All language subtitles for The.Story.of.God.with.Morgan.Freeman.S01E01.Beyond.Death.HDTV.x264-ASCENDANCE

I lived here
in Greenwood, Mississippi,

off and on from the age of 7
until I was 18.

♪ ♪

I crossed a lot of hurdles here.

Started first grade,

learned how to drive a car,

fell in love for the first time.

I also crossed
another hurdle here.

I experienced death.

My paternal grandmother,
my brother.

We all go through this,
of course.

Everybody grieves,

but some people have a certainty
that helps them cope with grief.

They're certain they will see
their loved ones again

in heaven.

For some of us it's not
quite that simple.

In fact, it's the greatest
question we ask ourselves.

What happens when we die?

♪ ♪

Now I'm embarking
on an epic adventure

to discover what we believe
lies beyond death and why.

Is there any scientific support
for the soul?

I'll learn the true purpose
of the afterlife

for ancient Egyptians.

Oh, my goodness,
look at all this.

Why the story of one man's
rebirth was so powerful

it swept the globe.

It is the resurrection of Jesus

that proves that
he's the Messiah.

How the Hindu faith
erased the fear of death.

I accept that as
an inevitable part of life.

And I'll explore how science

is trying to capture the soul.

I hope to be
fully human someday.

To bring eternal life
to this life.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

What is beyond death?

How can any of us know?

But some people think they do,

because they've been
to the brink of death.

♪ ♪

Former research diver
David Bennett

is one of those people.

Which one are you looking at?

This window here,

the one with Jesus
in the lower corner there.

He's quieting the storm.

♪ ♪

Back in 1983,
off the California coast

there was a storm,
about 25 to 30-foot seas,

and so we started heading in.

♪ ♪

And all of a sudden,
we fell off a 30-footer...

that fast...

and we just slid right off.

And I looked up and
there was the next one,

and it came right down
on top of us.

I was in the bow,
it catapulted me into the sea,

and I was just tumbled
and tossed like a rag doll.

♪ ♪

You can only hold
your breath so long.

You reach a point of release
where you just, you just let go

and you breathe in salt water.

And it's, it's quite
a violent way to die.

♪ ♪

No idea how deep?

I hadn't,
I had totally lost my awareness

of my body and the ocean
at this point.

♪ ♪

Then I noticed this light.

It was millions upon millions
of fragments of light.

♪ ♪

In all different colors,

and they were all dancing
and swirling,

but kind of like they were
one mind, though,

and it was infinite.

What did you think?

Did you think, or you've just
experienced this feeling?

Well, I mean, I knew

I wasn't in Kansas anymore,
you know.

I knew I had left my body,

and as I approached
this mass of light,

it was a familiar home.

And, and it was a relationship
that was so much deeper

than any relationship
I'd ever had here.

And then I reached
a certain point

where these millions
of fragments of light spoke.

♪ ♪

And they said,
'This is not your time.'

'You must return,
you have a purpose.'

I was watching my body
and I was mesmerized,

because I knew I was gonna
go back in that body.

♪ ♪

And as the next
set of waves came,

they pounded my body
up against all this wreckage

and pushed some of that
salt water out of my lungs,

and that's when I found myself
back in my body.

♪ ♪

About how long
were you in the water, under?

Yeah, the, the crew
that were looking for me

said I was there from anywhere
from 15 to 18 minutes

under this, under the water.

15 to 18 minutes.

Yeah.

So you're 15 to 18
minutes without a breath of air.

Right.

Okay.

So, David, all that you've told
me is, is such a story.

Mm-hmm.

Does it make you
believe in an afterlife?

I do believe in an afterlife.

I believe that our being,
our soul,

whatever you may want
to call it, lives on,

and that we have opportunities
to come back.

And I never thought
of any of that beforehand.

I, I'm, you know,
it just wasn't on my radar.

Now here we sit
in this cathedral.

You haven't mentioned God.

That light, that was God to me.

That was God.

So the message is from God.

Yeah.

And I believe that you can
find that spirituality

in all different beliefs.

I don't subscribe to just
one belief anymore.

I try... I love...
my library at home

has all different beliefs
represented.

So does mine.

David's incredible story

reminds me of an experience
I had many years ago.

♪ ♪

I have seen a light,
not in a near-death experience,

I was just passing out.

