Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 16 views

    Digital Heaven

    Uploaded by

    Arsonistt
    The document discusses the possibility of digitally copying a person's consciousness and memories to allow them to theoretically live on indefinitely in an online virtual world after their physical body has died. It describes proposals for using nanotechnology to map the brain by injecting nanotransmitters to detect neural activity and transmit the data to create a digital clone. This digital clone could then interact in virtual environments experienced directly in the mind similar to the Matrix films. However, it notes a key challenge is that one's digital existence would depend on continued payment to web hosting companies to maintain the storage, unlike the concept of a free afterlife in traditional religious beliefs.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Digital Heaven

    Uploaded by

    Arsonistt
    16 views1 page
    The document discusses the possibility of digitally copying a person's consciousness and memories to allow them to theoretically live on indefinitely in an online virtual world after their physical body has died. It describes proposals for using nanotechnology to map the brain by injecting nanotransmitters to detect neural activity and transmit the data to create a digital clone. This digital clone could then interact in virtual environments experienced directly in the mind similar to the Matrix films. However, it notes a key challenge is that one's digital existence would depend on continued payment to web hosting companies to maintain the storage, unlike the concept of a free afterlife in traditional religious beliefs.

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses the possibility of digitally copying a person's consciousness and memories to allow them to theoretically live on indefinitely in an online virtual world after their physical body has died. It describes proposals for using nanotechnology to map the brain by injecting nanotransmitters to detect neural activity and transmit the data to create a digital clone. This digital clone could then interact in virtual environments experienced directly in the mind similar to the Matrix films. However, it notes a key challenge is that one's digital existence would depend on continued payment to web hosting companies to maintain the storage, unlike the concept of a free afterlife in traditional religious beliefs.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    16 views1 page

    Digital Heaven

    Uploaded by

    Arsonistt
    The document discusses the possibility of digitally copying a person's consciousness and memories to allow them to theoretically live on indefinitely in an online virtual world after their physical body has died. It describes proposals for using nanotechnology to map the brain by injecting nanotransmitters to detect neural activity and transmit the data to create a digital clone. This digital clone could then interact in virtual environments experienced directly in the mind similar to the Matrix films. However, it notes a key challenge is that one's digital existence would depend on continued payment to web hosting companies to maintain the storage, unlike the concept of a free afterlife in traditional religious beliefs.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    Thelma Michalopoulou

    Retrieved and adapted from: http://fullspate.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/english-articles-


    advanced/digital-heaven.html

    Digital Heaven
    If you had the opportunity to live forever, would you take it? The obstacles to keeping
    your body alive indefinitely still seem insurmountable, but some scientists think there
    is another possibility opened up by digital technology: creating a digital copy of your
    "self" and keeping that "alive" online long after your physical body has ceased to
    function.

    In effect, the proposal is to clone a person electronically. Unlike the familiar physical
    clones - offspring that have identical features as their parents, but that are completely
    separate organisms with a separate conscious life - your electronic clone would
    believe itself to be you. How might this be possible? The first step would be to map
    the brain.

    How? One plan relies on the development of nanotechnology. Ray Kurzweil - one of
    the prophets of artificial intelligence - predicts that within two or three decades we
    will have nanotransmitters that can be injected into the bloodstream. In the capillaries
    of the brain they would line up alongside the neurons and detect the details of the
    cerebral electronic activity. They would be able to transmit that information to a
    receiver inside a special helmet or cap, so there would be no need for any wires
    protruding from the scalp.

    As a further step, Ray Kurzweil also envisages the nanotransmitters being able to
    connect you to a world of virtual reality on the internet, similar to what was depicted
    in the film 'Matrix'. With the nanotransmitters in place, by thought alone, you could
    log on to the internet and instead of the pictures coming up on your screen they would
    play inside your mind. Rather than send your friends e-mails you would agree to meet
    up on some virtual tropical beach.

    For Ray this would be, quite literally, heaven. Once you upload the brain onto the
    internet and log on to that virtual world the body can be left to rot while your virtual
    self carries on playing Counter Strike forever.

    Generations of Christians believed in Christ partly because his resurrection held out
    the promise that we too might be able to enjoy life after death. But why wait for the
    Second Coming when you can have a shot of nanobots and upload your brain onto the
    internet and live on as an immortal virtual surfer?

    Who needs faith when you've got broadband?

    (One snag: to exist on the net you will have to have your neural network parked on
    the computer of a web-hosting company. These companies want real money in real
    bank accounts every year or they will wipe your bit of the hard disc and sell the space
    to someone else. With your body six feet underground how will you pay? Here the
    analogy with heaven really breaks down. God keeps heaven going for free, but the
    web is something you have to pay for.)

    You might also like