Singularity Theodicy and Immortality

Abstract

Recent advances in technology have brought humanity to a unique point in history where theodicy is no more just a religious matter but also a matter of science and technology. Ray Kurzweil offers a non-religious Singularity theodicy of this-worldly subjective immortality (the survival of the soul after the dissolution of the body) with three strategies: the freezing strategy in cryonics, the cloning strategy in genetics, and the transference strategy in information technology. I argue that three challenges need to be met for the Singularity theodicy to be successful. The first challenge is related to the technological plausibility of human brain scanning and whether one can scan unconsciousness without making it into something other than unconsciousness. Based on the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Derek Parfit, I offer the second criticism that the non-identity problem arises, due to personal identity being a temporal seriality of experiences between the biological person and the unloaded data. Lastly, even if intelligent patterns become immortal in the Singularity, this would not be what Christianity has called the immortality of the soul.

4.1 Science/fiction

“…Their questions seek a more profound understanding of Kurzweil's post-human figure: how would the immortality experienced by the post-Singularity human fundamentally change human identity? (Sohn, 2019); by uploading brain scans to computers, can we still call the non-organic patterns that remain actual human consciousness? (Pugh, 2017); and is the vanquishing of death promised by the singularity simply a quasi-religious story, an alternate version of the promise of everlasting life bestowed upon the faithful?…”