The Path to Immortality

The Path to Immortality By Marcus Edwards

It often seems that man is on an unending journey to escape death. From the immortality potions of ancient China to modern scientific endeavors, it may appear as if we are fighting a losing battle. Even with the current developments in medicine and biology, we have been unable to achieve any sense of immortality. Though the life expectancy of people living in developed countries has risen dramatically in the last two hundred years, none have yet eluded death.

But imagine for a moment a process for prolonging the human life expectancy from age 76 to eternity. Would this be possible? The answer may lie in the field of cryonics. Cryonics is dedicated to freezing the human body to extremely low temperatures with the hopes that they may one day be revived by some future technology. What interests me in particular is not the cryopreservation of the body, but of the brain. Not surprisingly, the preservation of the brain is known as neuropreservation. After reading Connectome, I asked myself if merely preserving the brain would similarly preserve the connectome— the theoretical home of memories, consciousness and personality. Like many before me, I am enthralled with the possibility of achieving immortality, though I still have some reservations about achieving this through neuropreservation. The technologies to freeze the brain have existed for decades, but how to revive the brain from the inevitable damage that results from freezing it for long periods of time has never been achieved. The world’s leading cryopreservation company, Alcor, may have an answer. Alcor was founded in 1977, and since then has become the foremost authority on cryonics. The company is currently researching new methods of freezing the bodies of clients so that they may withstand eternity, but many of their scientists believe full-body storage is not necessary. Like Dr. Seung, these researchers believe that the brain is the home of human identity. This mindset has created a new division of cryonics: “The Neuropreservation Option.” This has become the most popular option since its inception, as many clients have come to believe that the preservation of the brain preserves the personality and the soul.

Not surprisingly, it is also much more affordable to preserve a brain than an entire body. Since the cryopreservation process lasts long after the legal death of the clients, they are required to pay the full amount in advance. Alcor currently charges $200,000 for a full-body preservation while neuropreservation costs less than half that; still a pricey $80,000. But is the cost worth it? If the human brain can be revived, there are still many unknown factors. How will the brain be repaired? What body will the brain occupy? Will the society that greets you even want you back?

As for repairing the brain, one solution has already been proposed. Nanotechnology has grown substantially in recent years, and many proponents of neuropreservation argue that nanobots, minuscule robots designed for a specific function, may provide a solution. Nanobots are not yet advanced enough to be able to repair such delicate brain tissue. However, advancements in the future may eventually lead to just that. While many forms of nanotechnology are currently in the research and development phase, progress in the field will likely allow for more advanced procedures. Scientists at Harvard and MIT have been able to specifically target cells with nanobots filled with chemotherapy chemicals. This drastically reduced the damage done by the chemotherapy chemicals typically caused by imprecise delivery methods. In spite of these seemingly miraculous possibilities, I often wonder if there is any point. In Connectome, Dr. Seung posed the question: Does cryogenically preserving a brain similarly preserve the connectome? If not, then it may be futile to maintain frozen brains. Assuming his hypothesis that the neural connections are where consciousness resides, damage to the connectome would result in an irreversible loss of personality. But if the connectome is preserved by the extreme cold, neuropreservation could one day be a viable means of achieving an undetermined life span.

Even if the connectome endures, another problem exists. The brain may physically house identity, but it has little purpose without some body to aid its function. Researchers have proposed several solutions to this problem. Recently, media sources have advertised cloning as a method for giving the brain a body. There is no fear of rejection because the cells and DNA of the clone would be identical to the brain in storage, but this raises many ethical questions:

Suppose a client walks into Alcor asking for a neuropreservation. He pays the fee, lives for several more years and then dies. His brain is sent to an Alcor facility where it is frozen. Over a century from now, his brain is revitalized using nanobots then placed inside a clone that was created specifically for that purpose. His brain is successfully implanted and he lives a successful life until he dies and the process begins again. I have several problems with this proposal. What would happen to the clone that was raised simply for the purpose of becoming a vessel? The line between what legal rights a clone would have compared to a “normal” human is far too blurry to become practical across the world. Indeed, members of Alcor claimed that cloning is a “crude” method of providing the brain with a body and that a “more elegant means” must be achieved. It may not seem elegant, but far less crude than the cloning option is growing an entire body around the rejuvenated brain. Much like a zygote rapidly multiplies into an infant, a body could be grown around the brain. Imagine using bioengineered catalysts and reactions to facilitate the growth of an entire body around the actual brain. A person could be “born” much like a child, the only difference being that an adult body grows instead. The brain—and presumably the identity—of the patient would already be preserved, so a spine would have to be created around the brain, forming the intricate neural connections that make life possible. In spite of what many researchers at Alcor may think, the path to immortality may not be so complex (from a biological perspective). In Connectome, Dr. Seung also proposed the idea of mapping connectomes, uploading that information to a microprocessor and using that information to achieve digital immortality. Many of the technologies to achieve this extraordinary feat are already in place. Microchips are relatively cheap and are expected to be able to process the amount of information a human brain contains by the year 2025. This could mean that mapping connectomes with increasingly advanced imaging techniques could automate the process, leaving it entirely up to computers. Connectomes could eventually be mapped with unprecedented speed, meaning that any human could have his identity recorded on a microchip when they die, then have it transferred to a computer program prolonging his life indefinitely. While many of the ideas I proposed are only in their beginning stages, the technologies involved are advancing rapidly. Perhaps in the future scientists will look back at us, wondering why we ever believed it was impossible to live forever, just as we question those pessimists who believed that a journey to the moon would never be within our grasp. Dr. Ralph Merkle, inventor of public key cryptography, once said “Cryonics is an experiment. So far the control group isn’t doing that well.” He knew as well as any other that no one has a chance to escape death without trying, and optimism is necessary to keep the spirit of such dreams alive. One day, not too far off, we may scoff at death, knowing that we are not bound to our current biological forms. Whether it be through microchips, cryonics, or some distant technology of the future, we may all hope to walk the path of immortality, carefully treading in a realm once thought to be reserved for the gods alone.