Mind transfer science could prevent you from dying in future

By Dick Pelletier

     While hiking in the mountains, you accidentally set off an explosive device that destroys your body completely. Is this the end of your life? Nope, it’s not even an inconvenience. Robots at the Body Replacement Center sense your situation and order nanobots to construct a ‘new you’ with mind, memories, personality, and all cognitive abilities intact. In minutes, your new body is air-lifted to the accident location; and you are not even aware that you had died.

     Although today, this scenario sounds more like fiction than science, by mid-century, positive futurists believe that molecular nanotechnology and advancing mind scanning technologies will enable our lives to continue in this manner regardless of any catastrophe that may befall us.

     Author James Gardner in The Intelligent Universe claims brain scanning technology is doubling each year, and scanners can now image individual neuron connections and their interactions. For the first time, we can watch our brain create thoughts, and observe how thoughts generate new spines and synapses when we learn something new.

     Replacing biological brains with non-biological material is in beginning stages today. Doctors have successfully implanted an electronic chip to replace cells destroyed by Parkinson’s disease. And in the future, artificial neurons made from nanomaterials could replace all biological brain cells giving us the amazing ability to think and process information millions of times faster than we can today.

     Foresight Institute consultant John Burch believes that neuron replacement could become commonplace by as early as late 2030s, and he describes how these upgrades would be accomplished. “A daily pill would supply materials and instructions for nanobots to format new neurons and position them next to existing biological cells to be replaced. These changes would be unnoticeable to us, but within six months, we would be enjoying the benefits of a powerful new brain.”

     As we begin to use our new brain, we would not be aware that our mind had been switched from one set of brain cells to another. And when our mind is transferred from a destroyed body to a new one, this move will also be unnoticeable.

     Utilizing non-biological neurons will allow easy interface with supercomputers; our life history then becomes software that can be simulated, expanded; even improved on if we desire; and the program will always be ready for transfer into a new body, should we encounter disaster.

     Will people accept non-biological neurons into their brains? By 2030, the NIH predicts nanobots will be whizzing through our veins monitoring health and modifying DNA or RNAi instructions to protect us from sickness and disease, and help us maintain perfect youthful health, indefinitely.

     As we become comfortable with nanobots keeping our bodies in shape, we will be more receptive to other non-biological innovations. Futurist Ray Kurzweil believes that humans will one day become 100% non-biological. “This is just a natural step,” Kurzweil says, “Our species has always been the one that strives to improve itself.”

     Of course, no one can predict for sure how our “magical future” will unfold, but the possibilities exist for mind transfers, and given the desire of each individual to opt for life over death, this science could become reality.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.