Russian Scientists Seek Immortality by 2045

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Well, it seems that your brain would be dead, and so it would simply project your memories, knowledge, and experiences into robot with artificial intelligence. Death of the brain is a result of death of the body, and I believe the soul separates from the body at death. Therefore, someone would really wind up with a ‘Mumbles’ dummy for some cheap ventriloquist act maybe. However, since I don’t believe that would be treating the body of a deceased person with respect in terms of proper burial, etc, probably not a good thing…
 
That’s extremely difficult. On the one hand, it seems a bit like taking the Fruit from the Tree in the Garden of Eden… on the other hand, I don’t think any serious Catholic seriously denies the efficacy of medicine. It’s great from an atheistic, annihilistic standpoint, but from the Christian standpoint, it probably harms more than hinders in that the longer we’re here, the longer we’re away from home.

God bless,
 
Eh, I don’t think it will ever be possible. They don’t even have a definition of consciousness so how are they going to simulate it. Also, I believe that our conscious mind is only a small part of who we are, the unconscious plays a much bigger role. We don’t have direct access to this hidden part of ourselves so how on earth could it be simulated?
 
Russians thought this was almost within reach back when Lenin died. They published articles about how they were going to confer everlasting life through science. They preserved Lenin’s brain, thinking it could be somehow revitalized soon. Possibly they even believed it.

And the cryogenics people charge huge sums to hang one upside down in liquid nitrogen tanks for later revival. For lesser, but still significant sums, they’ll just freeze your head for you.

And so this recent Russian is soliciting money from rich people and offering them immortality in exchange.

Kind of sounds like things we have heard before. :rolleyes:
 
The idea is intriguing. If it works, how would it do so? I think it would be like cleverbot; an assortment of knowledge from a person’s life that is expected to interpret that info correctly. Honestly speaking, it would be pretty funny to see what happens when a human’s memories are put into an android.

As for the morality of the issue, it strikes me as an interesting attempt at defying a death that God allows, or at least circumventing the loss you would normally feel from the loss of a loved one. Possibly immoral, but also it may be simply morally neutral.
 
Aeden said:
The idea is intriguing. If it works, how would it do so? I think it would be like cleverbot; an assortment of knowledge from a person’s life that is expected to interpret that info correctly. Honestly speaking, it would be pretty funny to see what happens when a human’s memories are put into an android.

As for the morality of the issue, it strikes me as an interesting attempt at defying a death that God allows, or at least circumventing the loss you would normally feel from the loss of a loved one. Possibly immoral, but also it may be simply morally neutral.
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One needs to consider what human life would be like, oh, say 500 years from now if we lived that long, and after we had read every book printed, watched every movie, visited every hot spot, been everywhere and done everything. Personally, I think we’re born to die just like we’re born to live, and unless we’re joined with the infinite somewhere around the end of the normal life span, we will find life very wanting indeed.
 
If somebody is in cryogenics, and they hope to be revived in the future, where is their soul? Has it departed the body and would return if they were revived?
 
I’ll believe it when I see it – I’m not sure it’s actually possible (the human brain does not, despite popular simile, actually work much like an electronic computer).

I don’t think this would actually prolong the person’s life anyway, even if it WERE possible - it’d be just making a copy, which I agree is a bit … iffy.

(And the idea that we’ll be able to transfer a human personality into an artificial brain by 2030-2035? It’s 20 years away? Even if it’s possible at all, there’s no way it’s 20 years away even at the rapid pace of computer development we’ve seen in the last few decades [and I’m far from convinced that that rapid pace will last all that much longer] - especially since an ‘artificial human brain’ would not be ‘a computer like we have now, but better’.
 
I think that the system now in place is fine with me. I will have a childhood, get married, have children, and a career then hopefully see some grandchildren then hopefully meet god. It just seems like a good life to me.
 
To me, this seems unnatural and kinda weird. If this technology is available in my lifetime (which I highly doubt) I do not think I would use it.
 
I’m a Thomist. When the body dies, the human dies. If the brain is gone, I’m dead, even if copies of my memories are stored on some robot. Hylemporphic dualism-very basic.

Now if the brain is alive and I’m controlling an avatar…well, that’s different. It would be something like a giant robot prosthesis, I guess. But what if the robot body “dies”? Then I’m a brain in a vat, literally. How utterly horrific. Somebody would have to kill me, I guess. Which is euthanasia. Which I’m against.

IDK…it would depend on how that technology works, I suppose. But the original concept, the “becoming immortal by transferring my memories into a robot” thing? Completely pointless. I’d be dead anyway when my body died. Copies of my memories on a robot wouldn’t change that.

EDIT: Besides, I think that it’s totally impossible anyway. 👍
 
Ridgerunner said:
One needs to consider what human life would be like, oh, say 500 years from now if we lived that long, and after we had read every book printed, watched every movie, visited every hot spot, been everywhere and done everything. Personally, I think we’re born to die just like we’re born to live, and unless we’re joined with the infinite somewhere around the end of the normal life span, we will find life very wanting indeed.
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I would tend to agree. In the Dune novels of Frank Herbert, the character Duncan Idaho is given something like this through cloning him (into what they called a “ghola”)—several times, actually. And just as you say, he, with his ongoing consciousness, found none of his subsequent lives as meaningful or satisfying as his original. Getting perpetuated was a kind of living hell for him.
 
Ridgerunner said:
One needs to consider what human life would be like, oh, say 500 years from now if we lived that long, and after we had read every book printed, watched every movie, visited every hot spot, been everywhere and done everything. Personally, I think we’re born to die just like we’re born to live, and unless we’re joined with the infinite somewhere around the end of the normal life span, we will find life very wanting indeed.
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Don’t you think books will be written, etc, faster than you can benefit from them?

ICXC NIKA
 
Love the Dune reference! This topic is also explored in the game Fallout: New Vegas where a wealthy man preserves his body and interacts with the world via robots. Surrogates would be another example (movie with Bruce Willis).

While this concept is fascinating from a scientific point it would appear to be morally problematic for any Christian to partake in. Besides being unnatural, imagine how much more imbalanced the world would be if the wealthy and powerful were no longer constrained by natural death…
 
Hmm well i think your soul will have to be taken away by now because God would simply just not allow it.God wants us to love him in his kingdom and he wants you to prove you are worthy by living here on earth+ its just probably a matter of memories not soul so you might already have your soul taken by forever.Just hope it doesn’t happen because you’d be bored by then.

Sincerely,
Ad Infinitum:thumbsup:
 
Ad_Infinitum said:
Hmm well i think your soul will have to be taken away by now because God would simply just not allow it.God wants us to love him in his kingdom and he wants you to prove you are worthy by living here on earth+ its just probably a matter of memories not soul so you might already have your soul taken by forever.Just hope it doesn’t happen because you’d be bored by then.

Sincerely,
Ad Infinitum:thumbsup:
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I don’t disagree with this, but it raises an interesting question. If the soul disappears, and the scientists are left with just digitized memories divested of "soul’ and “personality,” I wonder if the vacuum left in this “being” creates an opportunity for demons to come in and take total control?
 
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