Look online for articles on digital ghosts.
What is a digital ghost? In what sense do they guarantee immortality?
Look up the word “avatar.” What was its early definition via à vis the Hindu religion? What is its more modern definition?
Next, go to SecondLife.com. How would you account for this tremendous interest in avatar existences?
Read the essay by Harold J. Morowitz, “Rediscovering the Mind,” which is reprinted in The Mind’s I. Morowitz describes the quandary that quantum physics presents for the prospects of developing a human-level AI. Summarize Hofstadter’s response. Read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter.
Consult Searle’s volume “The Mystery of Consciousnesss” once again. Read his discussion on Penrose’s point of view. Compare Penrose’s viewpoint on the prospects for the development of a human-level AI with the unbridled optimism espoused by Kurzweil.
Survey current research to determine how close we are to a complete understanding of the brain’s functioning that Kurzweil anticipates by mid-century.