Sooner Human brains will be uploaded to machines -- Professor Brian Cox

You might scoff at the thought of uploading your brain to a machine in the hope of achieving mortality...but one of Britain's top physicists says it's very possible

IF you could live forever by simply uploading your brain to a computer, would you consider it?

Several high profile names including Elon Musk and ex-Googler, Anthony Levandowski, are on a quest to accelerate what's been described as the "technological singularity", an evolutionary step in which we merge with machines.

While the idea that we could upload our brains to a computer is pretty terrifying, it's not confined to science fiction.

Video

That's according to Professor Brian Cox, who told The Sun Online that he found "no reason at all why you cannot simulate human intelligence".

The Mancunian BBC presenter, who boasts in-depth knowledge of particle physics along with a set of graceful piano fingers (yes, he's playing the keyboard throughout D:Ream's iconic tune Things Can Only Get Better) said that true artificial intelligence is absolutely possible, according to quantum mechanics.

You might have heard the phrase artificial intelligence bandied about by Apple or Google, whose clever computing methods power smart assistant Siri and a massive search engine that learns how to become better at their jobs.

But these are a series of processes that appear similar to intelligence, not to be confused with "mind uploading" like that dodgy Johnny Depp flick, Transcendence.

What many future-gazers, eminent scientists and the likes of Elon Musk are hoping for is a true symbiosis between the biological and digital world.

That means uploading an entire brain to a computer so it can simulate the very essence of what makes us human - as far as we understand it.

If - or when - the technological singularity comes about, humans will just have been a blip on the Earth's surface.

Despite priding ourselves on our super smart brains, there's not too much that separates us from computer systems.

"I don't think people's minds are different from computers because that would imply there's something non-physical about them", Professor Cox added.

Of course, it won't be plain sailing and there's plenty of technological obstructions that scientists will have to overcome before we're all stored in the cloud.

It's all based on finding computers that are big enough to simulate intelligence such as quantum computers.

There's also the complex quantum principle called the "no cloning" theory which suggests that it is impossible to copy things, which might make it difficult to mimic a specific brain.

The US government wants to implant tiny computers the size of a pound coin into people's brains so they can communicate telepathically.

They are in the market for devices that could let humans operate machinery with our minds, treat brain injuries and possibly most crucially of all... send WhatsApp messages using the power of thought alone.

There's already a brain project in place, where scientists are working on creating an artificial brain.

The Human Brain Project, a ten-year mission cofounded by the European Union, hopes to simulate brains to understand how we learn, perceive the world, sleep, and are conscious.

But fear not, simulated floating brains aren't ready quite yet.

"I think we are at a cockroach level of simulating the nervous system right now," Cox joked.