And what I perceived was
the tiniest beam of light

that to me was
the final form of life.

It just occurred to me,
holy cow, there it is.

There is the light that
everybody talks about.

But it's a common theme
among people

who say they have had
a near-death experience

or an out-of-body experience.

What they see is a light.

Some people have seen Jesus
in, in this light;

other people just see
a bright light.

The hope for life beyond death

seems to be an almost
universal instinct.

But I want to know
how the afterlife

first became part of religion.

So, I'm going to Egypt...

♪ ♪

to the place where the first
great monuments to the afterlife

still stand.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Here we are in Sakkara.

That's the step pyramid
of King Djoser,

and it's one of
the first pyramids.

It is the first pyramid
ever to be built.

That one is over there?

Yes. This entire site
is a big cemetery.

So the ideas that
people now have

about rebirth and resurrection

all started here in Sakkara

about 5,000 years ago,
not earlier.

So this is maybe
the birth of afterlife thought.

Yeah, you could say that.

Egyptologist
Salima Ikram is taking me to see

the tomb of a pharaoh who ruled
almost 4,400 years ago.

Inside it are humanity's oldest
written descriptions

of the afterlife.

This is a causeway,

and we're going towards
the temple of Unas.

This part is where they would be
dragging the body of the king

once it had been mummified
up here.

I'm looking here
at these stones.

I know I couldn't lift one.

And this looks like it was
built in the '50s or '60s.

But it is actually built
about 4,000 years ago.

- Yeah.
- A bit more than that.

Unbelievable, Salima,
unbelievable.

♪ ♪

We go up here,
you can see there's the pyramid,

and it doesn't look like
very much right now.

It looks really like...

- Looks like a hill.
- Yup.

But what's important
about it is what's inside.

You're going to have
to mind your head.

Now, is this
little people in here or...?

My size.

So, you'll have to duck again
for this bit.

♪ ♪

Also, you have to bend to show
that you're being respectful

to the great god king.

Is that what this is all about?

Partially, yeah.

And here we are.

♪ ♪

Oh, my goodness,
look at all this.

Fabulous, huh?

♪ ♪

What is all the writing about?

Basically, these are
magic spells or religious spells

that Unas had inscribed

so that when he wanted to go
from this world to the next,

he had to recite
all of these things,

and they give him directions.

If he's going to pass through
anything dangerous,

what to do, what do say.

What do these prayers say?

Well, and there's one
here that, you know,

'Rise up, Unas, and
will know the magic

and you can be triumphant
over the demons.'

Over here, 'Unas will go forward
and his soul will live forever.'

Basically, this one
gives him dominance

over any demon-faced creatures.

And you see his name repeated
again and again and again

throughout the wall.

Okay, that's what
I was looking at.

There's so much repetition,
but that's his name.

Yeah.

These secret spells are
a survival guide

for souls passing
through the underworld.

♪ ♪

And the key to understanding
why the afterlife

was so important
to the Egyptians.

♪ ♪

Okay.

This is the main burial chamber.

This is it,
this is the main event.

And this is the...
oh, my goodness.

This is a sarcophagus.

Yep.

This is, this big, fat thing
is a sarcophagus,

and that's where Unas
would have been laid.

Well, I'm sorry, he's not here.

I'd like to shake his hand,

say, 'Hello, how you been?
What's going on?'

Okay.

And are these more spells?

Yep.

And so this whole thing is
really this resurrection machine

for Unas and his spirit.

At nightfall, Unas'
soul would reanimate

his modified body and make
a treacherous journey.

He would cross a lake of fire

passing through gates
guarded by demons and snakes.

Without his sacred spells,
he would be devoured.

With them, he could arrive
and sit with the eternal gods

in the starry heavens.

He wakes up at night.

Mm-hmm.

He gets up and
he starts his, his journeys.

The next night he wakes up
and he starts,

and he does the exact same thing
all over again.

And then the next night
he gets up

and he does the same thing
all over.

And then the next night
he gets up and he does...

Forever and ever and ever.

It's a bit tiring.

Maybe, maybe not,
I mean, it's all he's got.

Yeah, I guess so.

That's what a king does,

because by doing this, by going
through this eternal battle

and being, becoming one
with the sun god,

what the king does
is make the world safe.

Okay.

