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Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

Ep18 "Could you upload your brain to live forever?"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

iHeartPodcasts

Mental Health, Science, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Education

4.6524 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How would we know if we were living in a simulation? What if you were a butterfly having a dream it was a human? What does any of this have to do with John Lennon, or Renee Descartes, or freezing yourself in a vat of liquid nitrogen? How will we eventually solve the problem that human bodies can’t do space travel? Join Eagleman for a wild ride into the strange possibility of making brains immortal.

Transcript

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0:00.0

How would we know if we're living in a simulation?

0:09.7

And what does that have to do with having a dream that you're a butterfly, or John Lennon,

0:15.5

or René Descartes, or freezing yourself in a vat of liquid nitrogen.

0:21.3

And how will we solve the problem that human bodies can't do space travel?

0:29.0

Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me, David Eagleman.

0:32.2

I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University,

0:35.9

and I've spent my career studying the intersection

0:38.3

between how the brain works and how we experience life.

0:42.3

And what I'm going to talk about today is the possibility of living forever.

0:46.3

What does that have to do with the brain?

0:49.3

Would we want to live forever?

0:51.3

And how could we get there?

0:53.3

Humans have been obsessed with the idea want to live forever, and how could we get there?

1:03.7

Humans have been obsessed with the idea of immortality for ages. As far back as documented history goes, there are stories of humans trying everything to unlock the secret to eternal life. In Arthurian literature, the Holy Grail was said to have

1:15.3

miraculous healing powers, and it would grant to anyone who drank from it eternal youthfulness.

1:22.1

And the ancient Egyptians, they would painstakingly prepare the physical body for the journey to the afterlife,

1:29.2

and they believed you were reborn again and again.

1:32.7

And China's first emperor launched an obsessive search for the elixir of life,

1:38.0

and that obsession continues in cultures all over the world today.

1:41.9

While leaving a legacy is the only thing close to

1:45.8

immortality by today's standards, Woody Allen wanted the real thing. He said, I don't want to

1:52.2

achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. He said,

...

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