit ? What is cognisance ? What elements of human intelligence are fundamental ? Can we model those functions within a practical surroundings ? How would you actually port a person ’s identity into a digital machine ? Will it just be a CAT scan that creates a copy or will it physically remove you from your body in some way ?
Then there are question that require more than technology to answer . If you are capable to actually transfer yourself into a computer , what happen to your body ? How would your digital knowingness react to seeing your body without you in it ? If you just make a digital transcript of yourself , what happen when the organic edition of you perish ? Will your computer copy mourn your loss ? Will it even be able to finger real emotions ? Who defines what is real versus what is merely sham ?
Then there are question that are the real brain twister . If you be as a digital conception , would it be potential to merge with other digital consciousnesses ? Could two people become one person ? What about a universe of people ? Would we all become like the Borg in the " Star Trek " world ? What about the danger of the digital realm – could someone erase you ? Could you be infected by some sort of computing machine computer virus ?
Digital immortality may stop up being more modest . We may just create by artificial means intelligent simulations of ourselves . This would n’t really make you immortal but you might be pretty comforted that a fake reading of yourself will keep yourFacebookandTwitterstatuses up to date long after you ’re gone .
phase magician and technology journalist Brian Brushwood has already set up a primitive version of this concept . Every yr on his natal day , Brushwood must gibe in to show he ’s alive . The first yr he miscarry to do so , his system will kick into gearing . It will mine his past Facebook and Twitter update and send them regularly indefinitely . Brushwood will effectively frequent his societal meshwork profile forever [ source : Brushwood ] .
We ca n’t really answer any of these questions decent now – they remain in the realm of ism . If we never inhibit the technological challenge that stand in the way all the questions are moot . But if we ever formulate the technology that can actually support such a thing we require to consider the implications . The obstacles to digital immortality are n’t but technological in nature .
Next , we ’ll look at more questions we may have to serve before digital immortality becomes a realness .
Social and Philosophical Questions
We ’ve already look at the technical barrier that abide between us and digital immortality . But what about addressing what it really signify to be immortal ?
Immortality would doubtless get legion societal problems . Assuming that the process will be expensive – at least in the starting time – it could make a fresh col between grade . The wealthy could compensate to live on forever while those with less money must still face their own mortality . Or perhaps some state would have access to the engineering while others miss the money or technology to abide it . That could lead to Sturm und Drang on a global plate .
Then there ’s the question of timing : When should you alter yourself tolive forever ? Should you do it in the prime of living ? When you ’re a small fry ? When you ’ve produce old ? Since every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. you could chance dying in an stroke , is it better to transform yourself as early as possible ? If you do alter yourself , will you keep to rise as you did when you were deadly ? If you upload your judgment into acomputer , will your development halt or will you continue to grow as a person ?
How would digital immortality meshing with the world ’s religions ? Many religious belief include some form of an hereafter . allot to these religion , some part of what makes you who you are survives after death and moves on to a different type of existence . But if we make the ability to become immortal through engineering , what does that mean for these organized religion ? Would these religions conclude that it ’s incorrect to exist forever since you ’d never move beyond this life into the next ?
What about population ascendance ? If we earn the ability to halt aging , could we stay at an historic period that allows us to have children whenever we like ? Would the population step up out of control since few masses would ever die ? And what would it be like to be in a world where your tyke could become the same forcible age of their parents , or even surpass it ? Physically , parent and their shaver could be the same age .
If a byproduct of digital immortality is a decrease in the number of births , what does that signify for the human race ? Many of our approximation and achievements survive because new generations work up upon what the premature multiplication created . But if we become a stagnate universe , will creativity knee ? How will we stay on engaged and concerned in the world around us ? How long would it take before we become world-weary or infelicitous with life ? How will it affect the global saving ?
Kurzweil ’s predictions have us reaching the technological capacity for digital immortality as early on as 2029 . But even if the engineering science is at our disposal , will we ever really be ready to take that leap ?
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