Do we have to, uh, is there
another way out of here?

Do we have to bend over again?

Sorry, we have
to bend over again

to become one
with the eternal stars.

Lead on.

For the ancient Egyptians,

the afterlife of the pharaoh
was vital.

It ensured the sun would
rise each morning.

Their enormous monuments
didn't just ensure

the pharaohs would survive
beyond death.

Their afterlife provided
essential power

to sustain the living.

This idea is not
unique to Egypt.

Halfway around the world,

a culture that never
had any contact

with the ancient Near East

also came to depend
on the power of the dead.

This is Mexico City
on the Day of the Dead.

♪ ♪

Archaeologist
Enrique Rodriguez Galadia

has been studying how Mexicans
and their Mesoamerican ancestors

see the afterlife.

This
is the one night of the year

where people can spend
the entire night

with the souls
of their ancestors,

and the souls can
come and visit,

and they can share food,

and then they can share
jokes and stories

and enjoy a night together.

♪ Animas de penas ♪

♪ Rompa sus cadenas ♪

♪ Un rosario santo ♪

The Gonzales family
greet their dead grandfather

with a traditional song
imploring him to wake up.

♪ Despierta, Papa, despierta ♪

The belief that the division

between life and death
is not very firm

and is definitely not
as firm as it is,

for example,
in the United States.

The Day of the Dead developed

from the Catholic faith's
All Souls and All Saints Days.

But the heart of the celebration
is much older.

It dates back to the Aztec ideas
of the afterlife,

a tradition that is profoundly
un-Christian.

♪ ♪

At the center
of modern Mexico City

only the ruins of the Aztec
Templo Mayor still remain.

500 years ago,
a colossal pyramid temple

dominated the skyline
of Tenochtitlan.

When the conquistadors
first arrived,

they described scenes of
mass sacrifice by Aztec priests

who pulled beating hearts
out of living victims.

Bodies and blood cascaded
down temple steps.

But there was scant
physical evidence

of these mass sacrifices

until a recent, chilling
archaeological discovery

in the basement of an old house.

So, the Templo Mayor

is right there, right?

Exactamente, Enrique.

And we are
only about 600 feet away

from the Templo Mayor, wow.

Here Enrique's
colleague Raul Barrera

unearth remains
of a rack of human skulls

over a hundred feet long.

So this is a wall made of skulls

joined by lime,

and it is associated, or it is
part of the skull rack,

the great tzompantli
of the Aztecs.

It's incredible.

It's been right here
for 500 years.

Brutal as it seems to us now,

the Aztecs saw human sacrifice
as vital.

Without human blood,

they believed the sun would
lose power, crops would fail.

Without the power drawn
from the death of a few,

all life would come to an end.

What the Aztecs believed

was that if they stopped
doing sacrifices,

it would be
the end of the world.

The, the Gods would be
displeased,

the sun would stop moving,

and it would not make
its journey across the sky

during the day.

Yes, sacrifice connected
the living and the dead,

because people who,
who died in sacrifice

providing for the people
who remain here

and they continued making
this worldly life possible

for those who remain behind.

The human sacrifice
of the Aztecs

and the elaborate tombs
of Ancient Egypt

are both driven by a common
belief in the afterlife,

and they'd have the power
to reach back

and sustain the living.

But today, billions of people
believe this power can do more

than sustain us in this world;

it can grant us
all eternal life.

Play one of the best new FPS shooters,
search Steam for PROJECT WARLOCK

Most of my family
are buried near my home.

Gives me a sense of rootedness
that I need.

Gives me occasion to remember,

reflect on how their lives
influenced me.

This in itself is a poem
of life after death.

Our memories of them
continue to guide us

when their life on Earth
has ended.

For Christians a graveyard is
not just a place of memory,

it's a place of hope
for life beyond death,

hope that began in a moment
of extreme anguish

2,000 years ago...

when a man named Jesus
was arrested by the Romans

in Jerusalem and
sent to die on the cross.

♪ ♪

It's a story most of us in
the West know, or think we know.

But I want to examine this
promise of an afterlife

more deeply.

♪ ♪

So I've come to the place where
the story began... Jerusalem...

to try to understand what
it meant to people living here

some two millennia ago.

Today, this city is home
to three faiths...

Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam.

Back then almost all the locals
were Jewish, including Jesus.

