poliphilo | Some Day, Tatiana, We'll Get To Go To Moscow....

There was an article in yesterday's Guardian in which some clever-clogs was saying how we'll have cracked the little problem of mortality by 2050. By then we'll have the ability to store consciousness on a computer. No-one rich will ever have to die again. And by 2080 the procedure will have become so routine and cheap that no-one poor will have to die either.

Today's kids (which means many of you, dear readers) are going to be immortal. Think about it.

I don't know whether this is the real deal or a load of hooey, but, either way, it's given me a buzz. This is what we want- Futurology! Crazy visions. Something to look forward to. In the years leading up to the millennium the media was full of this stuff. Promises, promises. And then along came Team Bush and we were routed back to the leather backed bible stroking, discarded pantie sniffing, creased trouser loving 1950s. The future stopped shining. No Elysian Fields for you, my pretties.

But Science goes on in spite of government and the future is going to be extraordinary.

Thank you for reminding me. I won't forget again.

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I'll take death and be happy with it, thank you very much. I suspect I don't have the stamina for immortality, at least not on this earth.

I have an open mind on the subject. They would have to demonstrate that the eternal life on offer was worth living before I took them up on it.

I think the key here is "no one rich".

Do you really think the US is going to provide immortality to the poor when they can't even provide us with health insurance or a retirement stipend?

Well, who knows? This is fifty years into the future. Anything could have happened in the interim.

I can't think of anything I'd want less than being immortal - as in being in *this* form forever.

I do sort of wish that Team Bush had to stick around, though, to clean up the mess they have made.

The future has always been *going to be extraordinary*. My mother sometimes shakes her head and says "What would your grandparents think about getting money from a WALL?" when she uses the ATM. There are extraordinary occurrences, always. And problems. Always.

I guess you wouldn't be in *this* form. You'd get a new form- probably with regular updates. It would only be your consciousness that continued.

I'll do it! I volunteer!

But with a few provisos:

- I'd have to come complete with Virtual Scenery (as in the Matrix, but nicer) so that I wouldn't realize I was stuck in a box. I'd be out roaming in a Swiss meadow or on Mars

- I would be able to see what's going on in the real world (such as an expanding red sun, asteroid explosions, etc.

- I'd want a backup copy of myself in case the machinery got broken

- I'd want out if somebody proved there was a real Heaven. I wouldn't want to miss out.

- In fact, I'd want a line item that I could cancel my contract at any time without penalty.

- In case of emergency shutdown or breakdown, I would want to have my programming ended gently and soothingly.

I hope they can offer something better than a box.

What I'd like is a life-like robot body of my own design.

With wings.

I'm intrigued by the theological and ontological implications. Will the thing that survives be the real Me or just a copy?

I hadn't thought of a robot body. I want one of those, too, with wings.

I think if you're sentient, you get a soul. Simple as that.

If you have a copy of yourself in another robot body, then that's two souls flying around.

But you wouldn't know about what the copy is thinking, because you are only you with your one soul.

And the copy wouldn't know about you.

It would be like identical twins.

What is a soul, exactly, come to think of it? A point of light? A quantum thing? An idea that is alive?

The soul? I wish I knew.

This new technology is going to force us to ask a lot of questions about the nature of the self. Perhaps it will prompt a few answers too.

That's one of the reasons why I welcome it.

But hold.

I thought you meant a backup of your robot body. You meant the robot body itself as opposed to your real self.

Well, it's possible that your self-ness wouldn't go with the robot body.

How can they download your sentient self?

And who is They? Obviously, the greatest philosopher-doctors on the planet!

Who makes the rules about sentience? This is a realm we can't predict.

I had a friend who as a child had a bike wreck and flew out of her body! She watched herself crash. Didn't feel a thing.

I guess the self would have to choose to inhabit the robot body.

But perhaps it wouldn't want to. If the choice lay between going into the robot body and entering the Light and being reunited with loved ones departed the robot body would look distinctly unattractive.

Oh, I don't know. I want to understand this stuff so badly, and I haven't got a clue.....

I do, too!

Spong has stripped all the poetry off my religion.

God's out of the garden, all right.

I just got his new book, The Sins of Scripture, and I keep thinking, Of course! Why didn't I see this before?

Because I didn't want to, that's why.

I think we are God and God is us, but I haven't worked it the details yet.

The Sins of Scripture- that's a provocative title.

I think the basic sin (if sin is the right word) is to accord anything scriptural status in the first place. To call something scripture is to freeze it. Thereafter it can be interpreted, but it cannot be challenged. The process of interrogating truths and discarding those that don't fit any more- which is the way philosophy and science work- is stymied.

No text (no matter how beautiful and inspired) can ever be the Final Word.

In a nutshell, that is exactly what Spong is saying.

Speaking of government angst:

A senator broke down yesterday while begging his fellow REPUBLICANS to please not elect that ogre that Bush wants to be our man in the United Nations!

He said, I am thinking about my children and my grandchildren. And he started weeping.

He said, I know my friends say, George, let it go--it'll be all right. But I beg them, please don't send this man to the United Nations!

Can you imagine?

Scary, huh? Even Republicans...

That's extraordinary.

I put my trust in human nature. Really bad government doesn't last. People won't stand for it. They can be fooled for a while, but eventually they wake up to the way things are falling apart and they make the change.

Bleh, I'd be nearly 80 by then ... I do hope they progress on things like Alzheimer's first.

The basic idea strikes me with a big yuk!, but then ... that technology would be pretty useful in order to do things like interstellar travel, as it would take quite a long time ... unless you invent the warp drive first.

We'll work out warp drive sooner or later- or something similar. I'm convinced that nothing is going to keep us from going to the stars.

If the 2050 timetable does happen, I'm going to be right on the cusp. I would hate to be the Last Person Who Ever Died.

Of course, since futurology is an inexact non-science, I'm not going to plan my life around that.

"the Last Person Who Ever Died". That person will certainly be famous- and so in a sense immortal:)

Some Day, Tatiana, We'll Get To Go To Moscow....

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