Will You Preserve Your Brain?

 Brain Preservation  

Dr. Ken Hayworth – a proponent of the idea of brain preservation – wants to move the debate around brain preservation beyond ideology and towards measurable scientific milestones.

Would you have your brain preserved? Do you believe your brain is the essence of you? To Dr. Ken Hayworth, the answer is an emphatic, “Yes.” He is currently developing machines and techniques to map brain tissue at the nanometer scale - the key to encoding our individual identities.

“I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country. But since, in all probability, we live in an age too early, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection, I must, for the present, content myself with the treat…of the resurrection of a fowl or a turkey-cock.”

- Ben Franklin, Observations on the Generally Prevailing Doctrines on Life and Death

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Often individuals’ opinions on the quality of current preservation methods are suspiciously well aligned with whether or not they think the whole ‘life after death’ thing sounds like a good idea. Is the field legitimate science, pseudo-science, or the domain of hucksters? Hayworth – a proponent of the idea of brain preservation – wants to move the debate around brain preservation beyond ideology and towards measurable scientific milestones.

A self-described transhumanist and President of the Brain Preservation Foundation, Hayworth’s goal is to perfect existing preservation techniques, like cryonics, as well as explore and push evolving opportunities to effect a change on the status quo.

"I really expect that brain preservation is a solvable problem, and it will be solved within the next decade," states Hayworth.  Also, he believes that more and more neuroscience evidence will convince skeptics, that the brain, and the billions of neurosynaptic connections—the connectome—is who we really are.

"I really expect that brain preservation is a solvable problem, and it will be solved within the next decade."

Currently there is no brain preservation option that offers systematic, scientific evidence as to how much human brain tissue is actually preserved when undergoing today’s experimental preservation methods.

Hayworth believes we can achieve his vision of preserving an entire human brain at an accepted and proven standard within the next decade. If Hayworth is right, is there a countdown to immortality?

The film above, is the first short film in  Ken Hayworth series on the Galactic Public Archives YouTube channel.

SOURCE  Galactic Public Archives

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