Can people upload their consciousnesses to computers?

The idea of uploading one's personality and consciousness to a computer is a semi-common science fiction trope. It has been suggested as a way to essential immortality.

In a story I'm working on, an entire society has transferred itself from brains to computers. They're on a spaceship, heading to a new world, fleeing from an apocalypse on their home planet. Putting themselves on computers is much more efficient than the alternative.

Can they upload their consciousness to computers, keep the whole thing running smoothly, and hold them in a state such that they might be transferable to organic bodies at a later state (e.g. upon finding a habitable planet)?

Some specifics:

• The society is composed of about 3 million people
• The spaceship is roughly the size of a Super Star Destroyer (from Star Wars)
• The journey will take many, many years - quite possibly several centuries
• The technology level is roughly within 50 or so years of today's
• All answers must be based in hard-science

posted almost 9 years ago

HDE 226868‭

586 reputation 61 463 77 49