And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? Walt Whitman
I Sing The Body Electric
I Sing The Body Electric
I am not a big fan of modern science fiction. I don't watch it much and I certainly don't read it. Science is not my thing but Fantasy intrigues me. In 1962 an episode of the Twilight Zone borrowed the above phrase from Walt Whitman's "I Sing The Body Electric" and featured a life-like robot Grandmother who assumed the role of lifetime caregiver to three young children who had lost their real mother. The robot with its kind human maternal qualities assured them that she was indestructible and would never die in effect calming all their fears about losing yet another mother. This was just one story out of many that examined the possibilities of a new machine age. Some were sentimental as this one was but others were effective in pointing out the shortcomings of a technology that mimics human behavior but lacks the soul of humanity.
What if our society had no dreamers with ideas that change our view of what is possible and what isn't. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a Visionary myself, but I'm the first one in line to marvel at the guys who are. I mean Steve Jobs alone ... really?
When I turned on a home computer for the first time and was greeted with music and a vivid "graphic interphase" I remember at the time I sort of froze and said "Wow" out loud. And the computer keyboard just by itself changed my life too. I never learned to type and typewriters were not user friendly at least not to me.
Thank you Bill Gates. Thank you word processing software.
You gave me a voice I never had before. In short, with the development of digital hardware and software our world realized a quantum leap in the quality of our lives in every respect. But with it ,
as before cautionary tales and foreshadowing warnings appeared about the dark implications of cyberspace and the "information super highway."
In an episode of The X-Files ( Kill Switch) first aired in 1998 on the heels of the digital revolution, the ideas of virtual reality and the possibility of uploading human consciousness into cyberspace were introduced to us. I liken this to instances of dreaming about the possibilities earlier assigned to robots. The old rise of the machines phobia re-examined. The fear is seasoned with envy though, ambivalence about using machines and possibly being replaced by them , against seeing a virtual reality as a more desirable reality for us all.
Could anyone really prefer human consciousness to a seemingly immortal cyber consciousness? Thats scary at least for a young generation not yet concerned about the comparatively short span of life that lies ahead. But what about those of us on what can safely be considered the "back nine" of this game called Life. Still a scary prospect but compared to the alternative, worth pondering even if it is presently impossible. Cue the imagination , enter the dreamer.
As I sit here writing this , I still get giddy over the absolute magic that is my iPhone. Someone once said that if technology is advanced enough, it will be perceived as magic. And I am a believer. I love my iPhone. I love my computer too but I love my phone more because of its size. If I'm ever in need of an answer to a question when I'm at work or among friends
I jokingly whip out my phone and announce, "well, I just happen to have the world's largest database in human history ...in my back pocket.!"
It gets a few laughs or smiles. I'm not proud. Having a communication device superior to the communicators and tri-quarters from Star Trek is really cool. Not only is it a wireless phone and camera, it performs countless other tasks too and between Google and YouTube, it provides hours of entertainment for me. I do subscribe to a newspaper but I must admit I get most of my news from Google and internet sources.
I read a news article recently that said scientists have discovered particles around a black hole's event horizon that are traveling faster than the speed of light. Up until now that has been considered an impossibility. And yet here we are.
What are the implications of that phenomenon ? If you're like me you immediately think..... time travel.
As far fetched an idea it is , it still opens the door to the possibility.
The fantasy of time travel is probably my favorite topic to ponder because even with all its obvious paradoxes and dangers, we still like the idea of a temporal second chance. To right the wrongs , etc via the quantum leap.
Knowing what we know now about our uppity machines and their possible rise to dominance over us, it's nice to know that we could go back in time and fix it like in "The Terminator."(1984) At least hypothetically at this point.
But wait , it gets better.
In my daily perusal of news I came across at least two or more articles on the subject of life extension through uploading consciousness to computers. You say to yourself at this point, "yeah, that would be cool but that is of course impossible."
