"Forever" Dave?In short, I intend to be immortal. You! In Hackensack! Quit snickering and keep reading! I don't mean immortal in the Woody Allen sense of "not dying." And I don't literally mean it in the "touchy-feely" sense of living on through my contributions to society. Primarily, I will feel I have accomplished immortality if: 1) An entity exists which emulates my personality and memory to the degree that it could survive a Turning test with someone who knows me intimately. 2) The entity in question experiences self-awareness. (This one will be hard to test.) 3) This entity exists in such a form that it can be: Backed up, analyzed, repaired, duplicated, etc, just as we would do these things to a software program today.
Now, as far as my motivation, and how I expect this to happen in my lifetime, that I will leave for later writing. Just for kicks though, here are a couple of links that involve detailed analyses of the human brain: Brain backup proposal and Large Scale Analysis of Neural Structures. Good reading.
Of course, questions and comments are always very welcome, even those that call me a brain-dead nincompoop. Please take a moment to read the FAQ as well. |