Digital immortality: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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'''Digital immortality''' (or "'''virtual immortality'''")<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4240849|jstor=4240849|last1=Farnell|first1=Ross|title=Attempting Immortality: AI, A-Life, and the Posthuman in Greg Egan's "Permutation City"|journal=Science Fiction Studies|year=2000|volume=27|issue=1|pages=69–91}}</ref> is the hypothetical concept of storing (or transferring) a person's personality in digital [[Substrate (materials science)|substrate]], i.e., a [[computer]], [[robot]] or [[cyberspace]]<ref>{{Cite book|last=Graziano|first=Michael S. A.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1084330876|title=Rethinking consciousness : a scientific theory of subjective experience|date=2019|isbn=978-0-393-65261-1|edition=1|location=New York, NY|oclc=1084330876}}</ref> ([[mind uploading]]). The result might look like an [[Avatar (computing)|avatar]] behaving, reacting, and thinking like a person on the basis of that person's digital archive.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Parkin|first1=Simon|title=Back-up brains: The era of digital immortality|url=http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150122-the-secret-to-immortality|publisher=BBC|access-date=7 June 2015|date=23 January 2015}}</ref><ref name="vhum">{{cite book|last1=Rothblatt|first1=Martine|title=Virtually Human: The Promiseand the Perilof Digital Immortality|date=2014|isbn=978-1491532911|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7JzAwAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref name="dyi">{{cite book|last1=Sofka|first1=Carla|title=Dying, Death, and Grief in an Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators|date=February 2012|isbn=978-0826107329|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MkcGiLeATe8C&q=digital+immortality&pg=PA25}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=DeGroot|first1=Doug|title=Intelligent Virtual Agents: 4th International Workshop, IVA 2003, Kloster Irsee, Germany, September 15-17, 2003, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in ... / Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence)|date=5 November 2003|isbn=978-3540200031|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NzZtCQAAQBAJ&q=digital+immortality&pg=PA136|access-date=7 June 2015|chapter=VideoDIMs as a framework for Digital Immortality Applications}}</ref> After the death of the individual, this avatar could remain static or continue to learn and self-improve autonomously (possibly becoming [[seed AI]]).

A considerable portion of [[transhumanists]] and [[singularitarians]] place great hope into the belief that they may eventually become [[Immortality|immortal]]<ref>{{cite web|last1=Cohan|first1=Peter|title=Google's Engineering Director: 32 Years To Digital Immortality|website=[[Forbes]] |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2013/06/20/googles-engineering-director-32-years-to-digital-immortality/|access-date=7 June 2015|date=20 June 2013}}</ref> by creating one or many non-biological functional copies of their brains, thereby leaving their "biological shell". These copies may then "live eternally" in a version of digital "heaven" or paradise.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Lewis|first1=Tanya|title=The Singularity Is Near: Mind Uploading by 2045?|url=http://www.livescience.com/37499-immortality-by-2045-conference.html|website=livescience.com|access-date=7 June 2015|date=17 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Strickland|first1=Jonathan|title=How Digital Immortality Works|url=http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/digital-immortality.htm|website=howstuffworks.com|date=12 April 2011|access-date=7 June 2015}}</ref>

== Realism ==

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# archiving and [[digitizing]] people,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.in/pallav-gogoi/digital-immortality-is-re_b_9571254.html|title=Ghost In The Machine: Living Forever As A Digital Avatar|date=2016-04-18|website=HuffPost India|language=en|access-date=2019-03-09}}</ref>

# making the avatar live

Digital immortality has been argued to go beyond technical processes of digitization of people, and encompass social aspects as well. For example, Joshua Hurtado <ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hurtado|first=Joshua Hurtado|date=2021-01-25|title=Towards a postmortal society of virtualised ancestors? The Virtual Deceased Person and the preservation of the social bond|journal=Mortality|volume=28 |pages=1–1690–105|doi=10.1080/13576275.2021.1878349|issn=1357-6275|doi-access=free}}</ref> has presented a four-step framework in which the digital immortalization of people could preserve the social bond between the living and the dead. These steps are: 1) data gathering, 2) data codification, 3) data activation, and 4) data embodiment. Each of these steps is linked to a form of preserving the social bond, either through talk, embodied emotionality (expressing emotions through one's form of embodiment) or monumentalism (creating a monument, in this case in digital form, to remember the dead).

=== Archiving and digitizing people ===