Beyond Death (Full Episode) | The Story of God with Morgan Freeman

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MORGAN FREEMAN: 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.
WOMAN: It is the resurrection of Jesus
that proves that he's the Messiah.
FREEMAN: How the Hindu faith erased the fear of death.
MAN: I accept that as an inevitable part of life.
FREEMAN: And I'll explore how science
is trying to capture the soul.
ROBOT: I hope to be fully human someday.
FREEMAN: 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?
DAVID BENNETT: 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... [snaps finger]
...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.
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: No idea how deep?
BENNETT: 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.
FREEMAN: What did you think?
Did you think, or you've just experienced this feeling?
BENNETT: 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.
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: About how long were you in the water, under?
BENNETT: 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.
FREEMAN: 15 to 18 minutes.
BENNETT: Yeah.
FREEMAN: So you're 15 to 18 minutes without a breath of air.
BENNETT: Right.
FREEMAN: Okay.
So, David, all that you've told me is, is such a story.
BENNETT: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: Does it make you believe in an afterlife?
BENNETT: 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.
FREEMAN: Now here we sit in this cathedral.
You haven't mentioned God.
BENNETT: That light, that was God to me.
That was God.
FREEMAN: So the message is from God.
BENNETT: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
♪ ♪
[camel bellows]
♪ ♪
SALIMA IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: That one is over there?
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: So this is maybe the birth of afterlife thought.
IKRAM: Yeah, you could say that.
FREEMAN: 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.
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
IKRAM: But it is actually built about 4,000 years ago.
FREEMAN: Yeah. IKRAM: A bit more than that.
FREEMAN: Unbelievable, Salima, unbelievable.
♪ ♪
IKRAM: 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...
FREEMAN: Looks like a hill. IKRAM: Yup.
IKRAM: But what's important about it is what's inside.
You're going to have to mind your head.
FREEMAN: Now, is this little people in here or...?
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: Is that what this is all about?
IKRAM: Partially, yeah.
And here we are.
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: Oh, my goodness, look at all this.
IKRAM: Fabulous, huh?
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: What is all the writing about?
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: What do these prayers say?
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: Okay, that's what I was looking at.
There's so much repetition, but that's his name.
IKRAM: Yeah.
FREEMAN: 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.
IKRAM: This is it, this is the main event.
FREEMAN: And this is the-- oh, my goodness.
This is a sarcophagus.
IKRAM: Yep.
This is, this big, fat thing is a sarcophagus,
and that's where Unas would have been laid.
FREEMAN: Well, I'm sorry, he's not here.
I'd like to shake his hand,
say, 'Hello, how you been? What's going on?'
[chuckles]
Okay.
And are these more spells?
IKRAM: Yep.
And so this whole thing is really this resurrection machine
for Unas and his spirit.
FREEMAN: 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.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: 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...
IKRAM: Forever and ever and ever.
It's a bit tiring.
FREEMAN: Maybe, maybe not, I mean, it's all he's got.
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: Okay.
Do we have to, uh, is there another way out of here?
Do we have to bend over again?
IKRAM: Sorry, we have to bend over again
to become one with the eternal stars.
FREEMAN: 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.
[fireworks]
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.
ENRIQUE RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: 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 ♪
FREEMAN: The Gonzales family greet their dead grandfather
with a traditional song imploring him to wake up.
♪ Despierta, Papa, despierta ♪
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: So, the Templo Mayor
is right there, right?
RAUL BARRERA: Exactamente, Enrique.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: And we are only about 600 feet away
from the Templo Mayor, wow.
FREEMAN: Here Enrique's colleague Raul Barrera
unearth remains of a rack of human skulls
over a hundred feet long.
[speaking Spanish]
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
RODRIGUEZ GALADIA: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: 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...
[whip cracks]
...when a man named Jesus was arrested by the Romans
in Jerusalem and sent to die on the cross.
♪ ♪
[whip cracks]
[grunts]
[bell tolls]
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?
JODI MAGNESS: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
MAGNESS: 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.
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: 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.
MAGNESS: 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.
FREEMAN: We're behind the walls where the tomb is.
MAGNESS: 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.
♪ ♪
FREEMAN: 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?
MAGNESS: 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.
FREEMAN: And you're dead.
MAGNESS: That's exactly right, and then you're dead.
That's very different from this belief
that develops in, in Christianity.
FREEMAN: Jesus' death was the ultimate sacrifice,
a sacrifice replacing those that Jews made in their temple,
having a much greater power.
MAGNESS: 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.
FREEMAN: 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?
MAN: It's a dentil.
FREEMAN: 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...
SWAMI VARISHTHANANDA: Correct.
FREEMAN: In the holiest city...
on the holiest river in the world.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Okay.
Can anybody come and watch?
VARISHTHANANDA: In a way, yes, but from far.
It is not proper to go there and watch.
From far you can watch.
FREEMAN: From far, but you can't come to the crematorium.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right, it's a sacred place of only mourners.
