The Pursuit Of Forever

Forever is a myth. Or so they say.
Previously, I used to get confused between these two words, eternity and immortality.

Both share many similarities and have this aspect of mystery whenever they arise in a conversation.

But the real mind stopper is the word infinity. Unlike eternity and immortality, which can be pictured as an experience that doesn't end, infinity is an expansion beyond any set of experiences, even if these sets of experiences are immortal or eternal.

Put in another way, infinity transcends our ability to conceptualize it, more or less.

As humans, we've always been fascinated with extending our existence beyond our biological limits.

I think it's a natural thing that through religious concepts of afterlife and also ancient preservation practices like mummification, an innate desire to transcend death runs deep in our collective consciousness.

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In our digital age, there's a new technological expression for this existential yearning, i.e digital immortality.

Digital immortality represents our modern attempt to capture and preserve the essence of who we are.
Be it our memories, personalities, knowledge, and perhaps even consciousness, albeit in digital form.

Now, what exactly are we preserving, by the way?

Forms of Digital Persistence

If you really think about it, digital footprints already offer a kind of immortality:

• Social media archives: Our posts, photos, and interactions continue to exist after we're gone.
• Digital twins: AI models trained on our writing, speech patterns, and preferences that can simulate our responses
• Mind uploading concepts: The theoretical transfer of human consciousness to computational substrates
• Memory banks: Curated collections of our experiences, knowledge, and wisdom preserved for future generations

The first one is an abject feeling that always runs through me whenever I consume digital content from a person who's now deceased.

I don't think previous generations had that opportunity, in the sense that they couldn't casually encounter the thoughts and expressions of the departed in such an immediate way.

But then, this digital persistence also creates a strange kind of half-presence that can sometimes feel more haunting than comforting.

In terms of mind uploading concepts, I'm torn between the fact that the mind is a non-physical software/hardware and these computational substrates are physical hardware/software.

Wouldn't it be a terrific phenomena to combine these seemingly different realms, in a way that's not elusive to our understanding of consciousness?

Paradox Of Digital Consciousness

Also, if we could upload our consciousness to a digital platform, would the resulting entity actually be "us"? Or just a sophisticated copy of our original self that believes it is us but lacks the continuity of consciousness that defines our individuality?

The ship of Theseus paradox comes to mind. If every plank of a ship is gradually replaced until none of the original remains, is it still the same ship?

In this case, I don't think we're even replacing planks one by one, we're attempting to build an entirely new ship based on blueprints of the original.

In my view, true digital immortality requires something beyond mere preservation or simulation.

Because it first demands a fundamental rethinking of what constitutes the self. Are we:

• The biological substrate of our brains?
• The patterns of information and relationships that emerge from neural activity?
• Something more ineffable that cannot be reduced to information processing?

I'm sure the self is not the first one. The second one is merely an effect of it and the third is probably an aspect of it.

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Infinite Within A Finite System

Let's suppose we've achieved a form of digital continuation, can a consciousness existing within the finite constraints of computational systems ever experience anything resembling infinity?

For me, this question is my main issue with digital immortality, and the answer could be that digital systems, no matter how advanced, must operate within physical constraints—energy requirements, storage capacity, processing power.

If the systems experience a shutdown, immortality ceases to exist, basically.

Of course, like infinity itself, digital immortality may not be something we can fully comprehend from our current vantage point. That's why I asked more questions than provided answers in this exploration.

Maybe also, digital immortality isn't necessarily for present humans, in the sense that it offers an evolution into new forms of being that can approach the infinite in ways our biological selves never could.

Not just more of the same existence, "transcendence" into something beyond our current conception of eternity itself.


Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.