The request for an endless extension of life (life after death) is present almost throughout the entire existence of humanity. Most religions are trying to answer this request. There is also a prosaic commercial exploitation of this topic such as various kinds cryonics and a complete record of a person’s life to create a plausible posthumous copy of him. All these methods do not give a true extension of life, only just a psychotherapeutic and manipulative effect for living people. I will try to look at this problem from an engineering point of view.

Challenge

We need to survive the destruction of the biological carrier (death of the biological body) without loss for the individual (accumulated knowledge, emotional experiences, character, etc.). The problem of the primacy of the person received must be guaranteed to be solved — the survivor of “death” should remain the original person, not a copy or imitation. The person must maintain the ability to communicate and act in the real world, it is also desirable to maintain legal capacity from a legal point of view.

The solution

To paraphrase the original technical task, it is necessary to save everything that represents a human personality on a new carrier. Just strengthening the current body which only adds a lifetime and making it indestructible, or creating a system of permanent “repair” is not an optimal solution to the problem. Today’s biological body, although it is very optimal for biological existence on planet Earth, is not ideal for the further development. Preserving yourself at the “advanced monkey” level is not the best solution.

In today’s understanding, what is human consciousness at the lowest level in today’s understanding?

Human consciousness is the topology of neuronal connections, their states and the dynamics of changes in these connections and states. Since it is necessary to take into account the dynamics of state changes, there is no way to simply copy all these parameters from the biological brain and run the resulting model in a computer system. The next moment after copying, a new personality variation will form in the biological brain, and the computer model will become just a copy, or imitation.

To solve this problem, you can apply the following trick. In the process of natural life, part of the brain (individual neurons or neural ensembles) constantly dies, but this does not erase the identity of a particular person. It is clear that the number of neurons that have died at one time should not be too large. The death of part of neurons is a natural state of the human body — that is, to counter the loss of information, the process of “neuroplasticity” is constantly happening. This process is constantly rebuilding the neural network connections to compensate for losses, remembering current experience and learning new skills. We can say that a person’s personality is constantly changing, or floating.

If you can’t copy the human brain, then you can gradually replace all biological neurons with artificial ones. What will happen to the personality of a particular person? Of course, it will change, but it will be exactly the person who was before the implantation of artificial neurons. Initially, we add artificial neurons to the human brain in a random place, in places with increased death of biological neurons, or even attach artificial neurons to all biological neurons in general. Next, there will be a cyclic process of the death of natural neurons and the restructuring of the current network in a new configuration, using implanted artificial neurons in it — such a process is natural for a biological organism. To compensate for losses due to too fast death of natural neurons, you can add the process of scanning the parameters of the initial neurons and instantly replacing it in case of death with an artificial neuron adjacent to it. As a result, a transparent and gradual decoupling of the human personality from natural neurons and their replacement with artificial components occurs. The process of death seems to stretch in time — there is no sharp moment of death, there is no interruption of consciousness and, accordingly, there is no problem “is it me or a copy of me?” It must be understood that the transfer is completed only after natural death.

Result

A person, after the implantation of such a system, lives an ordinary life until the death of the biological body. At the time of death, his brain is completely composed of artificial systems and can be transferred to a new body. The new body can be either a biological clone of this person (we can grow a clone with the brain turned off), a robotic device (cyborg), or transferred to virtual reality (computer).

To understand the features and opportunities offered, you can read the fantastic literature from the LitRPG section (Dmitry Rus, Artem Kamenisty, Andrey Livadny, etc.).

What technologies and tools are necessary for the gradual transfer of personality to a new carrier?

The very first is devices for accessing certain neurons into the brain and integrating into neural networks at a level sufficient to participate in the mechanism of neuroplasticity. Here you can implement many approaches, from fully functional biological neurons grown from modified cells of the human body, to complex biocompatible molecules (devices) that attach to the desired places in natural neurons and allow you to read the state of a neuron or transmit an external effect to a neuron. You can even go completely non-contact way, remotely read and excite individual neurons (something from the field of MRI).

