Category Archives: Immortality

You may recall a super crazy plan from one Russian billionaire thats hoping to fund the first immortality project. Dmitry Itskov is pretty young at 31, but he hopes to live forever with the help of science and robotics. He needs help, however, from the billionaire community to complete his objective becoming immortal by 2045.

In an open letter from Itskov, he implores billionaires to start funding cybernetic immortality and the artificial body. For you see, Itskov doesnt want to make an immortal body. Its impossible to stop aging as our bodies will just wither and die sooner or later. His plan involves something far more sci-fi and its way cooler as a result.

If youre familiar with the idea of transferring consciousness to a machine, then you already have a leg up on understanding what Itskov hopes to do. His plans for 2045 involve transferring the human consciousness to a machine and preserving said consciousness. It would essentially mean transferring the consciousness in our brain to a synthetic brain. Our humanity would be supposedly intact, but none of our original body would remain.

Of course, thats still quite a ways off. For now, hes hoping to have some other exciting technology available by the year 2015. He calls them android avatars that are controlled via a brain-computer. Youre no doubt thinking of James Camerons Avatar films and thats exactly what Itskov has planned. He hopes to use these android avatars to help people work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations, etc. He also hopes the technology would allow people with disabilities to walk again or experience lost senses.

You might think that sounds a little bit too much like sci-fi. Surprisingly enough, the technology is almost here and will be readily available later on down the road. Its actually the least sci-fi of all the milestones that Itskov has planned.

Take for instance his plans for 2025. He hopes to create a robot that can take in the brain of an otherwise damaged beyond repair body. Its not exactly the transferring of human consciousness as the machine would still be dependent on the brain. Its still crazy sci-fi techno-magic and a lot of people would disagree with his timetable.

His goal for 2045 isnt simply immortality. That plays a large role in it, but Itskov sees it as the next step in human evolution. In his mind, death is but a genetic defect that needs to be eradicated. There are plenty of scientists who would disagree with that statement, but let Itskov have his fun. He hopes that the immortality project will advance humanity to new plateaus of energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.

Of course, when youre immortal and in the body of a super robot, a lot of things could get done. Its an exciting thought, but one that we must temper into reality. The human consciousness and its relationship with the brain is still something thats not understood completely. Were making progress all the time, but I doubt that well able to transfer the human consciousness, independent of the brain, to a synthetic one in the next 33 years.

Itskov is a dreamer and I admire him for that. He hopes that there are other billionaires out there who want to dream with him. Thats why hes offering to coordinate your personal immortality project entirely free of charge to anybody whos willing to pony up the funds to continue the research. Im sure that there are a lot of billionaires who would want to live forever, but Itskov must take into account that people would use this technology for nothing but evil. The one assurance we have is that evil men will die. If Itskov succeeds, we may no longer have that assurance.

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Russian Billionaire Wants Other Billionaires To Fund His Immortality

Even a multimillion-dollar donation does not ensure a spot in heaven. Or at least thats what most religions believe.

But a $5-million academic grant, to be centered at UC Riverside, may go a long way toward gaining insights into the possibility of an afterlife and delving into what science and culture say about immortality.

The Pennsylvania-based John Templeton Foundation -- founded by the late Wall Street mutual funds pioneer to help explore spirituality - has announced the award and said it will be paid out over three years.

UC Riverside philosophy professor John Martin Fischer will receive $1 million of that to host conferences on campus about the afterlife, to support post-doctoral students and to run a websitefor research on the topic. Then Fischer will administer competitions to dole out the remaining $4 million to researchers worldwide in the sciences, social sciences, philosophy and theology, he said.

Reports of near-death experiences with visions of an afterlife may be an important subject for psychologists and neuroscientists, Fischer said from Germany, where he has a fellowship until December.

It doesnt mean we are trying to prove anything or the other. We will be trying to be very scientific and rigorous and be very open-minded, he said. Fischer described himself as skeptical about an afterlife but said he believed that endless life without death could be a good thing.

