Amazing Stories (TV Series) The Eternal Mind (1986) User Reviews

Perhaps you can live forever....

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 June 2015]

This episode stars Jeffery Jones (who, incidentally has a VERY interesting IMDb trivia page). He's a researcher who is studying how to transfer a person's consciousness into a computer---probably because he's seriously ill and dying. His co-workers refuse to do this...so he does it on his own. The experiment is successful--but what will happen next? After all, just because he's downloaded onto a computer doesn't mean he's alive. And, what will 'life' be like for someone like this?!

This episode is ridiculously impossible but they manage to make it seem possible. I appreciate that. Overall, while wildly implausible and weird, it's also compelling and worth seeing. Not a great episode but a very good one.

How Sad and Hopeless Can You Get

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 28 May 2014]

Jeffrey Jones plays a research scientist who has a debilitating illness. He can barely walk with two crutches and he is obviously terminal. He is doing research into the transfer of the brain to computers. He has done this successfully with chimps but it will be some time before it can be done with humans. Since he has a death sentence, we know what's coming. He's going to put his brain into his Apple IIe or whatever it is. They take his body away, but his face and his thoughts appear on a viewing screen. But what happens to the rest of him? His emotions? His fears? His love for his wife who has been a steadying influence in his life? This asks significant questions but is trapped in a twenty-three minute segment. There needed to be so much more character development as well as a look at what is happening to him as he lives in disk memory. It all happens too fast and, hence, the results are inadequate.

What happens when you transfer a mind to a computer?

[sonnyschlaegel · 8/10 · 22 June 2007]

John and Katherine Baldwin are members of the team working on the 'Lurec Project'. They want to find out how to transfer someone's mind to a computer. John is very ill. He is going to die before the scheduled conclusion of the project. John is not an old man yet. He would like to be the first to transfer his mind because that would give him a chance of survival. He asks the others to skip some of the tests so that he will be able to transfer his mind in time. They speed up the project and John gets his chance. Will the transfer be successful?

I especially liked the beginning - when they transfer some of a chimp's memories to their computer - and the ending (I won't say why because I don't want to give it away). But I think that the story is not very original. It reminded me of one of Stanislaw Lem's stories (it's from 'The Star Diaries', but I don't know if it's included in all editions of that book). In that story, a man visits Ijon Tichy (the hero of a lot of Lem's stories) and tells him he has invented the soul. He shows Tichy a crystal and says he has been able to extract his wife's mind and put it in the crystal. Tichy is not sure if that was a good idea... Lem's stories are often a mixture of philosophy, science, and satire. To my view, some passages in his works are dragging, but I like his works so much that I recommend them to anybody who is interested in both science fiction and philosophy. If the above sounds interesting to you, try 'The Star Diaries' (a/k/a 'Memoirs of a Space Traveller') or 'Solaris'. ('The Star Diaries' is probably the better choice for an entry into Lem's works. I think it is more accessible since it's not a single long work but a collection of short stories.)

Perhaps this story was inspired by the story I've mentioned. Or there's a third, even older story that both Lem and the writers of this episode used. (It's hard to tell as long as one doesn't know all stories written before Lem's...) Even if this episode was inspired by Lem's story there are not only similarities but also differences, so I think it's enjoyable to watch even if one knows Lem's story.

All in all, the story may not be very original, but it's still a good episode in my opinion.