Enter the dreamer once again.
Ray Kurzwell, director of engineering at Google and Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov , founder of the 2045 Initiative, are
certain it is possible to achieve but that it will be difficult in the beginning. Speaking at the futurist conference in 2016 they saw the task of mapping out the roughly 86 billion neurons in the human brain a grueling goal but do- able with the use of nanobots. ( The Immortalist. March 14 2016. BBC magazine)
("We'll be uploading our minds to computers by 2045." The Daily Mail.
Victoria Woollasten.2013)
Naysayers are quick to point out the complexities of human personality.
. "The challenge is precisely how to go from a physical substrate of cells that are connected inside this organ, to our mental world, our thoughts, our memories, our feelings," says neuro biologist Rafael Yustef at Columbia University.
What I say to that is "well, duh!"
The thing that gets me about this brainy science stuff is that it ultimately collides with matters of the spirit.. what we perceive as our spirit or our soul. So when we get into a discussion about transferring human consciousness to a computer it gets tricky and borders on heretical thoughts regarding religion. If we read enough about it we hear about the possibility of having multiple copies of the same person's mind.
That's figuratively and literally mind-blowing. I imagine a scenario where copies of people will reside in a state of virtual immortality while the flesh and blood original eventually wastes away. But what does that accomplish? It's all very confusing and depressing.
Growing up I enjoyed science fiction and fantasy on TV and in movies. Not serious science fiction but watered down stuff for easy consumption like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Some of the "science" depicted in 50's science fiction and horror movies was laughable ,outlandish and unrelated to real science. One of my favorite comedies was Get Smart that showed tremendous vision in predicting clever inventions like the shoe phone ( the first "Smart phone.) It's funny and ironic that TV writers inspire and change the world in seemingly insignificant ways.
Some one proposes an idea and down the road someone else makes it happen. Writers like George Orwell and HG Wells predicted a lot of things with no real idea as to how to make them happen. It just takes time and the right person to be inspired and driven. And that brings me back to the immortality issue.
Nowadays and more than ever, it seems like science and religion are duking it out for dominance in culture. Most recently I've seen traditional religious teachings challenged and re-interpreted to be more palatable to the percentage of the population that rejects the illogical claims made in The Bible.
I've always been taught that dinosaurs died out long before man appeared on earth but now I hear that dinosaurs were passengers on Noah's ark.
The very existence of God is challenged by the scientific community not because they don't want to believe but because faith to them is hollow without some scientific substantiation. Celebrities such as Bill Nye and Neill DeGrasse Tyson profess to be agnostics because science continues to chip away at the mysteries attributed to God. They believe the existence of a God is beyond our scope of knowledge to prove or disprove....... at least for the moment.
I I wish I could be there when the time travel thing is announced but I'm skeptical that we will solve that riddle for a very long time. Neil DeGrasse Tyson brings up a good point when he says "if we ever conquer time travel in the future, we should be seeing time travelers now."
Good point unless they're really good at hiding. Not holding my breath on this one. Let's move on.
IIf we are ever able to actually upload a consciousness to a computer server then I think it would do at least a couple of things. First , It would create a kind of prison for the soul not unlike what we call Hell or maybe something less like The Phantom Zone in the Superman Comics.
. ( Hmmm....another visionary from comic books no less.)
Secondly, it would create yet another second class citizenry that would be shunned by others for its religious heresy. And Why haven't more people decided to freeze their head to extend their lifespan? Probably the cost and maintenance fees involved, not to mention the stigma attached to being a frozen head.
The same logic would apply here.
Robots provide yet another option... a mobile ,more human option. I'm not talking about the CP30 variety, I'm talking about a deluxe model like Data ( with a tan) from Star Trek or the super cool grandmother mentioned at the beginning of this piece. If I was a robot , I would choose to be an attractive robot and one that was able to live a life similar to what I knew before. The cost would be enormous no doubt and I would want to mingle with regular people and not be forced to just spend time with my brother and sister androids. So to summarize , I would not choose to be a laptop.
