IF you could live forever by simply uploading your brain to a computer, would you consider it?

Several high profile names including Elon Musk and ex-Googler, Anthony Levandowski, are on a quest to accelerate what's been described as the "technological singularity", an evolutionary step in which we merge with machines.

3 Understanding how the brain works could also assist those with brain injurie, help epilepsy and depression and could even lead to immortality Credit: Getty Images

While the idea that we could upload our brains to a computer is pretty terrifying, it's not confined to science fiction.

That's according to Professor Brian Cox, who told The Sun Online that he found "no reason at all why you cannot simulate human intelligence".

The Mancunian BBC presenter, who boasts in-depth knowledge of particle physics along with a set of graceful piano fingers (yes, he's playing the keyboard throughout D:Ream's iconic tune Things Can Only Get Better) said that true artificial intelligence is absolutely possible, according to quantum mechanics.

You might have heard the phrase artificial intelligence bandied about by Apple or Google, whose clever computing methods power smart assistant Siri and a massive search engine that learns how to become better at their jobs.

But these are a series of processes that appear similar to intelligence, not to be confused with "mind uploading" like that dodgy Johnny Depp flick, Transcendence.

What many future-gazers, eminent scientists and the likes of Elon Musk are hoping for is a true symbiosis between the biological and digital world.

3 Professor Brian Cox yesterday addressed a crowd at IP Expo in London's Excel Centre

That means uploading an entire brain to a computer so it can simulate the very essence of what makes us human - as far as we understand it.

If - or when - the technological singularity comes about, humans will just have been a blip on the Earth's surface.

Despite priding ourselves on our super smart brains, there's not too much that separates us from computer systems.

"I don't think people's minds are different from computers because that would imply there's something non-physical about them", Professor Cox added.

What is technological singularity? There's a popular theory that artificial superintelligence will trigger a huge surge in technological growth, surpassing our own species and resulting in massive changes to our civilisation. Anthony Levandowski, former Uber and Google self-driving car engineer famously founded his own church based on this idea. Way to the Future is based on the premise that Levandowski, according to reports, will help create an AI god. Levandowski is currently locked in a legal battle over claims he stole trade secrets from Uber. Documents from 2015 that were last week published by Wired state that his religion’s aim was: "To develop and promote the realisation of a godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the godhead contribute to the betterment of society."

Of course, it won't be plain sailing and there's plenty of technological obstructions that scientists will have to overcome before we're all stored in the cloud.

It's all based on finding computers that are big enough to simulate intelligence such as quantum computers.

There's also the complex quantum principle called the "no cloning" theory which suggests that it is impossible to copy things, which might make it difficult to mimic a specific brain.

The US government wants to implant tiny computers the size of a pound coin into people's brains so they can communicate telepathically.

3 Elon Musk recently unveiled his grand plans to colonise the Solar System along with financial backing of a human brain interface Credit: Getty Images

They are in the market for devices that could let humans operate machinery with our minds, treat brain injuries and possibly most crucially of all... send WhatsApp messages using the power of thought alone.

There's already a brain project in place, where scientists are working on creating an artificial brain.

The Human Brain Project, a ten-year mission cofounded by the European Union, hopes to simulate brains to understand how we learn, perceive the world, sleep, and are conscious.

But fear not, simulated floating brains aren't ready quite yet.

"I think we are at a cockroach level of simulating the nervous system right now," Cox joked.

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