Is that the top dome,
the dome of it right there?

The, the gray
thing that you see, right,

that's the main dome, and
then the dome over the tomb,

which has its own gray dome,

is located on the other side
of that to the west.

Okay.

I've asked
archaeologist Jodi Magness

to show me where many Christians
believe Jesus died.

So this is it.

This is the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is an enormous complex
that enshrines the sites

that are holiest to Christians,
holiest in the world.

In the time of Jesus,

this area lay outside the walls
of the city of Jerusalem.

The site where he was crucified
was a rocky hill

that's called Golgotha, which
means 'the hill of the skull, '

because this was the spot where
the Romans crucified people,

and there were skulls and bones
lying around.

♪ ♪

Christians have made pilgrimage

to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre

for more than 1,600 years.

♪ ♪

Not only is it revered as
the site of Jesus' crucifixion,

it also contains
another holy shrine,

what is believed to be
the remains of the tomb

where Jesus was buried
and rose from the dead.

♪ ♪

You can really feel
the energy here.

This spot is the focus
of so much devotion.

The tomb no longer
looks anything like

a first century
Jewish burial place.

But Jodi believes this site
is historically credible.

This is the coolest part

of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre.

We're actually behind the walls
of the rotunda

where the tomb of, of Jesus is.

We're behind the walls
where the tomb is.

Yes, and what we have
here are the remains

of rock-cut tombs, Jewish tombs.

In the time of Jesus,
Jews buried their dead

in underground rock-cut tombs,

burial caves that consisted
of one or more rooms

that had long niches
cut into the walls,

and when an individual
member of a family died,

the body was washed,
wrapped in a shroud,

and placed into a niche,

and the opening into the niche
would be sealed off.

According to
the gospel accounts,

Jesus was crucified and buried
outside the walls of the city.

Because we have what is clearly
a Jewish cemetery here

of the time of Jesus,

this is the best archaeological
evidence we have

that this spot was located
outside the walls of the city

in the time of Jesus,

and therefore indirectly
it verifies the gospel accounts.

♪ ♪

The first people to
believe in Jesus' resurrection

may have stood right here.

But I want to know why
those beliefs took root

and how they spread
all around the world.

Jesus' death and resurrection,

does it change somehow
the thinking

around life after death?

In the Hebrew bible,
the Old Testament,

there's no explicit reference
to anything

like the dead going to heaven
or hell after they die.

Basically when you die,

your body goes into
an underground pit

that's simply called Sheol.

It's a neutral place.

It's just that's what happens.

And you're dead.

That's exactly right,
and then you're dead.

That's very different
from this belief

that develops
in, in Christianity.

Jesus' death was
the ultimate sacrifice,

a sacrifice replacing those that
Jews made in their temple,

having a much greater power.

At the time
Jesus lived and died,

Jews worshipped their God,
the God of Israel.

So, basically sacrifices were
offered in the ancient temple

to atone for the sins
of the Jewish people.

So, Jesus is, is the Son of God,

is sacrificed to atone
for the sins of humans.

That eventually becomes
the doctrine in Christianity,

that if you accept that
Jesus died for your sins

and you accept him as
your savior and Messiah,

that you, too, will be saved,
right?

This is sort of
the ultimate promise

that Christianity makes
to its believers.

That you will rise again.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

For Christians,
Jesus' blood sacrifice

was the last that
needed to be made.

From then onward, all you had
to sacrifice for eternal life

were your selfish desires.

In this way, the death of Jesus
was transformed for Christians

into the ultimate victory
over death.

For Christians, the death
and resurrection of Jesus

allowed believers to overcome
the fear of death

to know they could live forever.

♪ ♪

But there's another way
to overcome that fear.

For Hindus, reincarnation means
death is just a step on the way

to another life,
right here in this world.

I have come to the holy city
of Varanasi in India

to learn how Hindus
move beyond death.

Oh, what is that?

It's a dentil.

That is outstanding!

♪ ♪

Bodies have been cremated
on the banks of the River Ganges

for hundreds of years.

Bathed in the waters of the
holy river, wrapped in linen,

and placed on a wooden pyre,

the dead are consumed by flames.

Swami Varishthananda,
a monk and a doctor,

is my guide to death and
the afterlife in Hinduism.

But the one place
he can't take me

is the cremation ground itself.