I would want to be a great looking android , able to walk and dance and not be subject to religious or social bigotry. Is that asking too much?
Probably . And now that I think of it, this is a lot like deciding whether I want a Mercedes or a Jaguar. It really doesn't matter. It's a rich man's dilemma, not mine.
What if our society had no dreamers with ideas that change our view of what is possible and what isn't. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a Visionary myself, but I'm the first one in line to marvel at the guys who are. I mean Steve Jobs alone ... really?
When I turned on a home computer for the first time and was greeted with music and a vivid "graphic interphase" I remember at the time I sort of froze and said "Wow" out loud. And the computer keyboard just by itself changed my life too. I never learned to type and typewriters were not user friendly at least not to me.
Thank you Bill Gates. Thank you word processing software.
You gave me a voice I never had before. In short, with the development of digital hardware and software our world realized a quantum leap in the quality of our lives in every respect. But with it ,
as before cautionary tales and foreshadowing warnings appeared about the dark implications of cyberspace and the "information super highway."
In an episode of The X-Files ( Kill Switch) first aired in 1998 on the heels of the digital revolution, the ideas of virtual reality and the possibility of uploading human consciousness into cyberspace were introduced to us. I liken this to instances of dreaming about the possibilities earlier assigned to robots. The old rise of the machines phobia re-examined. The fear is seasoned with envy though, ambivalence about using machines and possibly being replaced by them , against seeing a virtual reality as a more desirable reality for us all.
Could anyone really prefer human consciousness to a seemingly immortal cyber consciousness? Thats scary at least for a young generation not yet concerned about the comparatively short span of life that lies ahead. But what about those of us on what can safely be considered the "back nine" of this game called Life. Still a scary prospect but compared to the alternative, worth pondering even if it is presently impossible. Cue the imagination , enter the dreamer.
As I sit here writing this , I still get giddy over the absolute magic that is my iPhone. Someone once said that if technology is advanced enough, it will be perceived as magic. And I am a believer. I love my iPhone. I love my computer too but I love my phone more because of its size. If I'm ever in need of an answer to a question when I'm at work or among friends
I jokingly whip out my phone and announce, "well, I just happen to have the world's largest database in human history ...in my back pocket.!"
It gets a few laughs or smiles. I'm not proud. Having a communication device superior to the communicators and tri-quarters from Star Trek is really cool. Not only is it a wireless phone and camera, it performs countless other tasks too and between Google and YouTube, it provides hours of entertainment for me. I do subscribe to a newspaper but I must admit I get most of my news from Google and internet sources.
I read a news article recently that said scientists have discovered particles around a black hole's event horizon that are traveling faster than the speed of light. Up until now that has been considered an impossibility. And yet here we are.
What are the implications of that phenomenon ? If you're like me you immediately think..... time travel.
As far fetched an idea it is , it still opens the door to the possibility.
The fantasy of time travel is probably my favorite topic to ponder because even with all its obvious paradoxes and dangers, we still like the idea of a temporal second chance. To right the wrongs , etc via the quantum leap.
Knowing what we know now about our uppity machines and their possible rise to dominance over us, it's nice to know that we could go back in time and fix it like in "The Terminator."(1984) At least hypothetically at this point.
But wait , it gets better.
In my daily perusal of news I came across at least two or more articles on the subject of life extension through uploading consciousness to computers. You say to yourself at this point, "yeah, that would be cool but that is of course impossible."
Enter the dreamer once again.
Ray Kurzwell, director of engineering at Google and Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov , founder of the 2045 Initiative, are
certain it is possible to achieve but that it will be difficult in the beginning. Speaking at the futurist conference in 2016 they saw the task of mapping out the roughly 86 billion neurons in the human brain a grueling goal but do- able with the use of nanobots. ( The Immortalist. March 14 2016. BBC magazine)
("We'll be uploading our minds to computers by 2045." The Daily Mail.
