What if you could attend your own funeral in a new body? According to a former Google engineer, humans could achieve immortality by 2030 through the use of age-reversing nanobots. This article explores the wildest ways scientists are trying to attain eternal life, including preserving the brain and uploading the mind to a computer, cryogenically freezing the brain, rejuvenating cells with stem cells, and even reanimating the brain. Nectome, a US-based startup, is working on a way to preserve the human brain using a high-tech embalming process so that its memories can be uploaded to the cloud, but the key to recreating a person’s consciousness lies in accessing the organ’s “connectome,” the complex web of neural connections in the brain.
• An ex-Google engineer said he thinks humans will achieve immortality by 2030
• These include reanimating the brain and uploading our minds to the cloud
Would you like to live forever? Well, some experts say you might.
Last week, a former Google engineer said he believes that humans will achieve immortality within the next eight years.
Ray Kurzweil – who has an 86 per cent success rate with his predictions – thinks that advances in technology will quickly lead to age-reversing ‘nanobots’.
While it sounds far-fetched, scientists have been looking for years into ways we can regenerate our cells, or upload our minds to a computer.
This article takes a look at the strangest ways humanity could attain eternal life.
HOW HUMANS COULD ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY
Electronic immortality – Preserving brain after death and uploading the mind to a computer.
Freezing the brain – Cryogenically freezing the brain until technology advances to allow it to be brought back to life.
Cell rejuvenation – Rejuvenating ageing or damaged cells in the body by injecting them with stem cells.
Reanimating the brain – Pumping the brain with artificial blood to keep it alive.
The idea of uploading your mind to a computer has been theorised for many years now, but it has mostly remained the stuff of science fiction.
Nectome, a US-based startup, is trying to change that by devising a way to preserve the human brain so that its memories can be uploaded to the cloud.
The firm has figured out a way to preserve the human brain in microscopic detail using a ‘high-tech embalming process,’ according to the MIT Technology Review.
It uses a chemical solution that can keep the body intact for hundreds or thousands of years as a statue of frozen glass.
‘You can think of what we do as a fancy form of embalming that preserves not just the outer details but the inner details,’ said Robert McIntyre, Nectome’s cofounder.
Speaking to prospective customers, Nectome positions its service as: ‘What if we told you we could back up your mind?’
But the key to being able to recreate a person’s consciousness involves accessing the organ’s ‘connectome.’
A connectome is the complex web of neural connections in the brain, often referred to as the brain’s wiring system.
Nectome, which has been referred to as a ‘preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it’ company, has figured out a way to embalm the connectome as well.