Immortality

====Mind-to-computer uploading====
{{Main|Mind uploading}}

One idea that has been advanced involves [[Mind uploading|uploading]] an individual's habits and memories via [[direct mind-computer interface]]. The individual's memory may be loaded to a computer or to a new organic body. [[Extropian]] [[futures studies|futurists]] like Moravec and [[Ray Kurzweil|Kurzweil]] have proposed that, thanks to [[exponential growth|exponentially growing]] computing power, it will someday be possible to [[mind uploading|upload human consciousness]] onto a computer system, and exist indefinitely in a virtual environment.

This could be accomplished via advanced cybernetics, where computer hardware would initially be installed in the brain to help sort memory or accelerate thought processes. Components would be added gradually until the person's entire brain functions were handled by artificial devices, avoiding sharp transitions that would lead to issues of [[identity (social science)|identity]], thus running the risk of the person to be declared dead and thus not be a legitimate owner of his or her property. After this point, the human body could be treated as an optional accessory and the program implementing the person could be transferred to any sufficiently powerful computer.

Another possible mechanism for mind upload is to perform a detailed scan of an individual's original, organic brain and simulate the entire structure in a computer. What level of detail such scans and simulations would need to achieve to emulate awareness, and whether the scanning process would destroy the brain, is still to be determined.{{efn|
The basic idea is to take a particular brain, scan its structure in detail, and construct a software model of it that is so faithful to the original that, when run on appropriate hardware, it will behave in essentially the same way as the original brain.
::: — Sandberg & Boström (2008)<ref name=Sandberg-Boström-2008-Roadmap>
{{cite book
 |last1=Sandberg |first1= Anders
 |last2=Boström  |first2=Nick 
 |year=2008
 |title=Whole Brain Emulation: A roadmap
 |series=Technical Report
 |volume=#2008-3
 |publisher=Oxford University
 |department=Future of Humanity Institute
 |url=http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/Reports/2008-3.pdf
 |access-date=5 April 2009
}}
</ref>
}}

It is suggested that achieving immortality through this mechanism would require specific consideration to be given to the role of [[consciousness]] in the functions of the [[mind]]. An uploaded mind would only be a copy of the original mind, and not the conscious mind of the living entity associated in such a transfer. Without a simultaneous upload of consciousness, the original living entity remains mortal, thus not achieving true immortality.<ref>
{{cite web
 |last=Ruparel |first=Bhavik
 |date=30 July 2018
 |title=On achieving immortality
 |website=Iva.to
 |url=https://medium.com/iva-to/on-achieving-immortality-3ed1d567f7a2
 |access-date=10 September 2018
}}
</ref>
Research on [[neural correlates of consciousness]] is yet inconclusive on this issue. Whatever the route to mind upload, persons in this state could then be considered essentially immortal, short of loss or traumatic destruction of the machines that maintained them.{{clarify|date=October 2015}}{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}