If you could live forever, would you want to? The challenge of keeping your body alive seems impossible, but some scientists are working on an alternative. They want to create a digital copy of your “self” and keep that copy “alive” long after your physical body has stopped functioning.
如果你能永生，你愿意吗？让身体永生看起来不太可能，但一些科学家正在研究另一种方式。他们想要创造一个你的“自我”的数字拷贝，并在你的身体停止运转后让这个拷贝“永生”。
In effect, their plan is to clone a person electronically. Unlike ordinary physical clones –which have identical features as their parents, but which are independent organisms, each with a different conscious self– your electronic clone would believe itself to be you.
实际上，他们的计划是采用电子方式克隆人。与普通的物理克隆不同——它们的特征与父母相同，但它们是独立的有机体，每个有机体都有不同的自我意识——而你的电子克隆会相信它就是你。
One plan relies on the development of nano technology. Ray Kurzweil, a leading futurist, predicts that within two or three decades we will have tiny transmitters that can be injected into the brain. How might this be possible? Once there they would line up alongside neurons and monitor the details of the brain’s activity. They would then be able to transmit that information to receivers inside a special helmet, allowing us to map the brain.
计划依赖于纳米技术的发展，一流的未来学家雷·库兹韦尔预测，在二三十年内，我们将拥有可以注入大脑的微型发射器。这会发生什么？一旦实现，它们将与神经元一起监视大脑活动的细节。然后，它们就可以将这些信息传送至一个特殊头盔内的接收器，让我们能够绘制大脑的地图。
As a further step, Kurzweil foresees using these tiny transmitters to connect you to a world of virtual reality. With the transmitters in place, you could think your way onto the internet. Instead of seeing pictures on a screen, you would see them in your mind. Rather than send emails to your friends, you could meet them on some virtual tropical beach and exchange messages in “virtual person”.
库兹韦尔预计下一步将可以使用这些微型发射器将你连接到虚拟现实世界。有了发射器，你就可以想办法上网了。与其在屏幕上看图片，不如在脑海中看见。与其给你的朋友发电子邮件，不如和他们在一些虚拟的热带海滩上会面，以“虚拟人”的方式交换信息。
For a futurist like Ray, this would be heaven, a virtual heaven. Once you upload the brain onto the Internet and log on to that virtual world, your body can be left to decompose while your virtual self can play games for as long as you wish.
对于像雷这样的未来主义者来说，这就是天堂，一个虚拟的天堂。一旦你的大脑上传至互联网并登录至虚拟世界，你的身体就可以被分解，而你的虚拟自我可以随心所欲地玩游戏。
However, there is still a problem. To exist on the net, your virtual self will have to reside on the computer of a web-hosting company. These companies want to be paid real money, or they will delete your “self” and sell the space to someone else. With your body long gone how you pay?
然而，仍然存在一个问题。为了在网络上生存，你的虚拟自我必须驻留在网络托管公司的计算机上。这些公司希望获得真实的报酬，否则他们会删除你的“自我”，把空间出售给其他人。你的身体早就没了，你该如何付钱呢？
