How your immortal consciousness will travel the universe | Michio Kaku | Big Think

How your immortal consciousness will travel the universe

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In about 100 years, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes we'll explore the universe as pure consciousness — traveling at the speed of light, looking at asteroids, comets, meteors, and eventually the stars. "All of this within the laws of physics," he says. Through recent brain imaging, we know know that the prefrontal cortex of teenagers is fully formed. This induces them to take risks. Also, when guys who talk with pretty girls, we also know it's that blood drains from their brains. Well, their prefrontal cortex. This makes them liable to act "mentally retarded." The Connectome Project will map the entire brain in about 100 years.

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MICHIO KAKU:

Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).

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TRANSCRIPT:

MICHIO KAKU: We physicists are now looking into the brain itself. And we can see blood flow. And we can even see thoughts, thoughts as they're being created. And we can now show that certain old wives' tales are correct. Every parent, for example, believes that their teenage children suffer from brain damage. It's partially true. Scanning the prefrontal cortex of teenagers, you find that it's not fully formed. And that's why they take risks, because they don't understand how dangerous certain things are. Another old wives' tale is, when a man talks to a pretty girl, he starts to act stupid. Absolutely true.

We have brain scanned men talking to pretty girls, and what happens is blood drains from the prefrontal cortex. And they start to act mentally retarded. Absolutely true. We can quantify the effect. We could measure it by measuring the drop in blood flow to the cerebral cortex. Now, I personally believe that one day, we will digitize the entire human brain. And what are we going to do with it? I think we're going to shoot it into outer space. We're going to put our Connectome on a laser beam and shoot it to the moon. We will be on the moon, our consciousness will be on the moon, in one second, one second, without booster rockets, without all the dangers of radiation or weightlessness. We'll be on the moon in one second. We'll shoot it to Mars.

We'll be on Mars. In 20 minutes, we'll be on Mars. We'll shoot it to Alpha Centauri. We'll be on the nearby stars in four years. And what is on the moon? On the moon is a computer that downloads this laser beam with your consciousness on it, downloads it and puts it into an avatar, an avatar that looks just like you-- handsome, strong, beautiful, whatever, and immortal. And you can walk on the moon. You can then go and explore Mars. In fact, I think that once we have a laser porting perfected, you'll have breakfast in New York. And then you'll go to the moon for brunch on the moon. You go to Mars for lunch, and then you go to the asteroid belt in the afternoon for tea. And then you come back to Earth that evening.

This is all within the laws of physics. And I'll stick my neck out. I think this actually exists already. I think outside the planet Earth, there could be a highway, a laser highway of laser beams shooting the consciousness of aliens at the speed of light, laser porting across the galaxy. And we humans are too stupid to know it. How would we even know that this laser superhighway exists? How would we even detect it with our technology? Our technology today is so primitive, that we wouldn't even be able to know that this already exists. So in other words, I think laser porting is the way that we will ultimately explore the universe.

We'll explore the universe as pure consciousness traveling at the speed of light, looking at asteroids, comets, meteors, and eventually the stars, at the speed of light-- all of this within the laws of physics. When will this happen? Perhaps in 100 years. The Connectome Project will map the entire brain in about 100 years. And then, what do we do with it? I say, we shoot it to the stars.