The idea of immortality has fascinated people for nearly as long as humanity has existed. There are many reasons why people desire eternal life. They may feel like they aren’t able to reach their full potential in their natural lifespan. They might want to live on in order to experience the wonders of the far future. They might fear death, pain, or even the process of aging itself. 

Because of these reasons, people have theorized about whether immortality is even possible for the human body. Some believe that human immortality may now be achievable in the 21st century due to technological breakthroughs. 

One specific form of immortality is thought to be achievable the soonest because it relies on preservation of a person’s personality, not their body. It is digital immortality, the concept of transferring or storing a person’s personality into a long-lasting media, like a computer. This stored data leads to a digital avatar that behaves and thinks like the person it was based on, and continues to live and develop even when the original person dies.

“Digital and genetic immortality are within reach,” theoretical physicist and professor Michio Kaku said in a Big Think video. “Already in Silicon Valley, there are companies, which for a price, will digitize everything known about you: your credit card transactions, your emails, Instagrams. And we have something called the Connectome Project which will map the pathways of the entire human brain, all your memories, all your quirks, personalities… we’ll put it on a disc and for the most part, we’ll put it in a library.”

Dr. Kaku claimed that through digital immortalization, it could one day be possible to meet the digital recreation of any historical figure.

The physicist added: “And one day we might be digitized as well. We’ll be able to talk to our great, great, great, great, great-grandkids. And they’ll be able to talk to their great, great, great, great-ancestors as well because we become immortal.”

Multiple projects have furthered this idea. For example, there is the Etemine project, founded by Metabeta founder Marius Ursache, that preserves people’s memories and thoughts, allowing them to form avatars that can interact with each other and develop individually. Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has worked on developing an interface between the brain and a computer. The idea of digital immortality has also been used in entertainment, like the episode Be Right Back of the sci-fi series Black Mirror, or the psychological horror video game SOMA.

However, some scientists doubt that the complex human mind can be stored digitally. What’s more, the concept of digital immortality brings with it many dangers. The power of companies to create avatars of people would be highly manipulative and dangerous. Not only could digital avatars be sold as a way to preserve your own being, they could also be sold to loved ones who miss you.

“The rhetoric around immortal digital selves focuses on our desire to be remembered,” wrote Courtney Humphries for the MIT Technology Review. “But wouldn’t most of us want our loved ones to be able to let us go?”

Graphic courtesy of RT.COM