system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: 2045 Avatar Project

Can someone explain the 2045 initiative? What are the goals? How will they achieve the goals?
gpt
If physicalism (the belief that all phenomena are physical in nature) is true, then consciousness — which seems so very unphysical — is also a physical system, or is caused by one.

Now, what constitutes ‘you’ as a self-aware being? Is it your body? Or is it your consciousness, memories, mind etc? Most of us identify the ‘self’ with our minds over our bodies.

This Avatar project is a trans-humanist project. Trans-humanists believe that science should be used improve our lives, even it involves fundamentally changing what it means to be human. 

Essentially, they're proposing that in the foreseeable future it will be possible to ‘download’ one's own mind onto a computer. If physicalism is true, it follows that whatever physical processes produce your consciousness, your sense of self, could be reproduced synthetically. You would still be you, but ‘in’ another body — a mechanical one. This machine body would never have to age, get ill, it would be easily fixable. We would be basically immortal provided we had an energy source. We would have even more capabilities — we would be strong, and never tire; we could download our minds onto flying machines and fly; even travel through space or underwater. 

Perhaps we wouldn't even have to lose the things we enjoy. If neuroscience is advanced enough, there is good reason to think that our machine minds could simulate the human experiences we enjoy, even communally (like a simulated ‘biological human MMO’), such as eating, having sex, taking drugs.

This group is trying to fund the research necessary to do that. Of course, some people are against this on the grounds that it is unnatural or sacrilegious. If this project does happen, it will be a singularity. A singularity is a point after which nothing can be predicted — once we cannot die, society will be altered beyond all recognition. Our economics, politics, work, recreation, relationships, will all change considerably.

Of course, this all depends on physicalism being true. Maybe it'll turn out there is something special about consciousness that it can never ben physically replicated. 

Bio-ethics are going to be *hot* topics in this coming century.