Only the following requirements are important:

1. participation in the process of neuroplasticity;

2. selectivity (effect on a specific neuron);

3. repeatability (communications must be stationary);

4. absence of information loss (all moments of neuron excitation must be detected and a response to them formed).

The creation of such devices is possible using knowledge from molecular biology and physics of nanodevices. We can tentatively say that technologically the creation of such devices is already possible at the current level of scientific knowledge and production capabilities, it is only necessary to optimally design them. You can start with the technology of access to the peripheral nervous system, it is more accessible and the number of access points is minimal. In addition, the technology of access to the nervous system already has its consumer in the real economy (for example, one who will make a capsule for games with full immersion will become rich).

The second part of the project, and even more important than the first part, is the creation of a computational paradigm that allows you to build a seamless information connection between a living human brain and a computer network. In addition, the project is informationally complex and requires great support by computational technologies at the design stage (real-time monitoring of the human brain is a monstrous task, it only saves the situation that not all neurons are activated in the brain at the same time).

The current state of computer technology can be described as a “hypertrophied calculator” (mathematicians created a computer to automate calculations, which was laid down in the current paradigm). The use of computers outside the framework of computational mathematics is ensured by the functional completeness of the principle of constructing computer technology (the possibility of creating a mathematical model). Everything would be fine, but there is a fundamental limitation that does not allow or at least severely limits the use of computing systems for uncontrolled systems (a controlled system is a system for which all variants of its states and behavior are known). In addition, it is necessary to note the fundamental sequence of work of modern computing systems (the presence of several “threads” of the computing process only emphasizes the problem and is not parallel computing at all) and the lack of tools for working with large and complex information tasks. For such tasks, creating a unified and consistent program for all use cases is impossible (for the von Neumann computational paradigm) due to the finite number of programmers and the possibilities for their joint work. At today’s level of knowledge in the field of computer technology, it is impossible to write a complex program with guaranteed (calculated) reliability and accuracy. It is impossible to tell (mathematically prove) in advance whether the program will be able to correctly complete the calculations with the correct result. Most programs do not control the accuracy of the result. For example, the developer says: “And let’s use the type with the largest bit capacity”, but it does not check for a specific result and there is no reaction to an incorrect result — the maximum result will be an abnormal termination of program execution. For an ordinary person, writing a parallel program is not a natural process, the logical thinking of a typical person is sequential.

We can complain about the current state of affairs endlessly, but one thing is certain, at present, computer technology has implemented all the groundwork of the 70s of the last century and is in stagnation.

The invention of a new computational paradigm is required not only for a life extension project, but will also be in demand by the entire computer industry.

I personally would give a lot (financially) to play in a fully virtual world. I think many will agree with me.

Like so many, I chose my hobby: the next-generation computing paradigm (fifth-generation computer). In the 80s, Japanese comrades failed on this path, so I propose to accept the banner from weakened samurai hands. I invite everyone who is interested in this direction to take part in the work. For the “seed” of the undertaking, I will publish my own developments in this direction.

Why do we all need digital immortality (instead of conclusion)

1. Intellectual limitations

Now a human has practically reached a maximum in development, in order to achieve the advanced lines of existing science it is required to study practically all his life and at the same time to achieve it only in a very small area of knowledge. Compare with antiquity — while you are a scientist, then you are a scientist in almost all areas of knowledge.

2. Limitations of the biological body

From a biological point of view, man saved himself from the negative aspects of life in nature, he built his own habitat, but he did not save himself from copying errors (together with artificial selection, he continues to be the basis of evolution) and soon man will not be able to live without high-tech medicine. So, do you need to build a factory where new genetically corrected people (citizens with a unique personality) will be produced? I think this approach is a dead end.

3. Habitat restrictions

The resources of our planet are running out (in some regions, the population density is more than one person per hundred square meters of land), and a long and comfortable life in space or another planet is practically impossible for a biological person.

If we compare humanity with an airplane taking off from an aerodrome, then we have achieved a separation rate from the strip. We can not slow down, we need to take off, the alternative is to crash into a forest at the end of the runway (which leads to the loss of many achievements and the onset of the dark ages). That is precisely such a take-off that should be the technology of detachment of a human personality from a biological body and transferring this person to a new carrier.

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