DIGITAL IMMORTALITY IS A REAL THING! Part 1. | by Bombulu … – Medium

Macleans November 2023 edition.

The Day of our Death is the Birth of Eternity Seneca.

The end of human life is death. This is one constant and known fact. All humans will die. But what if we didnt have to die? What if we could live forever?

Humanity is at the forefront of evolution and our creations hinge at the frontiers of a new evolution i.e., technology. Over the centuries, humans have sought the secret to long life; some people want to live for hundreds or thousands of years, some, maybe more. With scientific technological advancements, we are now beginning to look at the possibility of that. Already, we spend most of our time in the digital realm. With AI, some believe that we will not only be able to extend human life but, in a sense, become immortal.

What if theres a way to avoid the inevitable?

What if theres a way to keep some part of us alive forever?

Lincoln Cannon is a member of a trans-humanist movement that seeks the ethical use of technology to transcend the limits of human capabilities and possibly even death. He, along with some major institutions have dedicated themselves to the achievement of human perpetuity. For example, the Terracem institute, a Florida based institution, views immortality as the ultimate solution to all mans problems. The institute hypothesizes that immortality is possible because the soul is data and not material. Therefore, the soul is capturable and transferable as something called a mind-file. This would entail everything that makes you essentially you; your thoughts, feelings, moments of triumph, moments of affection, first day at a new school, first kiss, deepest loss, greatest fears; Terracem believes that these are the key to immortality if they can be captured and transferred. Institutions like Terracem believe that creating a mind-file is the first step to immortality. The idea of trans-humanists follows from this to say that we can merge our minds with machines, transfer our consciousness to artificial bodies and therefore conquer death.

On paper, all this sounds fantastically theoretical. But even as I write this article