What is truth?

The question is as old as mankind itself. How do we know if we are and – what is true? How is human recognition possible? Many attempts were made to answer this question, and from it emerged epistemology – the mother of all theories.

What is knowledge? Or how is a mind that understands to know what it understands?

Erich Kasten, psychotherapist and professor, explained our problem – to be sure that what we know is really true – by the colours we see.

Reality is only an interpretation of the brain. Let us take the color red as an example. Actually, it is the brain cells that arrange a jumble of light rays in such a way that we can orient ourselves. Red is an invention of the brain that interprets wavelengths as color…. Optical illusions prove how much the brain cheats: In the attempt to create order, we see things that are not there at all… How much reality is a question of subjective interpretations is also shown by dreams and hallucinations, which are often experienced as real.

The question of what is true – is as unresolved as the question of why we exist

This does not prevent us from carrying our ignorance into the digital world.

Even before the 21st century our world will merge with the artificial world, according to the thesis of the physicist Michio Kaku. There will be no difference between the old and the new – digital – reality.

The merging of the real and digital world is taking off – in social networks

Whether Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social networks – there are always new blooms: We make friends with people or meet old friends again – as it is usual with Stayfriends – without actually meeting them.

Many people now feel closer to their friends from social networks than to their neighbours.

More and more often these “digital” relationships are more fulfilling than in the real world

Interpersonal relationships, family ties, business contacts and even the initiation of partnerships – our social behaviour is to a large extent already digitalised.

We still have a real place where we “enter” the digital world

Smartphone, tablet, computer – they are the “point of access” – which bring us into the digital world.

This “transfer station” between the worlds will no longer exist in the future. Although the removable contact lens is not yet used by Google, it is already obsolete. The “point of acess” will in future be in our body itself.

Neurologists want to find out where in the brain there is room for the “point of access

The researchers are investigating how we can modify the brain in order to attach interfaces with computers. Not only that – at some point parts of our brain are to be replaced by computers, according to the Brain – Computer – Interface – Studies

Man into technology and technology into man

Technology will constantly optimize our bodies, and in the end a completely different person will have been created, as the historian Harari vividly describes in Homo Deus. Companies such as Digitwell and their products may well be seen as proof of the correctness of Harari’s theses.

Researchers are trying to make artificial intelligence equal to humans. This is based on abstract thoughts, which are translated into digital zeros and ones.

But also from the other side, attempts are being made to improve artificial intelligence and to connect it to humans: With the so-called “Whole Brain Emulation” researchers are trying to imitate the human brain. The aim is to imitate the electrical and chemical processes of our nerve cells as closely as possible.

We try to duplicate what we don’t even know – our brain

With “Whole Brain Emulation” it is not necessary to know the exact functioning of the brain. The advantage of this research is that we do not need to fully understand the functions. It is sufficient to reproduce them precisely.

At some point the border between “real” and “artificial” will be meaningless

We will enter the Internet through our thoughts alone – unclear whether our own or artificial ones – without the need for a charger or an external “point of access”

The Internet will no longer be something that we perceive as websites or services, but will become part of our reality – yes, we will be the Internet itself, Kaku predicts in his book “Physics of the Future”

We’re going to break up without ever having known each other

Looking at research today, it could well be a reality in the future that we transfer our consciousness to a digital medium. If we were to “upload our brains” in this way, we would leave our human body behind. An era of immortality then reached the history of mankind – which we do not even know why it exists.

Science author and physicist Ulrich Eberl assumes that super intelligence still belongs in the realm of SciFi. I hope we are at least clear about our ethical standards – which we will take with us when the time comes.

I breathe. I’m gonna die. Will people do that after me?

I don’t know why I’m breathing or why I am. Will people know after me?