What if you could live forever? Can we become immortal? Sounds exciting, right?

Are you asking yourself, “can we become immortal, living as the enchanting undead of those fantasy movies we all love?” Can we become immortal and have the speed and mind-reading powers of vampires in twilight or cast spells like the awesome Sabrina Spellman?

That would be very cool, but we aren’t talking about that. When we ask the question, “can we become immortal?” we’re referring to introducing a new technology using which scientists would actually be able to upload human brains onto the body of a robot!

So, how does this exciting process work?

Read further to know how can we become immortal:

1. Can we Become Immortal: What is Mind Uploading?

The mind is referred to as the combination of your consciousness and intellectual abilities. It’s the tool that lets you think, imagine, dream and remember.

Mind uploading or whole brain emulation is the theoretical concept of scanning and copying the components, abilities, and functions of your mind and transferring them into a computer to simulate your consciousness.

Step 2 in uncovering this breakthrough is knowing how this process works: Can we become immortal using mind uploading?

2. Can we Become Immortal: How Does it Work?

The sci-fi legends are true! There is, in fact, an answer to the question “can we become immortal,” and it’s yes. However, the process is more complicated than what the movies show.

The brain is composed of billions of neurons, an important component of the brain. They’re cells connected by long threads with fingerlike projections, all forming a huge network. These threads are called synaptic connections, which also have information encoded in them. So here’s where the brain processes all the information it ever receives.

Imagine everything you’ve ever learned, from the alphabet to Newton’s laws of motion; all of it was encoded in these synaptic connections. Even memories like riding your first bike or celebrating a birthday are processed in this network.

Each event that takes place in your life is added as a new memory in the brain, which leads to the formation of a new synapse every time.

So, the trillions of synapses in your brain have to be digitally scanned and mapped to reconstruct it. This would mean creating a copy of this highly complex structure and downloading it as an emulated brain onto a computer.

Moreover, this digital copy of your brain would also have to retain your memories and knowledge so you can live forever through a robot. Complicated right? However, it’s not impossible. Scientists have made some strides in this process. So can we become immortal one day, or will we perish like dinosaurs?

Can we become immortal, given the current progress of mind uploading?

3. Can we Become Immortal: What’s the Progress?

All this talk of immortality makes you wonder about the progress of mind uploading. There have been various projects, all taking us one step closer to becoming immortal.

However, the human brain is complicated. It’s a complex box of emotions, thoughts, memories, logic, and creativity. Scanning every aspect of this bizarre world and copying it onto a computer would require the right technology and years of research. That’s actually what researchers are now trying to do.

Have you heard about reincarnation? What about putting a roundworm brain in a lego robot? It’s not the same as reincarnation, but the robot started behaving like a roundworm after the process.

The robot’s forward movement was halted when the nose was stimulated. It moved forward and back in response to touching the anterior and posterior touch sensors. The robot also moved forward after the food sensor was stimulated.

So why did the researchers use this basic as hell roundworm? This was because they were extremely familiar with its simple brain. They mapped all of its 302 neurons and created a simulation of it in software. Then that software was put into this robot, and just like that, the roundworm scientifically reincarnated through a simple Lego robot!

Another project has involved taking a cubic millimeter of a mouse brain, mapping it, and recreating it. This is one of the most advanced steps scientists have taken to reconstruct. When it comes to the most advanced mammals, the humans, here’s the progress:

Reverse engineering is also being used to recreate the human brain. This is a major step into understanding the human brain so that we can make AI machines much more intelligent.

Imagine the smartest person you know. They know everything there’s to know about the world and can perform tasks much faster than other people. Can’t think of anyone? That’s because we’re describing a robot. Robots are efficient and extremely intelligent, yet humans are the ones who’ve changed the world.

This is why scientists are trying to recreate the human brain to replicate it and use it to make AI machines more like humans. One major advantage of this process is that we can outlive any apocalypses that come our way and unlock the key to immortality.

So, in the end, Can we become immortal through scientific methods? Scientists are in it for the long haul, but many believe that there’s a fast-moving progression towards whole brain emulation.

So, now that we’ve answered the question, “can we become immortal?” let’s see what the future will look life if scientists can pull this off:

4. Can we Become Immortal: What will the Future Look Like?

Can you think of the craziest thing about the future you’ve ever seen or heard of? It would probably have been a scene of cyberpunk shows like black mirror or love, death, and robots, where robots have kept humans on leashes. Most episodes are set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are dead, and robots live to see the ruins.

Read or watch the maze runner trilogy if you want to know another theory about our dystopian doom. Spoiler alert: there’s going to be an apocalypse in it. This movie is a real wake-up call about human practices and how we could wake up one day and see the world perish.

Let’s time travel to the 2060s: In the movie 2067, nuclear war and climate change have caused death, and only one city has survived it. Have you heard of synthetic oxygen? The only people who survived the apocalypse in this movie live through synthetic oxygen. They eventually realize it’s tainted and causes a deadly disease.

Take divergent, where people are divided into factions. Surely, we all like to speculate about whether we’re erudite, dauntless, amity, candor, or abnegation. This movie is a sneak peek into a divided post-apocalyptic world, where there is so much control and oppression that society is prone to rebellion and, ultimately, destruction.

The cutting-edge technology involving the simulator and the various “tests” taken by the factions may excite you. Still, it’s also a reality check about the division and oppression that might occur.

We’ve all seen Terminator 2, where AI has taken over in the future and time machines are real! If you haven’t seen it, the movie showcases the war between the human resistance and AI in the future.

In it, the evil AI Skynet conspires to kill the leader of the humans, John Connor, by sending a cyborg assassin called the terminator back to the past. The human resistance also sent a Terminator back to 1995 from 2029 to save John, the future of humanity. While this concept is fascinating, it’s also chilling to hear about an unprecedented AI takeover.

These are all just theories about the future that may just come true. Most of these theorists say humanity will perish. However, what if there was still hope for a brighter future? What if we could prevent our dystopian future by dominating robot bodies?

The world ultimately has to come to an end someday. But what if we could extend that period? Amid robot uprisings and global warming apocalypses, we wouldn’t have a chance of prevailing in the future. Using a robot body could also help humankind prevail against threats like increased temperature, pollution, or an ultimate AI takeover.

If the process of mind uploading works the way scientists want, humans would open their robotic eyes in the future and feel exactly like themselves. They would be able to retain their memories, all the knowledge they acquired, and still be able to feel and express emotion. Their bodies would also be much more durable, thereby helping humanity survive against the anticipated global warming, contaminated air, or even a worldwide pandemic. The only difference: they would be able to cheat death.

Reading those dystopian theories made us pessimistic about the future, but the process of mind uploading helps us believe that there’s still hope for humanity. So, can we become immortal? We don’t know yet, but the future will look bright if we keep our hopes up.

So, let’s bet on this bright future of humanity! Are you ready to gamble with death?

Last Updated on August 29, 2023 by ayeshayusuf