Could your brain keep on living even after your body dies? Sounds
like science fiction, but celebrated theoretical physicist Stephen
Hawking recently suggested that technology could make it possible.
“I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a
computer,” Hawking said last week during an appearance at the Cambridge
Film Festival, The Telegraph reported. “So it’s theoretically possible
to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after
death.”
He acknowledged that such a feat lies “beyond our present
capabilities,” adding that “the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale
for people afraid of the dark.”
Hawking, 71, made the remarks in conjunction with the premiere of a new documentary about his life.
He has spoken previously about what he calls the “fairy story” of
heaven and the afterlife. Likening thehuman brain to a computer whose
components will fail, he said, “There is no heaven or afterlife for
broken-down computers.”
Some people are actively working to develop technology that would
permit the migration of brain functions into a computer. Russian
multi-millionaire Dmitry Itskov, for one, hopes someday to upload the
contents of a brain into a lifelike robot body as part of his 2045
Initiative, The New York Times reported recently.
A separate research group, called the Brain Preservation Foundation,
is working to develop a process to preserve the brain along with its
memories, emotions and consciousness. Called chemical fixation and
plastic embedding, the process involves converting the brain into
plastic, carving it up into tiny slices, and then reconstructing its
three-dimensional structure in a computer.
0 comments:
Post a Comment