The year 2050 may seem distant, but it is a mere 33 summers away. Predictions of how our world and our society will have changed by then are plentiful. They depict a world where, by 2030, people will live on average 90 years. By 2064, they will live up to and beyond 100. This is thanks to the rapid advancement in healthcare technologies, including gene editing: the modification of DNA human embryos to remove genetic mutations that can cause diseases and disabilities.
We will probably be living in “smart” houses, in which the furniture will be printed using home-based 3D printers and decorations will be holograms. Houses will be capable of monitoring our wellbeing through devices such as armchairs with sensors that can detect our vital functions, body posture, etc, as soon as we sit on them, and tell us what type of physical exercise we ought to do to improve our health. The work environment will also be completely different. The use of holograms in the workplace may enable us to work from home and be in the office only as a virtual 3D image.
By 2050, not all of us will be living on our beautiful blue planet. Some could be dwelling in Mars colonies, with the first humans landing on the red planet possibly by 2030, according to NASA.
So far, so good. The future sounds exciting and it seems almost certain that in 30 years’ time we will have replicators in our houses to make food and other objects, and will live in a very hi-tech, highly developed and advanced world where humans live longer, are healthier and are probably wealthier. It sounds as if we will be living in an ideal, perhaps utopian, world similar to that which we see in sci-fi shows such as Star Trek. Nonetheless, if we look more closely at this brave new world, what can we foresee about the future of sentient beings? What about our human consciousness? What about “us”?
One of the most popular predictions is that humans will achieve “digital immortality” (also called “virtual immortality”) and become “transhumans”, as described in the 2014 film Transcendence, where the main character outwits death by uploading his consciousness into a quantum computer. As far-fetched as it may sound, this is not a completely unrealistic scenario. Quantum computers do exist and the technology is already commercially available, although not yet as a consumer product.
Quantum computers work by using tiny physical objects called quantum bits (qubits) to deal with extremely large amounts of data and highly complex problems in the blink of an eye. Quantum computers could, therefore, store a human being’s memories and personality in the near future.
The 2045 Initiative, which promotes “life extension”, is a clear example of how scientific research and economic effort have been poured copiously into making digital immortality become a reality. The primary goal is to create a hologram-like personalised avatar, which means a 3D virtual image of us containing our very consciousness. The creation of such an avatar would permit us to live for the rest of eternity as a “neo-human”, a human-machine hybrid. The main practical obstacle to the creation of such avatars is our current lack of understanding of how the human brain works, of what makes us who we are in terms of our personality and consciousness. This is a quest that neuroscientists are still pursuing, but the fast-paced advances in science and technology could allow them to unravel the mystery of the connection between our memories, feelings, emotions and the physical matter that constitutes our brain sooner than we expect. For people under 40, there is a concrete possibility of this kind of immortality in the near future.
As fascinating, exciting and intriguing as this prediction and vision of our world in 2050 may be, we should ask whether we’re running the risk of dehumanising the human race. Since the dawn of humanity, people have strived to become immortal – or at least to push back death as far as possible and live a comfortable and easy life. In the past 15 years, developments in our current technology have brought virtual reality, annihilated physical and geographical distances, and shown us the beauty of our planet from space, as well as the unimaginable wonders of our galaxy. But if we look back at how humans lived just 30 years ago, we realise that we have also become more and more isolated, psychologically fragile, detached from everyday reality and convinced that we can play God by manipulating nature and interfering with His greatest creation: us.
If we continue on this path, in 30 years we could really become “transhumans”. But then would we still be made in God’s image? Would this mean God becomes a Universal Programmer of a virtual matrix that encompasses the whole creation? This would probably be the end of humanity, of the world as we know it and the beginning of a dystopian reality.
Wouldn’t it, then, be advisable if we used the next 33 years to connect once again with our spirituality and with God by drawing closer to the Church, to re-discover and fully enjoy God’s love for us through making our faith the fulcrum of our life, and to live once more in harmony with nature as our ancestors did?
Dr Elisabetta Canetta is a senior lecturer in physics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham
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