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Six wild ideas for perpetuating your mind

Have you ever thought about what makes you you? Science assures us it has everything to do with the three-pound organ between our ears, with its billions of neurons and trillions of delicate connections. But it’s a lot trickier to explain why we have a sense of self-awareness or to pin down precisely where that first memory of Mommy actually resides. As we age, we forget most of what we’ve experienced, yet there’s still undeniable continuity: At 30, or 50, or 70, you will still be you.

你是否曾经思考过是什么造就了“你”？科学向我们保证，这与我们双耳之间那个三磅重的器官有关，它拥有数十亿个神经元和数万亿个精密的连接。但要解释为什么我们会有自我意识，或者准确地定位关于母亲的第一个记忆究竟储存在哪里，却要困难得多。随着年龄增长，我们忘记了大部分经历，但那种连续性依然不可否认：无论是在30岁、50岁还是70岁，你依然是你。

To preserve that elusive continuity of self, some far-thinking technologists are working on ways to keep your brain going—even beyond death. Let’s call them the “mind savers.” They’re exploring everything from freezing brains in liquid nitrogen to augmenting living ones to uploading our memories to the cloud. Here, we look at six possible paths for keeping your mind going, how feasible they’d be, and what benefits the present-day research might bring—even if cognitive immortality doesn’t pan out.

为了保持这种难以捉摸的自我连续性，一些具有远见的技术专家正在研究让大脑持续运作的方法——甚至是在死亡之后。我们称他们为“意识拯救者”。他们正在探索各种方案，从将大脑冷冻在液氮中，到增强活体大脑，再到将我们的记忆上传到云端。在这里，我们将审视六种延续意识的可能途径，探讨它们的可行性，以及即便认知永生无法实现，当下的研究又能带来哪些益处。

Head transplant

Goal: An entirely new body Key Tech Required: Spinal-cord fusion Status: Mired in technical and ethical issues

头部移植

目标： 一个全新的身体 所需关键技术： 脊髓融合 现状： 深陷技术与伦理困境

In 1970, the neurosurgeon Robert White removed the head of a rhesus monkey and transplanted it onto the body of another. The patched-together primate lived several hours before succumbing to its injuries. White, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, tried the surgery several times. Remarkably, the reattached heads could move their eyes and mouths, but because he’d severed the monkeys’ spinal cords, those heads never gained control of their new bodies.

1970年，神经外科医生罗伯特·怀特（Robert White）切下了一只恒河猴的头部，并将其移植到另一只猴子的身体上。这只拼凑而成的灵长类动物在存活数小时后因伤势过重死亡。身为凯斯西储大学教授的怀特曾多次尝试这种手术。令人惊奇的是，重新连接的头部能够活动眼睛和嘴巴，但由于他切断了猴子的脊髓，这些头部从未获得对新身体的控制权。

Mindclones

Goal: Conscious software avatars Key Tech Required: Artificial intelligence Status: Available in unconscious formats

意识克隆（Mindclones）

目标： 有意识的软件化身 所需关键技术： 人工智能 现状： 已有无意识版本

In her 2014 book Virtually Human: The Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality, the futurist and biotech executive Martine Rothblatt put forward an argument for what she called “mindclones.” People would upload their diaries, recordings, social media histories, and other personal data into a digital filing cabinet. Then, via software she termed “mindware,” they would create realistic digital avatars of themselves. In Rothblatt’s view, as technology advanced, mindclones would inevitably be considered conscious and even “afforded human rights” after passing psychological screening.

在2014年出版的《虚拟人类：数字永生的承诺与危险》一书中，未来学家兼生物技术高管马丁·罗斯布拉特（Martine Rothblatt）提出了她所谓的“意识克隆”概念。人们可以将日记、录音、社交媒体历史和其他个人数据上传到一个数字档案柜中。然后，通过她称为“意识软件”（mindware）的程序，他们可以创建逼真的数字分身。在罗斯布拉特看来，随着技术进步，意识克隆体在通过心理评估后，必然会被视为具有意识，甚至被“赋予人权”。