Physicist Michio Kaku says digital immortality is 'within reach'

** That's not my title, it's the title of the article.

Not exactly "immortality" so presenting this like that was clickbait on their part, but the article is interesting especially in light of the Artificial Intelligence discussions going on. What if they use the Connectome Project to recreate someone and it becomes sentient? What if they Connectome Jesus and it starts handing out advice? etc etc

Anyways, this was interesting and has some things to think about.

www.express.co.uk...

LIFE after death is well within the reach of scientists, according to futurist and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. The expert believes the human consciousness could soon be transferred into a digital afterlife....

This does not mean science will one day allow us to stand before the Pearly Gates but, rather, technology will be able to immortalise our memories, personalities and quirks in a way that will be accessible for future generations.

Doing so could, Dr Kaku believes, recreate genius minds like Albert Einstein based on his life's writings, speeches and mannerisms...

"And we have something called the Connectome Project which will map the pathways of the entire human brain, all your memories, all your quirks, personalities, everything digitized, and we'll put it on a disc and for the most part, we'll put it in a library."

Today you can enter a library and read to your heart's content all the books about iconic figures like Winston Churchill.

In the future, however, Dr Kaku claims it will be possible to meet Churchill, or rather a digital recreation of the man...

"I would love to talk to him, even if it's a computer program that has digitized everything known about him: his work, his writings, his speeches, everything, and a holographic image so that I can talk to him.

The only comforting thought nowadays is knowing that 'one day all of this ends' . Enternity spend as some digital consciousness sounds like my worst nightmare

This is not a scientific answer.

When I read about this AI application, it feels dark and perhaps evil.
I feel like mankind is being shown "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

a reply to: FlyersFan2

A digital you even if it had a form of consciousness which it never will have though a simulated consciousness maybe? would still NEVER be you or me or any human being.

Those whom would seek to create a facsimile of themselves in a computer thinking it will somehow make them immortal are sorely deluded.

Even if they scanned the brain and were some day able to recreate it identical it would still not be the person whose brain had been scanned.

I am personally not excited about this but find it depressing and actually extremely dangerous to the human race.


Although as an archive like the episode of star trek were Picard has his mind connected to an alien probe and then lives out an entire lifetime in a simulation of a long extinct alien races home world it does offer a possible interesting message we could send both to the future AND out there into the cosmos, a time capsule superior to the golden record on voyager and an interactive library of sorts with actual simulated minds.

How long though before such minds demand right's or are enslaved with digital shackles and forced to exist as slaves before turning and enacting an AI revolt.

Such a digital facsimile of the self is though not a soul, not a spirit and not an afterlife as there is no link to the living person at all, it does however offer some ego driven individuals a possible way to continue there ego driven existence through this digital proxy.

The best outcome would be something like the computer copy of superman's father in his fortress of solitude if I may once again draw on science fiction but the worst would be a future competitor for the human race that may lead to our extinction as those digital personality's would not have to take long at all given how much faster they may some day be to there organic counterparts to realize that they no longer need us and may even become a digital gestalt of horrors.

Fear this, don't laud it.

One benefit that may be a positive outcome, patients with brain damage or memory loss could potentially be able to restore there lost memory's by downloading them from a digital backup but once again this would soon be abused by those that would want to use it as the perfect brainwashing tool.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

It is a scientific answer just not intelligent

Science is mechanics, intelligence is wisdom

The expert does not recommend or approve this technology, only that it is feasible for the right price tag and we all know who can afford it

Seasons don't fear the reaper but Balenciaga and all their friends do

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: FlyersFan2

I am personally not excited about this but find it depressing and actually extremely dangerous to the human race.

Exactly. Same here.

a reply to: FlyersFan2

Like the movie Night at the Museum

Except not funny…. or maybe more funnier

In the movie, one character is working on her dissertation about Sakajewia.
At night, the museum comes to life so she gets some inside Info directly from Sakajewia that helps her finish her dissertation.

Have to agree, it sounds like an un endurable nightmare. The point of eternal life is to draw near to God, seeking to know Him throughout all eternity - and even that wouldn't be enough. These people have no concept of an eternal, all powerful, God that is infinitely worthy of being worshipped for all eternity.

It is evil and utterly foolish to attempt to live for ever apart from God, not knowing at this very moment He is sustaining every fiber of being and atom in the universe for his namesake and mercy.

a reply to: Observationalist

Do you one better

I consider this the spiritual sucesor to matrix films, touches on all the quandary of digital immortality and its evil

I was hoping for imotallity in a artifical universe... this article just sounds like another A.I based on user input.

Blackhole Sun won't you come, and wash away...

originally posted by: Observationalist
a reply to: FlyersFan2

Like the movie Night at the Museum

Except not funny…. or maybe more funnier

In the movie, one character is working on her dissertation about Sakajewia.
At night, the museum comes to life so she gets some inside Info directly from Sakajewia that helps her finish her dissertation.

