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The Why Files: Operation Podcast

548: DEEP DIVE: Digital Afterlife: Preserving Your Mind for Eternity

The Why Files: Operation Podcast

The Why Files: Operation Podcast

Science, Life Sciences, Fiction, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science Fiction

4.85.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Picture a future where your mind can live forever, uploaded to a digital universe. As scientists race to map the brain and tech giants vie to connect minds with machines, the promise of immortality beckons.

But at what cost? Uncover the astonishing breakthroughs and grapple with the profound implications as the boundaries between human and artificial blur. Would you sacrifice your physical body for a shot at eternity in the cloud?

Today we explore the cutting-edge science, the startling realities, and the mind-bending possibilities that await us on the horizon of consciousness uploading. Get ready to question everything you thought you knew about life, death, and what it means to be human.

Transcript

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0:00.0

As long as people have been alive, they've wanted to stay alive.

0:04.0

For centuries, explorers have searched for the fountain of youth.

0:08.0

And today, scientists are hard at work, researching technology that can extend the human lifespan, stop or reverse aging,

0:16.0

and even preserve a terminally ill person indefinitely until a cure for their disease is discovered.

0:22.0

But what if, instead of preserving our bodies we

0:25.5

could preserve our consciousness by uploading it to a powerful computer? This is

0:30.8

called mind uploading and one startup has developed a procedure to do exactly this.

0:37.0

It's scientifically sound there's a waiting list to participate and the procedure is 100% fatal.

0:44.0

There is no limit.

0:47.0

There is no limit to human desire.

0:55.0

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, there is a limit to our lifespan.

1:00.0

But what if we could upload our memories, experiences, our entire consciousness to the cloud?

1:06.8

This would be a sort of digital immortality.

1:09.9

It might not be as far-fetched as you think.

1:13.0

Famous Futures-Wile believes we'll be able to upload our entire minds to computers

1:18.5

by 2045, and that machines will replace our entire bodies by the end of the century.

1:24.0

Now this might be a bit optimistic, but it really is just a matter of time,

1:29.0

but there are a few issues we need to solve first.

1:32.0

The concept of uploading an entire human brain is called

1:35.1

whole brain emulation. Three main areas of technology make this possible,

1:39.6

scanning, processing power, and environment.

1:43.4

Let's start with brain scanning.

...

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