Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov is going to give people immortality. True, not quite ordinary, but just "computer", having transferred a human personality to an electronic medium. As the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes used to say, "cohito ergo sum" - I think, therefore I am.
In search of immortality
Dmitry Itskov intends to achieve the result within 30 years. Because, according to Itskov himself, "if there is no technology that can ensure immortality, then I will be dead within the next 35 years." Therefore, it is necessary to work out this technology a little in advance - before the final "deadline" of the project sponsor.
In general, the idea of the Russian, perhaps, looks much more ambitious than those of his Western “colleagues”. The Americans, for example, so far promise not even immortality, but only the "resurrection" of terminally ill people when they learn to cure their illness. And then thanks to the freezing, and then - the defrosting of their brain, and only then - the computer chip embedded in it.
It can be noted that the difference in the approach of Americans and Russians is to some extent determined by that in the basic tendencies of science fiction works of different cultures. Still, the prevailing direction of Hollywood films is the numerous ideas of "cyborgization", combining a part of a living person with cybernetic "prostheses".
But Soviet science fiction, even during the reign of Arkady and Boris Strugatskikh, "swung" at a more serious idea - the complete transfer of human consciousness to an electronic medium. In particular, this is the plot of the story "Candles in front of the console" - an integral part of the larger work "Return: Noon, XXII century".
Of course, later there were many other literary works and films on this score. But only now there was a serious intention to "make a fairy tale come true."
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Unfortunately, so far the success of such undertakings has raised serious doubts. After all, if we apply to them "analysis by contradiction", then in order to write something down, you first need to know this "something" for certain. Well, for example, what is intelligence? Scientists still do not know the exact answer to this question.
Is it possible to reproduce human consciousness
But human consciousness is not only thinking, but also memory, emotions. And it depends not only on logic.
In addition, our consciousness is highly dependent on our body - through changes in the level of hormones, biologically active substances, and so on. Whether it will be possible to display such moments in the “machine consciousness” is a big question.
In general, until now in philosophy there is no single answer to the question - is the human personality fully described? Of course, no one denies the existence of psychology and its successes. But real life is much more complicated - in the spirit of the phrase of the chief of the Gestapo Müller from “17 Moments of Spring”, said not without humor: “The worst thing is to catch an amateur. Professionals are predictable, but an amateur at any time can make an absolutely unexpected move that will knock all our calculations down."
It can be noted in passing that in Christianity, for example, the absolute uniqueness of the human person, which, in fact, is the source of its freedom, is determined by the fact that it is "created in the image and likeness of God." Therefore, it is free and unpredictable, like God himself.
Returning to the project of Dmitry Itskov, one can notice that human individuality can turn out to be an insurmountable stumbling block in the creation of a full-fledged computer analogue of human consciousness. But maybe this is not so bad?
Who said that immortality is necessarily synonymous with "eternal happiness"? It is not for nothing that an important aspect of almost all world religions is the moment not only to achieve the afterlife bliss, but also to avoid the same eternal hellish torments.