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Immortality studies centered at UC Riverside get $5-million gift

Listen Now [1 min 44 sec] UCR

A private foundation has awarded the University of California at Riverside $5 million to study age-old questions surrounding immortality and life-after-death.

A private foundation has awarded the University of California at Riverside $5 million to study age-old questions surrounding immortality and life-after-death. Theyre calling it the Immortality Project, and its goal is to apply rigorous scientific research to questions surrounding immortality and the afterlife.

The John Templeton Foundation in Philadelphia awarded the grant to UCR philosopher, John Martin Fischer, the projects lead investigator. Fischer, who studies free will and moral responsibility, admits that hes not so sure this whole lifeafter-death thing even exists.

Im kind of a skeptic about an afterlife, Fischer said in a Skype interview from Germany, where hes a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Bioethics, University of Muenster. Im inclined not to believe there is one, but I certainly dont know.

Fischer said the research at UCR will last three years and will look into a wide range of immortality issues. Among them: the cultural differences that shape near-death experience, such as why Americans who have a near-death experience usually report a tunnel with a light at the end, while in Japan most who experience the phenomenon report tending to a garden.

Other research will delve into such issues as whether technological and medical advancements could create immortality or at the very least much longer life spans for humans. And if so, how would immortality affect the meaning and value we place on our lives? Or do we need death to give life meaning?

We can chip away at the problem by figuring out what features make life more meaningful and attractive and what features take that away, he said of the project that will solicit research topics from scientists, philosopher, theologians and others worldwide, beginning Sept. 1, 2012 and will announce grants next year.

Fischer said hes allotting $2.5 million to fund up to 10 scientific research projects into various questions of immortality. Another $1.5 million will go to 15 philosophers and theologians to support them in writing articles and books. He said the research topics will also include such questions as:

-- Whether and in what form a person could survive bodily death. -- Whether the information in our brains could be uploaded into a computer to allow one to exist there in perpetuity. -- How a persons beliefs about immortality influence their behavior, attitudes, and character.

Continued here:
UC Riverside gets $5 million to study immortality

The John Templeton Foundation grant to UC Riverside philosopher John Fischer will fund research on aspects of immortality, including near-death experiences and the impact of belief in an afterlife on human behavior

By Bettye Miller on July 31, 2012

The John Templeton Foundation has awarded philosopher John Martin Fischer $5 million to study issues related to immortality.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. For millennia, humans have pondered their mortality and whether death is the end of existence or a gateway to an afterlife. Millions of Americans have reported near-death or out-of-body experiences. And adherents of the worlds major religions believe in an afterlife, from reincarnation to resurrection and immortality.

Anecdotal reports of glimpses of an afterlife abound, but there has been no comprehensive and rigorous, scientific study of global reports about near-death and other experiences, or of how belief in immortality influences human behavior. That will change with the award of a three-year, $5 million grant by the John Templeton Foundation to John Martin Fischer, distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, to undertake a rigorous examination of a wide range of issues related to immortality. It is the largest grant ever awarded to a humanities professor at UC Riverside, and one of the largest given to an individual at the university.

People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death, said Fischer, the principal investigator of The Immortality Project. Much of the discussion has been in literature, especially in fantasy and science fiction, and in theology in the context of an afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory and karma. No one has taken a comprehensive and sustained look at immortality that brings together the science, theology and philosophy.

The John Templeton Foundation, located near Philadelphia, supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will.

Half of the $5 million grant will be awarded for research projects. The grant will also fund two conferences, the first of which will be held at the end of the projects second year and the second at the end of the grant period. A website will include a variety of resources, from glossaries and bibliographies to announcements of research conferences and links to published research. Some recent work in Anglo-American philosophy will be translated for German philosophers who, in the last 30 years, have been increasingly studying the work of American philosophers.

UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy P. White said Fischers research takes a universal concern and subjects it to rigorous examination to sift fact from fiction. His work will provide guidance for discussion of immortality and the human experience for generations to come. We are extremely proud that he is leading the investigation of this critical area of knowledge.

