Transhumanism and immortality in computers

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Transhumanism and immortality in computers - Press release June 15, 2025 / Sermon June 15, 2025

The question of whether a computer's so-called artificial intelligence has consciousness is often linked to another topic: mind uploading. Upload refers to computer data transfer; mind can be translated as intellect, spirit, or memory. Can human memory and the human spirit be transferred to a computer? Wikipedia has an article about Ray Kurzweil: "Kurzweil is an American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google LLC. He is considered a pioneer in optical character recognition, speech synthesis, speech recognition, flatbed scanner technology, and electronic musical instruments, especially keyboards. ... In December 2012, Kurzweil became Director of Engineering at Google.“ The Wikipedia article quotes from an article entitled ”Immortal Computers: How Religion Found Its Way into the Technological Discourse“ in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung: ”Digitalists believe in the innate fallibility of humans, just as Christians believe in original sin. Just as Christianity promises salvation from original sin, digitalism offers us salvation from our limited minds, our irrational emotions, and our aging bodies. Digital salvation comes in the form of super-intelligent machines; chips that we implant in our brains and hard drives onto which we upload our consciousness (according to the vision of Google prophet Ray Kurzweil). The immortal soul of traditional religions becomes, for digitalists, a few lines of software to which our minds can be reduced. With digitalization, with the fusion of humans and computers, human limitations such as aging and ultimately death are to be postponed or even overcome, hence the term transhumanism. In fact, the so-called entertainment industry constantly bombards us in films and computer games with depictions of human robots, so-called androids, and of soul swapping with the help of computers to other people or the transfer of souls from humans to machines. At the end of May 2025, psychology professor Dobromir Rahnev published an article on the question: “Is it possible to upload the consciousness of your mind into a computer?” Prof. Rahnev answers: "The concept ... is called mind uploading. As a brain researcher who studies perception, I firmly believe that mind uploading will one day become a reality. ... Mind uploading will certainly have no problem finding funding. Many billionaires seem willing to give away a large portion of their money for the chance at eternal life." In the article, Rahnev waxes lyrical about the complexity of the human brain and the computing power required to map brain operations. Rahnev emphasizes that computing power has increased significantly in recent years and is likely to increase considerably in the future. What is not discussed is where this alleged consciousness file is to be stored, on what material and in what location, and how this data, which is intended to last for eternity, will be protected from destruction. Can't computer parts such as processors, hard drives, etc. age? Can't computer parts malfunction or even suffer complete system failure? Do computer parts have eternal durability? How high are the costs for this thought storage space, for electricity, for maintenance, etc.? How will all this be paid for in the coming millions of years? And above all: How will protection against any changes be ensured? After all, this is supposed to be about the concrete thoughts of concrete people, about the “eternal life” of a concrete human mind. How can secure data transmission and protection against computer viruses, hackers, and cybercrime be guaranteed? Admittedly, the manipulation of the mind through interventions in the human brain is also an important topic for transhumanists. People are to be programmed by changing their genes and implanting computer chips in their brains. The goal is to learn, reprogram, and organize people at the touch of a button. But back to thought uploading: When uploading, data is normally duplicated in a similar way to a fax machine, so when consciousness is transferred to a computer, these human thoughts would exist both in humans and in computers. Does every copy of a thought, does every android have a right to life? Or to put it another way: if everything is just hardware and software, what is human dignity? How can any right to life be justified?

Transhumanism wants to transcend human limitations—but what about moral boundaries? What would this “eternal life” in the computer actually consist of? Endless agonizing boredom? Endless memories of painful experiences? An endless longing for an end to this misery? Is it mere coincidence that people like Kurzweil have made careers at Google? One might ask: What is Google's general stance on data protection? How does Google protect access to information? What data has been retained on the Google platform YouTube, for example, on the topic of the “coronavirus pandemic”? What data has been deleted because of “COVID-19”? Google deleted entire YouTube accounts, extensive laborious creations, the work of countless hours, completely wiped out in a second. Google argues that YouTube only tolerates the claims of the so-called World Health Organization (WHO). What is Bill Gates' position on the WHO? What is the World Economic Forum's position on the WHO? What are Klaus Schwab and Yuval Noah Harari's positions on transhumanism? One thing is clear: transhumanism serves as a distraction from the belief that everyone must one day answer for their actions, namely as creatures before their Creator, as weak humans before the almighty God. No human limits, no moral limits, no responsibility. The Catholic Catechism begins with the statement: We are on earth to know God, to serve him in love and faithfulness, and to attain eternal life. God is the supreme lawgiver; one must obey God rather than men. The human soul is immortal, and on the Last Day, body and soul will be united forever. Those who die in a state of sanctifying grace attain eternal bliss. Those who die in a state of mortal sin suffer eternal punishment in hell. Through reason, we can recognize truths such as the existence of God or the immortality of the soul, and through revelation we learn incomprehensible truths such as the Trinity of God or the Incarnation of the Son of God. However, human reason can recognize that it is not unreasonable to believe these statements, or that it is unreasonable to reject them. Let us expose the false teachings of false prophets and profess the Catholic faith in opposition to them. Amen.