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Who needs resurrection when you can upload the brain?Those who make so much fuss about cloning have not yet heard what is likely to happen in the field of artificial intelligence (a.i.). If you clone yourself biologically your offspring would never be confused about whether or not he or she is you. You would be two separate individuals with different experiences and memories. This would not be the case with the electronic clones of the future. For a long time now researchers have been working on systems called neural networks. These are computing systems that would enable an artificial intelligence to learn from experience instead of just doing what it has been programmed to do. So far this research has relied on guesswork and hunches because there has been no way to obtain a sufficiently sophisticated map of the brain. If human cerebral activity could be mapped, the field of a.i. would take a huge leap forward. Then it would only be a short time before an electronic neural network was developed that could perfectly duplicate the pattern of cerebral activity. How might it be possible to map the brain? One plan relies on the development of nanotechnology. (Nanotechnology refers to devices composed of relatively small numbers of molecules. If microscopic objects are the size of cells, nanodevices are the size of the smallest structures within the cells that control all the intracellular processes.) Ray Kurzweil - one of the prophets of a.i. - predicts that within two or three decades we will have nanotransmitters that can be injected into the bloodstream. In the capillaries of the brain they would line up alongside the neurons and detect the details of the cerebral electronic activity. Like sub-microscopic cordless telephones they would transmit that information to a receiver inside a special helmet or cap so there would be no need for any wires protruding from the scalp. In the first instance, this system would provide scientists with a perfect map of the brain. They could then perfect an electronic replica of the same brain. In effect, the structure of the brain would be dowloaded onto a computing system. That cerebral replica would then think in just the way that you do. It would have your memories and be convinced, initially at least, that it was you. It would be your electronic clone. As a further step, Ray Kurzweil also envisages the nanotransmitters being able to connect you to a world of virtual reality on the internet, similar to what was depicted in the film 'Matrix'. With the nanotransmitters in place, by thought alone you could log on to the internet and instead of the pictures coming up on your screen they would play inside your mind. Rather than send your friends e-mails you would agree to meet up on some virtual tropical beach. For Ray this would be, quite literally, heaven. Once you upload the brain onto the internet and log on to that virtual world the body can be left to rot while your virtual self carries on playing Counter Strike for ever (or at least until there is a general power failure or someone spreads a virus that causes the whole system to crash). Generations of Christians believed in Christ partly because his resurrection held out the promise that we too would rise again. Death would not be the end of all life. But why wait for the Second Coming when you can have a shot of nanobots and upload your brain onto the internet and live on as an immortal virtual surfer? (One snag: to exist on the net you will have to have your neural network parked on the computer of a web-hosting company. These companies want real money in real bank accounts every year or they will wipe your bit of the hard disc and sell the space to someone else. With your body six feet underground how will you pay? Here the anology with heaven really breaks down. God keeps heaven going for free, but the web is something you have to pay for.)
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