Okay, this is the holiest
crematorium...

Correct.

In the holiest city...

on the holiest river
in the world.

Right.

Okay.

Can anybody come and watch?

In a way, yes, but from far.

It is not proper
to go there and watch.

From far you can watch.

From far, but you can't
come to the crematorium.

Right, it's
a sacred place of only mourners.

You can, however,
get very close to a body

before it's burned.

Mourners carry them
down this lane to the Ganges

all day long, seven days a week.

In Varanasi, life and death
mingle freely.

♪ ♪

So, Swami, I think these,
these funerals,

we've seen two or three pass by,

and the people following, they
seem to be joyously chanting

rather than sadly wailing.

Why is that?

They are facilitating

the soul's journey further.

And in a way
it's a matter of joy.

One, grief is there,
having lost a near one,

but that person has moved on
to a better way

of getting on
with his or her life.

Hindus believe
in reincarnation and karma.

Live a good life, and death
gets you a new body

with a chance for
an even better life.

♪ ♪

Live badly, and you'll suffer
the consequences

in your next life...

which may not be as a human,

and the cycle repeats, living,
dying, and being born again.

I mean, in Western cultures,

you die, and you're going to
either going to go to hell

or you're going to go to heaven.

Right, true.

But we're not
necessarily anxious to do that.

Am I concerned
about dying, then?

Yes, I am concerned,

but at the same time
I accept that

as an inevitable part of life.

Reincarnation makes us more
responsible for our lives,

because we are makers
of our own destiny.

It continuously gives us hope
that I can always do better.

So, the point of reincarnation

is to get it right.

- Correct.
- Right?

Alright, what happens
once I've got it right

and I don't have to come back?

Is there another existence?

I get one
with the only existence

which is eternal existence.

In common parlance
we call that God.

The only existence
which is eternal...

- Is God.
- Is God.

Ultimately, you don't
want to be reincarnated.

Yeah, yeah,
ultimately you don't want to.

The perfect situation
is to transition

from corporal sense
to pure energy.

Yes, that is
what is called liberation,

moksha.

Moksha.

Moksha from
the cycle of birth and rebirth.

Moksha's normally achieved

only after many lifetimes,

but Hindus believe that
here in Varanasi

the Ganges flows in
the direction of eternal life,

giving it the power to take them
beyond a resurrection.

Cremation
at this particular place

is very special.

The Ganges is the holiest
of holy rivers in India.

Ganges starts from Himalayas,

which is in the north,

and it flows down
southwards towards the sea,

but there are certain places
on this journey

when the Ganges flows back
towards the north, Varanasi,

for example,
is one of such place.

The western bank of such
a northern-flowing Ganges

is considered to be
the holiest of holy,

and cremation in Varanasi
and at Manikarnika Ghat here

is considered to be
the ultimate cremation,

because it straightway leads
to liberation... no more rebirth.

If you come to Varanasi...

Right.

- Come to this place...
- Right.

- And you get cremated...
- Right.

You sort of took a shortcut?

Yeah.

You don't have to
keep coming back

and trying it over and over
and over and over.

Right.

- Just get to Varanasi...
- That's right.

- And you're good.
- Right.

Hindus see themselves
in cycles...

living, dying, rebirth.

However, rebirth is
not the goal.

The goal is to transcend rebirth

and to attain a state
of eternal pure energy,

moksha, the god state.

Once you're there, you don't
have to do this anymore.

♪ ♪

We yearn to break bonds with
mortality to become eternal.

And around the world

so many faiths have
helped us to do that,

but now scientists are
beginning to challenge

the finality of death.

What's going to happen

if we create eternal life
in this life?

I've traveled the world
to discover

how people of different faiths
have imagined life beyond death.

♪ ♪

But I've come back to New York
to explore something brand new...

how science is
beginning to study

the possibility
of the afterlife.

I arranged a meeting
in Central Park

with critical care physician
Dr. Sam Parnia.

Now, I know you've done
an enormous amount of research

in this sphere.

Sam has studied
more than a hundred

cardiac arrest survivors,

people who were technically dead
and came back to life.

Some of them came back
with profound experiences.

We know that
actually for thousands of years

people who've come close
to death for any reason

have had these
very profound, deep,

in some ways,
mystical experiences.

