Digital immortality is the technological term of a person’s thoughts, memories and personality living on in a computer after they die. For something like this to happen, there would have to be an understanding of how every bit of the brain functions and how to transfer the information given in brain tissue to a computer. Baxter Bioscience has stated this transformation will be possible within twenty years. It is the process of the consciousness and of the brain which hold the personality, memory, thought and motor skills. They are transferred to a computer or android robot to think and process as the person they are. Baxter Bioscience states that a person will be able to live forever in the computer. All of the information that was received in a lifetime would be able to be uploaded into a computer file.

“I personally wouldn’t do it if I was given the choice in the future,” says Germantown student Rachel Hucker. “It seems really interesting that this is actually going to be possible. I wouldn’t have even thought about the option like that until now and I definitely wouldn’t have thought about that form of immortality. There actually will be immortality of some kind but I don’t really know if I want to live forever, especially in a computer for that matter.”

The study of this theory is already being tested, according to Dr. Michio Kaku from theoretical physics college in New York. His job is to study the brain and technology as well as teach his works to his students. Dr. Kaku stated that by 2030, we will be able to upload our thoughts and memories into the computer and virtually live forever as long as there are computers.

“The idea is crazy and seems impossible but I guess we never think about the things that are going on that are not on the news so we never really know about it. Digital immortality is an example. It is amazing and would never really be thought of but it really is being worked on and tested. I think it’s really cool that it’s gonna be in our lifetime and that it’s only gonna take about 28 years because that really isn’t a long time of waiting for something that seems so advanced,” says Germantown student, Colt Stone

A Russian scientist named, Dmitry Itskov, dedicated most of his fortune and life to work on his own self-led project to create an upload of the human brain to a computer. According to BBC news, he made an estimate that the possibility of digital immortality will happen around the year 2045, which is 28 years away. He also stated that when this is complete, he will upload his own brain information into the computer to live on in a virtual life. Itskov put a big fortune of his money into experimenting to bypass ageing.

Dr. Kaku explained mind uploading as the movie called, “The Matrix”, where a man is uploaded into a computer and there is a whole world within the computer. After the man was put into the computer, there was no going back to the real word because it did not exist anymore to him. Dr. Kaku explained that the mind upload will actually be like the movie and that once someone would be uploaded, the upload would be irreversible and the person will be in the digital reality for the rest of their lives, which is possibly forever.

An article on liveScience.com stated that there will also be a different kind of upload in the future that is completely opposite. The brain will be able to upload information from computers. This is estimated to happen around the same time as mind uploading, in 2045. It’s called brain computer interfacing and it is going to allow the brain to upload programs or information from a computer. Things such as sound could be uploaded to stimulate hearing in someone who might be hard of hearing. There would be a small implant called the Cochlear Implant that would be able to stimulate a small electric current in the cochlear nerve to reactivate the hearing of someone who might have lost it. The implants could also help to stimulate or retrigger other motor senses that could have stopped working on someone. Scientist estimate that this will be in effect within the next 28 years.

“That’s amazing,” says Stone. “I can’t believe that there will be such a thing as this. It makes me think of all the other different things that can be done as well with these uploads. I also am so surprised about the amount of time until this will be real. 2045 seems like a long ways away but if you think about it, it’s really not that bad of timing considering how impossible mind uploading seems. I didn’t even know that something like this was being developed and researched until now.”