RESEARCH GUIDE · EVIDENCE AND OPEN QUESTIONS

Paths to future existence: a map of the possibilities

Compare longer life, revival, machine integration and methods not yet invented.

Published 2026-10-30 · Updated 2026-10-30 · By Keep Existing

Five broad families

Our working map includes staying alive longer; preservation followed by repair; reconstruction from surviving information; integration with or transfer into another substrate; and physically reaching a later time. This is an organizing framework, not a list of proven services or every idea anyone could imagine.

Different routes need different evidence

Aging research investigates biological processes. Whole-brain emulation is a proposed pathway for reproducing brain function in another medium. A research framework or technical roadmap does not establish indefinite personal existence. [Source 1] [Source 2]

A record is not automatically a person

An archive, chatbot or reconstructed biography may preserve something valuable about a life. That does not establish that the person experiences a future. A convincing imitation, a functional copy and continued subjective experience are different claims. Patient preferences must not be replaced by whichever interpretation is easiest to deliver.

Unknown methods remain open questions

Novel physics and future repair technologies belong within an open research horizon. Calling an idea quantum does not show that lost personal information can be recovered. For each candidate method we intend to assess evidence, required information or material, patient suitability and wishes, access and full costs. Institutional growth can help us investigate and act; it cannot by itself establish that a method works.

Sources and scope

This is an institutional explainer, not a clinical guideline or a claim that the institution has demonstrated these methods. Source dates matter; our discussion of the mission is editorial interpretation.

  1. López-Otín et al., Hallmarks of Aging: An Expanding Universe (Cell, 2023)
  2. Sandberg and Bostrom: Whole Brain Emulation — A Roadmap (Oxford, 2008)

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