Keep a record
Files, sequence and provenance.
The open continuation program
Many possible paths. One unresolved question.
What can persist from a person—and what would count as continuation? These research directions are a map for investigation, not a menu of available procedures.
Preserve the information before claiming a new form.
The vision of a person becoming something brain-like raises a problem that a change of material does not solve: how would the information supporting that person’s memories and identity survive? The research linked here does not show that dissolving a body creates a brain or carries a person into one.
A more useful research program separates what is retained—records, DNA, viable cells, tissue structure or function—from what can be built later. The connection to personal continuity remains an open question.
Maintain a living system
Cells, tissue and measured function.
Establish personal continuity
No demonstration identified in this review.
Build the operating foundation
A life archive that can change custodians
Preserve original media, context, consent and exportability. This is the most directly specifiable near-term work.
What would make progress meaningful?
A complete test archive must be exported, verified and restored by a second custodian.
The unresolved gap
File access cannot continue a person’s subjective experience.
Established component methods
A well-characterized genome record
Retain the measurements and uncertainty behind a genome interpretation, including future reanalysis needs.
What would make progress meaningful?
Specify raw data, assembly, quality thresholds, access controls and independent identity checks.
The unresolved gap
A genome does not contain a recorded life or a complete learned brain state.
Provider and feasibility assessment
Consented viable-cell banking
Explore whether banking viable donor cells adds research options beyond banking sequence data.
What would make progress meaningful?
Define intended uses, post-storage quality tests, consent boundaries and qualified custodians.
The unresolved gap
Cell survival does not establish personal survival.
Experimental research
Donor-derived neural models
Study how cells can form and sustain neural tissue with measurable properties.
What would make progress meaningful?
Characterize cell types, variability, function and oversight before any individual-continuation interpretation.
The unresolved gap
New donor-derived tissue does not inherit the donor’s autobiographical memories.
Experimental research
Long-duration neural stewardship
Investigate the scientific and operational demands of maintaining neural models over years.
What would make progress meaningful?
Track function, stability, contamination risk, failure response and governance across time.
The unresolved gap
Five years of developmental maturation is not five years of a person’s remembered life.
Demonstrated research prototypes
Biological computing and feedback
Compare what living neural networks can do when connected to inputs, outputs and computational readouts.
What would make progress meaningful?
Use repeatable tasks, controls and whole-system resource accounting.
The unresolved gap
Learning a task does not establish consciousness, identity or a recovered mind.
Experimental tools
Interfaces that characterize neural tissue
Better measurements may distinguish meaningful changes in tissue rather than relying on appearance.
What would make progress meaningful?
Establish recording reliability, signal interpretation and validation across independent models.
The unresolved gap
More electrodes do not themselves decode a life.
Open data and computational research
Connectomes and testable brain models
Use public circuit maps to study what structure can explain about function.
What would make progress meaningful?
Reproduce a bounded analysis, preserve the dataset version and test a specific prediction.
The unresolved gap
A wiring map is incomplete evidence for the full state of a mind.
Preclinical research
Functional tissue preservation
Follow work that evaluates function after preservation, alongside structural and molecular endpoints.
What would make progress meaningful?
Separate viability, tissue function, duration, scale and species in every comparison.
The unresolved gap
An animal organ or neural-tissue result does not establish human revival.
Preclinical research
Cellular recovery after loss of circulation
Study which cellular processes remain recoverable under defined experimental conditions.
What would make progress meaningful?
Map exactly which functions were recovered and which remained absent or untested.
The unresolved gap
Cellular recovery does not prove restoration of a coordinated brain or a person.
Experimental storage
Living and nonliving molecular archives
Compare encoded digital storage in molecular materials and living populations.
What would make progress meaningful?
Measure payload recovery, drift, redundancy, custody and realistic costs.
The unresolved gap
A file encoded in DNA is not a biological recollection.
Exploratory biology
Self-organizing living structures
Investigate what adult-derived cells can form and how collective behaviour emerges.
What would make progress meaningful?
Define the useful function and reproduce it with appropriate controls.
The unresolved gap
Movement and self-organization do not make a construct a brain or the donor.
Unvalidated Death X concept
A contained genomic-signature culture
Assess a small, clearly defined culture carrying a consented sequence and documented provenance.
What would make progress meaningful?
Independent feasibility, genetic stability, containment, maintenance and applicable authorization.
The unresolved gap
No complete-body conversion or memory-transfer process is established here.
Design and ethics research
An explicitly labeled digital representation
Keep original recordings separate from generated responses and give people control over use.
What would make progress meaningful?
Document permissions, provenance, error disclosure, withdrawal and successor decisions.
The unresolved gap
An AI imitation is not evidence that the original person continues.
Research scope
Fourteen directions are mapped here. This is a curated scoping review, not an exhaustive inventory of every publication, patent, company or experimental approach. Neural-model work would require appropriate donor consent, qualified scientific oversight and attention to emerging welfare questions. No human dissolution or revival procedure is offered.