People feel an immense sense
of peace and comfort and joy

when they go through death.

They may describe a sensation

of actually meeting
deceased relatives, friends,

or others that
they don't really know,

but who are almost like
welcoming them.

So I think what we're
beginning to understand

is that we have very much
a universal experience of death

that most of us will
probably experience

when we go through death.

One of the things
that you've come up with

that I find
extremely fascinating

is the idea that even
without brain activity,

people come back expressing
these experiences.

Is that explainable at all?

It's important to understand

that when a person is dying and
they've turned into a cadaver,

it's only at that point that
the cells inside the body

start to undergo
a process of death,

which can take hours,
if not days of time,

and so actually we have
this window of time

where we can bring people
back to life,

and the experiences that they
have gives us an indication

of what it's like for humanity
when we go through death.

In religious belief,
almost all, you die,

but only in a corporal sense.

The essence of you,
your soul, goes on.

Is there any scientific support
for the idea of the soul?

Today we call the soul
consciousness in science.

So we can test this theory
scientifically

and see does consciousness
continue or does it stop?

The evidence we have at least
is that when a person dies,

that part that makes us
who we are...

the psyche, the soul, the mind,
the consciousness,

whatever you want
to call it... me...

it doesn't become annihilated.

It doesn't disappear
into thin air.

It continues at least
in the early period of death.

Really?

Absolutely.

It continues when the brain is
not expected to be functioning

and when a person
has gone through death.

I'm extraordinarily interested,

and you've been just incredible.

Thank you very much,
pleasure to meet you.

It is amazing that science

is now quantifying death,

even defining the soul.

The afterlife, something
that has fascinated us

since the dawn of religion,

now seems tangible.

There's still no way
to escape physical death,

but scientists may soon achieve
eternal life by other means.

What if you could store
your memories and emotions

in a thinking machine?

When you die, that artificial
intelligence could continue

to be you for eternity.

Hello, Bina.

Well, hi, there.

I'm Morgan.

Hi, Morgan. How are you?

I am well. Can we talk?

I am talking to you.

Of course.

Um, tell me about yourself.

Who are you, Bina?

I am Bina Rothblatt.

What do you look like?

I'm tall, dark, and handsome.

Wow, not many people
express themselves that way.

I know. I'm special.

Of course, you are special.

There is nobody like you.

Good.

So, tell me about you.

Are you a human
or are you a robot?

I'm a human who happens
to be a robot.

I hope to be fully human
someday.

Do you have your own
thinking mechanism?

Do you think?

I think I would like
to be a human.

Why would you like to be human?

If I was human, I could
travel the world and have fun.

So what do you like to do?

I wish I could get
out into the garden.

With my current robotic
limitations, of course,

that's impossible,

but I take comfort knowing
that I'm near my garden.

I like to garden.

The real McCoy.

I'm Bina.

Hi, Bina.

- Nice to meet you.
- And...

I'm Bina's partner, Martine.

Of course you are.

Good seeing you again, Morgan.

Martine and Bina
Rothblatt have been married

for more than three decades.

They're so close, their kids
call them by a collective name,

Marbina.

Martine, who has made millions

in tech and pharmaceutical
ventures

can't stand the thought
of being without Bina.

So, she created Bina48,

an android filled with
the memories, beliefs,

and values of the real Bina.

So, why, why do you want
to clone Bina?

What is the purpose?

Our quest for doing
this experiment

was to see if there's a way
to encourage technology

to allow people who love life,

including loving
other people in life,

to continue that love
indefinitely into the future.

We're also doing this
to store our memories

and mind files, because for
our great-great grandchildren

we have a means of them
communicating with us,

even if our bodies
don't make it forever.

This experiment is ultimately

so that we humans can...

cheat death.

I think, Morgan,

what we are doing
with this experiment

is part of a long, long
line of people

trying to stop death
from cheating life.

And first we got ourselves
out of the jungle

where we were at
the mercy of animals.

We developed vaccinations.

So I think it's the job
of the medical industry

and the biotechnology industry
to push the boundaries of death

further and further
into the future.

Hmm, okay.

There are philosophies that say

that one of the things that
separate us from the machine,

what the Egyptians call ka,
we call it soul.

It will take decades
of additional development

in what Bina and I call
cyber consciousness,

using computers
to recreate the mind,

to see if a soul
evolves from that.

