Immortality

On The Gadget Show this week, one of the presenters was chatting to a futurologist who works for BT. Basically, this guy's job is to analyse current trends in science and technoogy and advise his company which ones are viable and worthy of time and investment, and which are probably dead ends.

BT are interested in the way we interface with our computers via Qwerty keyboads, speech and controllers like mice and sticks... An alternative to these methods of imput is being sought. Electrical impulses pass through the skin, so by laying the hand on a sensor-pad and training the computer-user, a system of commands can be built up where certain thoughts trigger certain electrical impulses which are then transmitted through this sensor pad. This already with us and under development. Okay, the next step would be a direct interface with the brain -- that's about about 25 years away according to this futurologist. In about 40-50 years we may well be able to download our minds onto storage devices. Make a back-up copy of your brain! The next logical step would then be downloading this personality into... what? Vat-grown bodies cultured from your own cells? Androids?

I watched this with Heather sittting beside me and thought, "Wow", she might never die, never pass out of existence. I've often marvelled at the changes my grandma mist have seen, being born at the start of the twentieth century and dying in the twenty-first. But it looks like the next few generations are in for some amazing stuff too.