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In 1977, the NASA aerospace agency sent two spacecraft “Voyager”. The Voyager 1 probe overtook its twin and, almost immediately after passing Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, moved away from Earth at a distance of more than 24 billion kilometers.
Each spacecraft of this mission carries a disk containing evidence of the existence of mankind: sounds and images of nature, greetings in 55 languages, a letter from the 39th US President Jimmy Carter and other information.
It is expected that someday this data will be seen by aliens and they will be able to contact us. The data plates were made to last for more than a billion years – it has recently been reported that if they do not collide with stars, the lifespan could reach several trillion years. Recently, science and religion researcher James Huchingson announced,
Is there life after death?
According to James Huchingson, throughout his career he has studied how the scientific achievements of mankind intersect with religious ideas. Thinking about the Voyager spacecraft and the disks containing information about humanity, he came to the conclusion that some people, thanks to them, will be able to gain immortality.
Voyager spacecraft are the most distant space probes from Earth
The scientist noticed that the followers of most religions believe that immortality is the eternal existence of the soul after death. For example, Christians and Muslims want to end up in paradise after death.
In Judaism, it is believed that after death all people fall into the so-called sheol, that is, the kingdom of the dead – they have no concept of hell and paradise. Some religions prioritize collective immortality. For example, some Jews are most concerned about the fate of the entire people of Israel.
Some people believe in life after death
President John Carter, who wrote the message to aliens, was a Baptist and also believed in immortality. After being diagnosed with brain cancer (which was cured!), he said:
It won’t matter to me if I die or live. My faith includes full confidence in life after death, so I will live anyway.
Signs of the existence of mankind
According to James Huchingson, at least for religious people, the Voyager probes can really give eternal life. According to scientists, somewhere in 4-5 billion years the Sun will turn into a red giant – it will increase a hundred times and literally crush the Earth and other nearby planets.
All life in the solar system will be destroyed, but there is hope that the Voyager spacecraft will still be intact. If the data recorded on disks are ever read by aliens, then, at least from the point of view of most religious people, humanity can be considered immortal – they will know about our existence.
Voyager Golden Discs
There are no words, the statement that the Voyager spacecraft can provide humanity with immortality sounds too loud. But, if you face the truth, made by James Huchingson sound logical. True, for people far from religion, this statement will certainly seem meaningless.
For staunch adherents of science, immortality is at least the preservation of the conscious self after the complete death of the brain. Ideally, of course, it is better to save the whole body.
How can a person be made immortal?
At the moment, there are several theoretically possible ways to make a person immortal. Firstly, there is cryogenic freezing – today you can afford to freeze yourself for defrosting in the future. The safety of this method has not been proven and all people who agree to this are at great risk.
They are driven only by the hope that a full-fledged life extension technology will be developed in the future. Secondly, theoretically, one can become immortal by downloading a person’s mind into a computer. Neuralink is making the first steps in this direction today, but the final goal is still far away.
In theory, by freezing people, you can literally move them in time
Creating a digital copy of a person is called “digital immortality”.
What do you think of James Huchingson’s reflections? Write in the comments or our chat.