Noting Fischers renown as a scholar of free will and moral responsibility, Stephen Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, said, There is perhaps no one better suited to lead a multidisciplinary research project on the question of immortality and its social implications. The Templeton Foundations generous support will enable scholars from across the world to come to UCR to investigate how the question of immortality affects all cultures, albeit in different ways.

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$5 Million Grant Awarded by Private Foundation to Study Immortality

Public release date: 31-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Bettye Miller bettye.miller@ucr.edu 951-827-7847 University of California - Riverside

RIVERSIDE, Calif. For millennia, humans have pondered their mortality and whether death is the end of existence or a gateway to an afterlife. Millions of Americans have reported near-death or out-of-body experiences. And adherents of the world's major religions believe in an afterlife, from reincarnation to resurrection and immortality.

Anecdotal reports of glimpses of an afterlife abound, but there has been no comprehensive and rigorous, scientific study of global reports about near-death and other experiences, or of how belief in immortality influences human behavior. That will change with the award of a three-year, $5 million grant by the John Templeton Foundation to John Martin Fischer, distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, to undertake a rigorous examination of a wide range of issues related to immortality. It is the largest grant ever awarded to a humanities professor at UC Riverside, and one of the largest given to an individual at the university.

"People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death," said Fischer, the principal investigator of The Immortality Project. "Much of the discussion has been in literature, especially in fantasy and science fiction, and in theology in the context of an afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory and karma. No one has taken a comprehensive and sustained look at immortality that brings together the science, theology and philosophy."

The John Templeton Foundation, located near Philadelphia, supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will.

Half of the $5 million grant will be awarded for research projects. The grant will also fund two conferences, the first of which will be held at the end of the project's second year and the second at the end of the grant period. A website will include a variety of resources, from glossaries and bibliographies to announcements of research conferences and links to published research. Some recent work in Anglo-American philosophy will be translated for German philosophers who, in the last 30 years, have been increasingly studying the work of American philosophers.

UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy P. White said Fischer's research "takes a universal concern and subjects it to rigorous examination to sift fact from fiction. His work will provide guidance for discussion of immortality and the human experience for generations to come. We are extremely proud that he is leading the investigation of this critical area of knowledge."

Noting Fischer's renown as a scholar of free will and moral responsibility, Stephen Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, said, "There is perhaps no one better suited to lead a multidisciplinary research project on the question of immortality and its social implications. The Templeton Foundation's generous support will enable scholars from across the world to come to UCR to investigate how the question of immortality affects all cultures, albeit in different ways."

Anecdotal reports of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and past lives are plentiful, but it is important to subject these reports to careful analysis, Fischer said. The Immortality Project will solicit research proposals from eminent scientists, philosophers and theologians whose work will be reviewed by respected leaders in their fields and published in academic and popular journals.

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$5 million grant awarded to UC Riverside to study immortality

By 3 News online staff

A Russian businessman is calling on the worlds richest people to help fund a project to develop human immortality technology by 2045.

The project aims to eventually develop the means to download the human brain to a computer chip in a robot.

Dmitry Itskov, 31, launched the project last year and last week sent out the call for funding.

Members of the Forbes richest list: human life is unique and priceless. It is only when we have to part with life do we realise just how much we have not done, that we have not had enough time to do what we really wanted Today you have a chance to change this situation.

The 2045 team of Russian scientists will research how to extend human life by means of cybernetic technology in four steps.

From 2015 to 2020 the team hopes to develop robots, reminiscent of the 2009 movie Surrogates, which can be controlled by the human mind and allow people to work in dangerous situations.

By 2020 to 2025, Mr Itskov and the scientists hope the technology to transfer an intact human brain from a worn our human body into a robot will be available.

From 2030 to 2035 he hopes the technology to transfer human consciousness onto a computer chip will exist and allow for cybernetic immortality.

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Immortality for the rich by 2045?