Lazarus

This interview with Ray Kurzweil (whose Age of Spirital Machines I reviewed in '99) is fascinating. So much seems credible. [1] Then I get to the last paragraph and wonder, is he insane or joking in some way? Or am I missing something?


Another story imagines eternal life beginning not in 2045 or so, but at 'the Omega point' far in the future of the universe. As Marcus Chown introduces the idea:

You've had a long life but, finally, your time has come. If you were a wit like Oscar Wilde, you would say something amusing like: 'Either these curtains go or I do'. But you are suffused by such an awful tiredness that you can barely think, let alone speak...You draw one last breath...

...and it is summer and you are young again. Your favourite dog -- the one that loved you so much as a child and thought you would never see again -- has knocked you to the ground and is licking your face furiously. Through tears of joy, you see your father and mother -- long dead -- standing over you. They are young -- just as they were when you were ten years old -- and they are laughing and stretching out their hands to you.

Footnote

[1] (Added 13 May): See, e.g., Will designer brains divide humanity?