Chemical Brain Preservation: How to Live "Forever"

About 57 million unique and precious human beings die every year, or 155,000 people every day. The memories and identities in their brains are permanently lost at present, but may not be in the near future.

Chemical brain preservation is a technique that many scientists believe may inexpensively preserve our memories and identity when we die, eventually for less than $10,000 per person in the developed world, and less than $3,000 per person in the developing world. Preserved brains can be stored at room temperature in cemeteries, in contract storage, or even in private homes. Our organization, the Brain Preservation Foundation (brainpreservation.org), is offering a $100,000 prize to the first scientific team to demonstrate that the entire synaptic connectivity of mammalian brains, where neuroscientists believe our memories and identities reside, can be perfectly preserved using these low-cost chemical techniques.

There is growing evidence that chemically preserved brains can be "read" in the future, like a computer hard drive, so that memories, and even the complete identities of the preserved individuals can be restored, using low-cost automated techniques. Amazingly, given the accelerating rate of technological advance, a person whose brain is preserved in 2020 might "return" to the world, most likely in a computer form, as early as 2060, while their loved ones and some of their friends are still alive.

Will 1% of any society ever choose brain preservation, once it becomes available? Would you do it? If not, why not?