[bell rings]
FREEMAN: 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?
VARISHTHANANDA: 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.
FREEMAN: 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...
[bell rings]
[barking]
...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.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right, true.
FREEMAN: But we're not necessarily anxious to do that.
Am I concerned about dying, then?
VARISHTHANANDA: 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.
FREEMAN: So, the point of reincarnation
is to get it right.
VARISHTHANANDA: Correct. FREEMAN: Right?
FREEMAN: Alright, what happens once I've got it right
and I don't have to come back?
Is there another existence?
VARISHTHANANDA: I get one with the only existence
which is eternal existence.
In common parlance we call that God.
The only existence which is eternal...
FREEMAN: Is God. VARISHTHANANDA: Is God.
FREEMAN: Ultimately, you don't want to be reincarnated.
VARISHTHANANDA: Yeah, yeah, ultimately you don't want to.
FREEMAN: The perfect situation is to transition
from corporal sense to pure energy.
VARISHTHANANDA: Yes, that is what is called liberation,
moksha.
FREEMAN: Moksha.
VARISHTHANANDA: Moksha from the cycle of birth and rebirth.
FREEMAN: 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.
VARISHTHANANDA: 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.
FREEMAN: If you come to Varanasi...
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Come to this place... VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: And you get cremated... VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: You sort of took a shortcut?
VARISHTHANANDA: Yeah.
FREEMAN: You don't have to keep coming back
and trying it over and over and over and over.
VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: Just get to Varanasi... VARISHTHANANDA: That's right.
FREEMAN: And you're good. VARISHTHANANDA: Right.
FREEMAN: 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?
FREEMAN: 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.
SAM PARNIA: 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.
FREEMAN: 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?
PARNIA: 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.
FREEMAN: 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?
PARNIA: 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.
FREEMAN: Really?
PARNIA: Absolutely.
It continues when the brain is not expected to be functioning
and when a person has gone through death.
FREEMAN: I'm extraordinarily interested,
and you've been just incredible.
PARNIA: Thank you very much, pleasure to meet you.
FREEMAN: 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.
BINA: Well, hi, there.
FREEMAN: I'm Morgan.
BINA: Hi, Morgan. How are you?
FREEMAN: I am well. Can we talk?
BINA: I am talking to you.
FREEMAN: Of course.
Um, tell me about yourself.
Who are you, Bina?
BINA: I am Bina Rothblatt.
What do you look like?
FREEMAN: I'm tall, dark, and handsome.
BINA: Wow, not many people express themselves that way.
FREEMAN: I know. I'm special.
BINA: Of course, you are special.
There is nobody like you.
FREEMAN: Good. [chuckles]
So, tell me about you.
Are you a human or are you a robot?
BINA: I'm a human who happens to be a robot.
I hope to be fully human someday.
FREEMAN: Do you have your own thinking mechanism?
Do you think?
BINA: I think I would like to be a human.
FREEMAN: Why would you like to be human?
BINA: If I was human, I could travel the world and have fun.
FREEMAN: So what do you like to do?
BINA: 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.
BINA: I like to garden.
FREEMAN: The real McCoy.
BINA: I'm Bina.
FREEMAN: Hi, Bina.
BINA: Nice to meet you. FREEMAN: And...
MARTINE: I'm Bina's partner, Martine.
FREEMAN: Of course you are.
Good seeing you again, Morgan.
FREEMAN: 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?
MARTINE: 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.
BINA: 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.
FREEMAN: This experiment is ultimately
so that we humans can...
cheat death.
MARTINE: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
MARTINE: 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.
FREEMAN: 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.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm.
FREEMAN: It was the mortuary temple.
He's not buried here.
This is where you would go to invoke him.
IKRAM: Mm-hmm, it's a memorial temple,
and the Temple of Millions of Years
so that he could live for millions of years.
FREEMAN: 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?
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: Why he did it, who he did it with...
IKRAM: Yep.
FREEMAN: What her name was. IKRAM: Ahem. Yes.
[chuckles]
FREEMAN: Egyptians believed that their pharaohs embodied
the falcon god Horus.
Each human king was a reincarnation of Horus' spirit,
his divine ka.
IKRAM: So, Morgan, this is where I wanted to show you.
♪ ♪
On the right, you've got the god, Horus.
FREEMAN: Okay, I see Horus.
Now who's our friend, what, is that Rameses?
IKRAM: Yep, that's Rameses, who's making offerings to Horus.
FREEMAN: 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.
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: So, was Rameses III the son of Rameses II?
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: User...
maat...
Re...
meri...
Amun.
By saying the name, his life is for a moment renewed.
His afterlife extended.
IKRAM: 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.
FREEMAN: So what do you think?
You think maybe people feel the same way today.
I mean, Facebook?
[laughs] I'm just asking.
IKRAM: I think some people feel that if it's on the Internet,
it's real and it lasts forever.
FREEMAN: I will live forever.
I'm on Facebook.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
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.
♪ ♪