Synthetic Salvation — On Genomics, Mind Uploads, and the Quest for Immortality
Synthetic Salvation — On Genomics, Mind Uploads, and the Quest for Immortality Our elites want to live forever. The rest of us will make for rich compost Joe Allen kentoh © 123rf.com Fear of death is intrinsic to human life. As our years accumulate, we watch friends and family drop off, one by one, disappearing from our presence and lingering only in memories. Barring some miracle, divine or otherwise, we’re all soon to follow, down to the sweetest baby ever born. Unfazed by this horror, the faithful are emboldened by belief in resurrection or reincarnation—a direct participation in the eternal. For religious people, the body is just a vehicle for a transcendent soul. The mystery of death is a rite of passage. For the materialist, there is only this world, beyond which the dying meet total annihilation. The brain dissolves into black nothingness. Consciousness stops with the Big Zero at the end of our lives. And for all sentient beings, and all memory of our existence, there awaits the...