Wont things like uploading, cryonics, and AI fail because they cant preserve or create the soul?
While the concept of a soul is not a very useful or coherent one for a naturalistic philosophy such as transhumanism, many transhumanists do take an interest in the related problems concerning personal identity and consciousness. These problems have been the subject of lively debate among contemporary analytic philosophers, and though some progress has been made (e.g. in Derek Parfit’s work on personal identity) they have still not been resolved to general satisfaction. An easily accessible introduction to the mind-body problem is Churchland (1988). If one believes that there is a soul and that it enters the body at conception, then cryonics may be able to work since human embryos have been successfully been frozen, stored for extended periods and then implanted into their mothers, resulting in healthy and ordinary children (who presumably have souls). Uploading would in many ways be an empirical test of many views on the soul. If uploading turns out to work, certain views on the soul
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