On cyberimmortality

This article discusses the view of man as software, which leads to a view of personal immortality accomplished by uploading the mind to the computer. The view has been defended by computer scientists (e.g., Moravec, Kurzweil) and by theologians (e.g., Polkinghorne). The article argues that true immortality of the mind, or of the pattern of the mind, is riddled with the problem of maintaining personal identity. Moreover, because the preservation of the mind pattern requires a material substrate, the view also assumes that the material world is eternal. This article favors the Platonist-Augustinian view of immortality of the soul understood as a substance.