Tech

By Daniel in Tech, Thoughts ⋅ February 6, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Something which has been running around in my head of late.

Firstly, I asked myself, if I was given the choice of living indefinitely would I take it? Certainly I would.

In popular media immortality is presented as a double edged sword - the allure of everlasting life, versus the inability to end it when life becomes a pain. I would have to think more carefully about that; but if humanity is to develop a means to indefinite life, it will most likely be without that second clause. So yes, I would do it.

But how? What conceivable ways could a human retain life forever?

A number of possibilities present themselves. The first is simply medicine and lifestyle; in the last millenium - even in the last two hundred years, the expected human lifespan in developed countries has skyrocketed, mainly due to increased knowledge of health, wellbeing, and the ability to target diseases with increasingly complex medical ideas and technology. Some would say this is only a temporary solution - nothing can stop the mind from deteriorating, the body's organs from failing after so many years. But what about when science is able to synthetically replicate organs, or when nanotechnology is able to repair and replace broken neurons in the brain? Once the human body is fully understood (and there is no natural law to prevent this) such procedures will enable humans to far surpass their current lifespans.

The second, and in my opinion far more intriguing possibility, is replicating the brain in a vast future computer system, and transferring human consciences to such a brain. I've discussed the idea before, and oddly it was brought back into my mind when I re-watched parts of the Battlestar Galactica remake. In this series, the cylons (human replicants) are able to transmit their consciences to a 'resurrection ship' when they die, where they are reborn. Aside from some of the obvious difficulties of this, the idea is fascinating. The concept of a conscious mind is a difficult one to understand - but even if we copy the physical structure exactly, even if we meticulously replicate memories, ideas, thoughts - is it the same person who is resurrected?

Imagine that moments before you die, a copy of everything that makes up your mind is copied to a new host body, identical to your own. Do you become that person? They certainly become you; they are aware of waking after having just been about to die, but in the mean time, you will simply die. It is beneficial for them, but not for you - or so the current ideas about consciousness would lead us to believe.

How can this problem be overcome? Essentially this method of immortality is as superficial as creating a clone, for one party still has to die; their own personal conscience comes to an end, no matter how perfect the copy. What needs to be done is for the conscience to be preserved. Imagine if a nano-robot was to replace each neuron in your brain, one by one, with an identical synthetic one, afterwards transferring the brain to a synthetic, mechanical body. The brain is not immediately replaced, nor is it destroyed: the host remains conscious, and they are essentially turned into a living machine. The idea has its merits - immortality certainly being one of them. What if such a mind was adapted, again artificially, to experience new senses beyond the limits of the human body? The ability to see the infrared area of the spectrum, or hear frequencies beyond the range of human ears.

Would I volunteer to do this?

I wouldn't think twice about saying yes.

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