Victoria Woollasten.2013)
Naysayers are quick to point out the complexities of human personality.
. "The challenge is precisely how to go from a physical substrate of cells that are connected inside this organ, to our mental world, our thoughts, our memories, our feelings," says neuro biologist Rafael Yustef at Columbia University.
What I say to that is "well, duh!"
The thing that gets me about this brainy science stuff is that it ultimately collides with matters of the spirit.. what we perceive as our spirit or our soul. So when we get into a discussion about transferring human consciousness to a computer it gets tricky and borders on heretical thoughts regarding religion. If we read enough about it we hear about the possibility of having multiple copies of the same person's mind.
That's figuratively and literally mind-blowing. I imagine a scenario where copies of people will reside in a state of virtual immortality while the flesh and blood original eventually wastes away. But what does that accomplish? It's all very confusing and depressing.
Growing up I enjoyed science fiction and fantasy on TV and in movies. Not serious science fiction but watered down stuff for easy consumption like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Some of the "science" depicted in 50's science fiction and horror movies was laughable ,outlandish and unrelated to real science. One of my favorite comedies was Get Smart that showed tremendous vision in predicting clever inventions like the shoe phone ( the first "Smart phone.) It's funny and ironic that TV writers inspire and change the world in seemingly insignificant ways.
Some one proposes an idea and down the road someone else makes it happen. Writers like George Orwell and HG Wells predicted a lot of things with no real idea as to how to make them happen. It just takes time and the right person to be inspired and driven. And that brings me back to the immortality issue.
Nowadays and more than ever, it seems like science and religion are duking it out for dominance in culture. Most recently I've seen traditional religious teachings challenged and re-interpreted to be more palatable to the percentage of the population that rejects the illogical claims made in The Bible.
I've always been taught that dinosaurs died out long before man appeared on earth but now I hear that dinosaurs were passengers on Noah's ark.
The very existence of God is challenged by the scientific community not because they don't want to believe but because faith to them is hollow without some scientific substantiation. Celebrities such as Bill Nye and Neill DeGrasse Tyson profess to be agnostics because science continues to chip away at the mysteries attributed to God. They believe the existence of a God is beyond our scope of knowledge to prove or disprove....... at least for the moment.
I I wish I could be there when the time travel thing is announced but I'm skeptical that we will solve that riddle for a very long time. Neil DeGrasse Tyson brings up a good point when he says "if we ever conquer time travel in the future, we should be seeing time travelers now."
Good point unless they're really good at hiding. Not holding my breath on this one. Let's move on.
IIf we are ever able to actually upload a consciousness to a computer server then I think it would do at least a couple of things. First , It would create a kind of prison for the soul not unlike what we call Hell or maybe something less like The Phantom Zone in the Superman Comics.
. ( Hmmm....another visionary from comic books no less.)
Secondly, it would create yet another second class citizenry that would be shunned by others for its religious heresy. And Why haven't more people decided to freeze their head to extend their lifespan? Probably the cost and maintenance fees involved, not to mention the stigma attached to being a frozen head.
The same logic would apply here.
Robots provide yet another option... a mobile ,more human option. I'm not talking about the CP30 variety, I'm talking about a deluxe model like Data ( with a tan) from Star Trek or the super cool grandmother mentioned at the beginning of this piece. If I was a robot , I would choose to be an attractive robot and one that was able to live a life similar to what I knew before. The cost would be enormous no doubt and I would want to mingle with regular people and not be forced to just spend time with my brother and sister androids. So to summarize , I would not choose to be a laptop.
I would want to be a great looking android , able to walk and dance and not be subject to religious or social bigotry. Is that asking too much?
Probably . And now that I think of it, this is a lot like deciding whether I want a Mercedes or a Jaguar. It really doesn't matter. It's a rich man's dilemma, not mine.
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