The primal drive to survive, which once made our ancestors build raw tools to feed & fend; is now responsible for our many scientific advances, which we hope, one day, shall help us unravel the secrets behind our inherent mortal nature.

Would we achieve immortality in our generation? That is a question I often find asking myself and many others.

The answer, in its varied forms, ultimately ends with these 3 magical words — “we don’t know”.

After all, every hero from Gilgamesh (circa 2600 BC) to Peter Weyland (God bless his soul!) have tried.

And failed.

Miserably failed.

“Gilgamesh became the hero par excellence of the ancient world — an adventurous, brave, but tragic figure symbolizing man’s vain but endless drive for fame, glory, and immortality” — Samuel Noah Kramer

But what makes us, our generation, any different? Are we really poised to fail in our quest for immortality? Or will this generation be instrumental in achieving immortality where so many mortals from time immemorial failed.

The stakes are in our favor.

We are, after all, a generation that grew up knowing about magical devices that allow us to communicate with entities millions of miles away in just minutes - something that would be seemingly ridiculous just over a century ago.

It can hardly be denied though, that our generation today has the highest number of people alive who believe that one-day, achieving immortality is inevitable; or are at least willing to entertain that thought, without having the urge to kill the other individual for blasphemy.

What makes immortality seem so within our grasp?

Maybe because humanity, right now, is on the cusp of a revolution that can help us achieve two kinds of immortality:

In the near-future, we could have an AI model our minds, feed-in our thoughts, emotions, everything that makes us “human” and live eternally ever after. Artificial Immortality. With DNA editing & Nanotech — we soon could prevent ageing altogether. There you go. Biological Immortality.

Both these supposed techniques could end up giving us immortality — one through the mind, the other through the body. But ask yourself, what makes YOU truly immortal? Is it your mind? Your body? Or is it your consciousness?

Consciousness?

We all “know” that we are conscious, although the term by itself has become highly misused and is often hard to define. For the sake of this article, consciousness here means “awareness” of possession. For example, I am conscious that I possess this body and it does what I ask it to do — most of the time. :)

So if we know that consciousness is real, the next logical question is — where does it stem from? Does it come from our mind, brain, or something else?

If consciousness does indeed stem from our brain — does our brain have a switch, which goes on & off at call — and completely off when we die, never to be resurrected ever again?

NCC or “neuronal correlates of consciousness” is a sub-branch of neuroscience, which operates under the assumption that the brain is the instrument that produces consciousness. After all, what else could it be?

In this context the neuronal correlates of consciousness may be viewed as its causes, and consciousness may be thought of as a state-dependent property of some undefined complex, adaptive, and highly interconnected biological system. — Fundamental Neuroscience, Larry R. Squire

Undeniably, there has to be a system behind the creation of consciousness; however there is a high probability that the system belongs to a branch of science other than biology, a branch that we’re yet to discover, explaining why we cannot truly explain its source under the usual constraints of biology.

Then there is the research behind re-incarnation, past life regression, xenoglossy, and near-death experiences; which adds to question — does consciousness really originate from our mind & brain? And if it does, can we artificially put that consciousness from our brain to an AI?