From Greek mythology to the Hindu scriptures, from the dark arts of alchemy to the magic of Harry Potter, there has often been talk of an elixir of life, a potion that might offer the chance of immortality.
Yet in the day-to-day world, constrained by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, eternal existence appears impossible, because no technological developments have overcome the way that living organisms age and decay.
But, in the decades to come, there could be a way to keep on living. It may become possible to “upload” our minds so that we can exist digitally even after our bodies have died.
Some think that the technology could develop sufficiently for this to happen in the first half of this century.
Dr Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, said that some see this as “a way of escaping a failing body”.
“This is a way of actually getting back-up copies,” he said.
“This is a way of being able to think faster as computers get faster, transmit yourself to a new virtual environment or a new robot body anywhere where you can transmit your information. It’s darn useful. That’s very appealing to some people.
“Others will of course say, no, no, no, I want to smell the flowers with my original body, anything else is not me, I’m not playing this game.”
The prospect of mind uploading is linked to whole brain emulation, which involves creating an artificial brain with the functions of the original.
Dr Sandberg suggested that this technology is at least decades away, but unexpected breakthroughs might change this.
“I would be very surprised if we had brain emulation in 10 years, but I’m not assigning it zero probability, I’m just thinking maybe 5 per cent or something like that,” he said.
“Brain emulation of fruit flies within 10 years, yes, I think that’s quite doable.”
Mind over matter
Although much of the work aimed at achieving brain emulation is taking place in universities, it is no surprise, given how enticing a prospect immortality is, that there could be commercial opportunities.
Notably, a US start-up called Nectome says that it develops “biological preservation techniques to better preserve the physical traces of memory” and argues that “significant progress can be made” in achieving memory extraction.
Are they building up people’s hopes in order to generate business or could this science fiction-like scenario become reality?
Researchers have a wide range of views on whether whole brain emulation will be possible, and whether brain emulation would, in turn, enable mind uploading, according to Dr Angela Thornton, an associate of the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham in the UK.
Many believe it may take at least 60 years or so to emulate a human brain, Dr Thornton said, while being able to upload a mind would be further into the future.
However, there are “wildly varying estimates” and one celebrated futurist, American author Ray Kurzweil, has previously forecast that mind uploading could happen by 2045.
“If you think of how far technology has increased and improved, particularly coupled with artificial intelligence, 50 or 60 years is not that long,” said Dr Thornton.
Future thoughts
As a physician and neuroscientist with many years’ experience working on human-computer interfaces, Dr Mijail Serruya, an associate professor and director of the Raphael Centre for Neurorestoration at the Farber Institute for Neuroscience at Thomas Jefferson University in the US, is particularly well qualified to comment on the feasibility of mind uploading.
He suggested that while it is unlikely to happen in the lifetimes of most people living today, the reconstruction of something similar to a person’s brain outside the skull could take place.
It might be thought of as a third brain hemisphere in a dish or in the abdomen, connected to the left and right ones we already have.
“When it’s brain-computer interfaces linked to something biological, I think that could happen within the next few decades with energy and investment behind it,” he said.
“I think the idea of taking, of having some … widget that I put on my forehead and then my mind wakes up in my laptop, that’s absurd. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said.
Already scientists have created tiny organoids – clusters of nerve cells grown in the laboratory – and, ultimately, these could form the basis of an artificial brain.
“If you had a bunch of these and you link them together electrically with conduits – biological and engineered – then you start approximating something that could do this,” he said.
Lost connections
Dr Thornton has extensively canvassed the views of the public on mind uploading and has found that for most people, the central benefit would be staying connected to loved ones.
“It stops that sometimes sudden and very difficult divide when you lose somebody,” she said.
But mind uploading raises myriad ethical and regulatory questions.
Experiments carried out to develop the technology could go against the views of animal welfare campaigners.
Also, while whole brain emulation might offer the chance to create humane alternatives to animal-based research, there is the possibility that artificial brains, whether copies of a human’s or another animal’s, could themselves suffer.
“There are really deep ethical questions,” Dr Sandberg said. “Some of them hinge on are emulations conscious, do they have an inner experience, which is a profound philosophical problem that I think we might not be able to resolve by any armchair reasoning.
“We might just have to interact with these and see if we’re convinced if they have inner lives.”
Stolen thoughts
Other concerns centre on how widely available the technology would be. Would only billionaires be able to afford to live for ever, leaving everyone else as more mortals?
Data privacy is another issue. Someone else could, potentially, own the mind that has been uploaded, Dr Thornton said.
“Your brain data is the most intensely personal detail you have,” she said. “You can’t get much more private than what goes on in your head.
“People were concerned that if somebody had access to those innermost thoughts, humans being humans, we [could] potentially not use that information for the good.”
Given that losing a limb can be hugely traumatic, could someone cope if they became just a disembodied mind?
If living on after their natural lifespan, most people would, Dr Thornton said, want some form of embodiment.
“The idea of being in a robot body was pretty unappealing but the idea that you need something around you, not just your brain and your mind, seems to be something both the experts and the public agree on,” she said.
“The other thing about mind uploading is that it’s fascinating and scary, because it’s unknown. We don’t know what it would be like to potentially live for ever in a digital form or a downloaded form of a digital body.”
Linked to this is the issue of whether someone whose mind had been uploaded would be able to decide they no longer wanted to carry on existing.
“What if there’s nobody else there, something goes wrong and it’s just you wandering in a dark and lonely wasteland?” Dr Thornton said.
