71-year-old Professor Stephen Hawking was at the Cambridge Film Festival to chat about the biopic detailing his life. While speaking about the film, Hawking spoke about the possibility of preserving brains on hard drives. He was asked if he thought a person’s consciousness could live on after death. His response:

I think the brain is like a programme in the mind, which is like a computer, so it’s theoretically possible to copy the brain onto a computer and so provide a form of life after death.

He said that this isn’t possible with the technology we have today, and added that he thinks, “the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.”

Would you want your brain to be copied onto a computer after you die?

[Source: The Telegraph]