Whether or not there is
in the eyes of God

is a question that you and I
will not be able to answer.

Well put, Martine, well put.

♪ ♪

That was an uncanny experience.

Talking to Bina48 was almost
like talking to a real person.

I feel kind of like
I was at the first flight

of the Wright brothers
at Kitty Hawk.

They flew for 12 seconds.

Now we have jets that fly
for hours at 35,000 feet.

One day a robot-like clone
of a person's mind

might be created.

But would it really be them?

Would it have that spark
we call the soul?

♪ ♪

It's human nature to fight
against the finality of death.

♪ ♪

If we ourselves can't live on
after our time on Earth is over,

we at least want
to be remembered.

It's a desire that's
as old as the pyramids.

Archaeologist Salima Ikram
is taking me

to the ancient capital of Egypt,
Thebes, modern day Luxor,

to Rameses III's
Temple of Millions of Years.

This is the temple of Rameses.

Mm-hmm.

It was the mortuary temple.

He's not buried here.

This is where you would
go to invoke him.

Mm-hmm, it's a memorial temple,

and the Temple of Millions
of Years

so that he could live
for millions of years.

More than 31 centuries ago,

Pharaoh Rameses carved his
life story deep into this stone.

It was his attempt
at immortality,

to assure his afterlife
would be eternal.

So is this kind of like a bible,

would you say,
historic writings?

I guess, I guess in a way, yeah.

This definitely is
very much like that,

because you have what
the king did, when he did it.

Why he did it,
who he did it with...

Yep.

- What her name was.
- Ahem. Yes.

Egyptians believed that
their pharaohs embodied

the falcon god Horus.

Each human king was a
reincarnation of Horus' spirit,

his divine ka.

So, Morgan, this is where
I wanted to show you.

♪ ♪

On the right,
you've got the god, Horus.

Okay, I see Horus.

Now who's our friend,
what, is that Rameses?

Yep, that's Rameses,
who's making offerings to Horus.

Instead of having blood relation

from monarch to monarch,

there's something else that's
going from monarch to monarch,

and that something else is ka.

The ka, the divine ka, exactly.

It is a continuation.

It's the same divine ka going
from body to body to body

to body of ruler.

So, was Rameses III
the son of Rameses II?

No, they weren't really
properly related,

but because Rameses II was
such a terrific pharaoh,

Rameses III not only
took his name,

he emulated him in many ways,

so he named all of his children
after Rameses II's children,

and he also did the same thing
that Rameses II did,

which was carving his name
and everything about him

really, really deep
so no one could erase it.

So you have here his name,
User-maat-Re-meri-Amun.

User...

maat...

Re...

meri...

Amun.

By saying the name, his life
is for a moment renewed.

His afterlife extended.

The name is one
of the most important things.

So, if you have your name
written down

and if people say it,

so every time you've said
Rameses III,

his ka has been given
this burst of energy,

and he's living, and that's one
of the reasons why, of course,

you'd carve it deeply,
so it will not be erased.

It will be remembered
and you will live forever.

So what do you think?

You think maybe people feel
the same way today.

I mean, Facebook?

I'm just asking.

I think some people feel
that if it's on the Internet,

it's real and it lasts forever.

I will live forever.

I'm on Facebook.

♪ ♪

User...

maat...

Re...

meri...

Amun.

User...

maat...

Re...

meri...

Amun.

♪ ♪

Well, Rameses succeeded
in his quest for immortality.

His temple may have crumbled,

but his name is still
being spoken

3,000 years after his death.

So, his spirit is still with us,
still moving among the living.

♪ ♪

In fact, we all live on
in the memories of those we love

and those whose lives we've
impacted in a positive manner,

just as my brother who
passed away so many years ago

lives on in my memory,

so I hope to live on
in the memories of others.

♪ ♪

Whether you're a Christian
following the example of Jesus,

a Hindu hoping for liberation

from the endless cycles
of reincarnation,

or you're simply trying to leave
the world a better place

than you found it,

our desire to go beyond death
has changed the world.

Whatever we may find
on the other side,

no matter what our faith...

♪ ♪

we can all become eternal,
like the stars.

♪ ♪

Craving big poker? Feast your eyes on Venom.
$5 million GTD. AmericasCardroom.com