A Burst of Conscious Light

Stephen Hawking once said that the unanticipated consequences of artificial intelligence will be the greatest threat to humanity’s survival. In this book, Dr. Andrew Silverman reveals why the powerful consciousness of the human mind could never be manufactured and so cannot be reproduced with technology.

Integrating extensive scientific research from three seemingly unrelated fields of study—quantum mechanics, near-death experiences, and the Shroud of Turin—Silverman reveals the pitfalls and perils of artificial intelligence and addresses the fundamentally flawed thinking that underlies it. Drawing on his work as one of the leading experts on the Shroud of Turin, as well as research by scientists from NASA and Los Alamos, he shows how the image on the Shroud could only have been produced by a flash of light as intense as a nuclear explosion—a burst of light that occurred after the body was in the tomb. Sharing medical evidence of consciousness in people declared clinically dead, the author shows how the light of consciousness evidenced by the Shroud is also a consistent feature of most near-death experiences.

Exploring the non-local nature of consciousness—how it transcends the physical brain and body—Silverman explains why the human mind cannot be reduced to a computer and examines what separates sentient beings from machines. He shows how getting caught up in the push for artificial intelligence and the technological quest for immortality—through the attempt to “download” our minds onto computers—will only lead us to devalue and erase what makes us unique and irreplaceable in this cold, dark universe: our humanity.