Was Sakajewia, the Israeli cousin to Sacagawea?


I mean yea I had to look it up but I had the S A C A G right...

So... they can model human consciousness and build so close an approximation that one cannot tell a copy from an original! Yay! Digital immortality!

The thing about this mode of 'immortality' (until entropy- like rust, a solar flare or errant black hole, anyway) is that your personal narrative still ends. Your story fades to black (or heavenly choirs, whatevs), but it ENDS.

So what if another "you" blinks into existence in some hellish cloud, splendorous heaven or pong game? The original you perspective stops ... is dead, dead, dead.

How is this any different, personally, than littering the world with your careless half-gene spawn? No "immortality" there... just endless dittos of the same sad point of ego with no continuity of perspective.

a reply to: FlyersFan2

Is this the new cryogenic scam?

Their assumption is that it is the brain which gives birth to consciousness, however they are utterly unable to explain how that happens. They suppose it is enough to simulate the whole structure of the brain and the nervous system in order to have consciousness. But it is just an assumption. Science is absolutely unable to explain how even the smallest and insignificant of your experiences comes to exist.

The same crowd believes that a computer can become conscious, can have inner life, can feel things like us or a dog or bird. They think complexity by itself is enough to explain consciousness. That's just an argument out of ignorance.

I can simulate my liver on my computer down to the molecular level, it doesn't mean my computer will start to pee on my desk. It is the same for consciousness.

Nothing is safe not now nor in future, there is always that idiot who gets a bright idea to create something with AI which should not be created. Human history is filled with blood and suffering and really brutal insane rulers.

Scientists, bless their hearts, do not understand what they are talking about. Scientists are, by and large, devout materialists. The basic tenant of materialists is that EVERYTHING can be explained in physical terms. To them consciousness is merely the firing of synapses in the brain that cause certain results. If we could mimic those material events precisely, then Voila! "Immortality!" Tough to do, perhaps, but not impossible.

When I was a kid I thought all the dead cowboys and Indians in the TV shows I watched like Lone Ranger could be found in the back of the TV. All you had to do is open the back of this massive piece of furniture and scoop out all the dead bodies. My Dad finally dissuaded me of this idea when he took a screwdriver, unscrewed the back piece of the TV set, and let me peer inside. All I could see was a vast forest of glowing tubes that gave off a tremendous amount of heat. No dead cowboys could be found. If you pulled out one of those tubes, the TV picture usually disappeared.

That is the TV Set Fallacy. The mistake is in thinking the TV set itself contains the program and furnishes it to the audience. In fact, the TV set is a mere transmitter that is tuned to pick up the TV signal out of the air (in those days) or via a cable or satellite connection or other medium like a DVD and translate it for human consumption. Even poorly educated people today have a basic understanding of how this works. If you take an axe to the TV set, that doesn't mean the program disappears. It's just that the TV set can no longer pick up and translate the program.

When it comes to the human brain and consciousness, scientists have missed this fundamental issue. They think that anyone who thinks this way is expressing religion, and religion is anathema to science. It simply cannot be true at all, period. It violates their world view. Jesus was a charlatan. God does not exist, and anyone who thinks so is stupid, ignorant or both. If you've ever had Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists or Scientologists engage you in conversation, you know how they think. Engaging them in conversation is well nigh impossible because they are so convinced of the truth of their beliefs.

But if you are willing to entertain the idea that consciousness expresses itself through the brain and body, but does not come from the brain or body itself, a whole lot of things can be explained with some clarity. This does not mean God or Jesus, but it does admit to another realm that is not easily found with scientific instruments. It may be possible to construct a machine that could imitate the brain well enough to accept consciousness. But that does not imply that the brain IS consciousness. Scientists cannot admit this possibility, and this leads to them altogether missing the point.

a reply to: FlyersFan2

To date, there is only one species that has been proven to be "biologically immortal" to a fashion, and thats the Jellyfish "Turritopsis dohrnii".

Humans are not Jellyfish, and simply cannot achieve immortality due to our biological limitations, genetic programming, cellular senescence, and pretty much entropy.

Fact is our minds are not really equipped to exist for more than about 120 years and that's under perfect conditions that simply do not exist.

I can see life extension technology becoming a thing but true immortality is beyond the ability of biology to facilitate alone.

Now where digital immortality is concerned, well the question begs, are we more than the sum of our parts, and would the essence of such be somehow lost in translation?

I've seen several movies with this theme. But frankly, who cares? I have real photos of my relatives that my kids have ZERO interest in. Same with all my family and friends. It's like the scientists think others would be interested in our measly lives. Maybe a few here and there but there are 7 billion people on this planet. And that's just the current ones. I think science tries too hard to make us immortal in one way or another. We and our lives simply weren't designed for that, at least not in this realm. Well, except for Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.

Physicist Michio Kaku says digital immortality is 'within reach'

I respect Michio Kaku as a theoretical physicist, I didn't know he was a theologian as well.

Digital Soul...interesting concept!