Digital Immortality

Immortality has been our dream since ancient times.The Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty (B.C. 259-210), who ordered construction of the Great Wall, sent explorers led by Xu Fu (Jofuku) overseas to many eastern lands, including Japan, in search of the elixir of life (a medicine to bring about immortality).

Although Emperor Qin’s desire was not fulfilled, the long-standing human quest for immortality is now being transformed from a dream to a potential reality, at least as far as mind or consciousness (an essential element of life) is concerned.
According to a prediction by Ray Kurzweil, a Google researcher, human-level intelligence in a machine, capable of passing the Turing test (Alan Turing’s eponymous exam to demonstrate whether an AI is indistinguishable from a biological human), will be developed by 2029. And some futurists, including Kurzweil, believe that humans will achieve digital immortality by uploading their minds to computers by 2045.

Digital immortality will be realized by “mindclones” (digital versions of the human mind that can live forever). To this end, the entirety of the information about a given human brain will be transferred into a file (a “mindfile”), which can then be processed in a specific computer (“mindware”) to reproduce the human consciousness/mind extracorporeally (the mindclone). To date, none of these steps has been achieved. We are still at a relatively early stage of this roadmap. However, research in the field of cyber science has been advancing exponentially. The time until we achieve this goal of “mindcloning” may be shorter than one might expect.

Mindfile → Mindware → Mindclone

Of the three steps to mindcloning, the first step (scanning the brain for uploading) will probably be more complicated and difficult to achieve than the other two.
The human brain is made up of 15-33 billion neurons, each of which is connected by synapses to several thousand other neurons, resulting in a total of ca. 100 trillion synapses per brain. Neurons, with their huge numbers of synapses, transmit and receive information, utilizing both electrical signals and chemical messengers (and possibly other as yet unknown factors*), to produce consciousness (the mind). (*For example, according to the theory "Orchestrated Objective Reduction" proposed by Stuart Hameroff et al., neuronal microtubule vibrations are also involved closely in consciousness).

How can we scan and save such a complex mixture effectively and completely? Studies on BCI (the brain-computer interface), also known as BMI (the brain-machine interface), have recently begun, in attempts to help physically handicapped people to manipulate devices/instruments in their daily life by converting the brain’s commands into electrical signals via an implanted device to execute the users intentions to manipulate the device/instrument. The accumulation of results and experience in this and other fields will facilitate a thorough understanding of the mechanism of human consciousness and, if combined with the findings from other diverse and innovative technologies such as brain imaging, mapping, scanning and so on, it will cultivate a path for us to achieve the goal of obtaining a “mindfile”.

We do not know how many years it will take until a complete mindfile can be obtained. It may take a dozen years or several decades. The length of time will depend on the resources invested and the efforts made by humans, particularly those individuals set on living forever or enterprises with strong innovative spirits. For those individuals currently in their 20s, realization of a personal mindfile during their lifetime is highly likely, but there is little time left for the so-called “baby boomers” (born between 1947 and 1949 in Japan or between 1946 and 1964 in the US, i.e. immediately after World War II). Particular efforts and contributions will be expected of this generation if they are to achieve development of a mindfile in their lifetime.

Once a mindfile becomes available, the next step is to develop a system for reproducing that mindfile (“mindware”). The mindware will be composed of software/algorithms for reproduction of the mind and will be linked to apparatus for execution of the activities/motions intended by that mind. It is plausible to imagine that thanks to advances in audiovisual instrumentation and mechanical systems, functions and capabilities not possessed by flesh humans could be executed by the mindware (used for embodiment of the mindfile), thus creating “super-humans” (for example, flying humans, humans able to live underwater, and so on). If special modules are attached to the mindware, it will also be possible to assign extra functions and capabilities such as super-calculating capability, super-reasoning capability and multilingual capabilities.

In a future not far away, humans will thus get the means of maintaining their mind (consciousness) forever whilst also acquiring new functions/capabilities.

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