The Concept of Digital Immortality

I must admit that I was skeptical about the “blog” thing, but now I think I understand the significance that this type of website can offer. I can hyperlink to anything I want and can share any form of information now. I can talk about anything I want and the posts are time stamped and automatically categorized for me.

This makes it extremely useful and simple to create an almanac for my life and share the topics that I want to talk about in my short lifetime. If offered immortality, I’m unsure that I would accept it. Digital immortality is a goal that many generations of people have worked on and most likely will continue to work on until considered “Perfect”. Uploading your consciousness to a computer. That is the subject of this post.

I want to talk about it because as the human species advances, the goals of many are stumped by time. We don’t have much of it before we expire. Death affects everything and there is not much we can do to change that.

Yet.

Perhaps having a backlog of digital minds that could be accessed by humans of any generation could offer some benefit. Imagine if you could ask Albert Einstein a question. Now imagine if you could ask every genius visionary from every field and walk of life a question. Every human life stored like a copy or as a backup of humanity. It can be easily accessed by anyone who has a wish to ask.

Wouldn’t you rather talk to a professional human carpenter (one that worked for 80 years, was a master of his field, then died) than a robot bot that knows only what exists on the internet and never experienced a human existence? What if you could talk to a copy of that genius? A backup of the human mind sounds like an interesting idea to pursue.

When I imagine immortality provided by digital forms, I think of formless beings. Ones that don’t have to worry about physical limitations like time, gravity, decay, etc. They can simulate any existence because they can control their own existence. Then I imagine a big family reunion. A mass culmination of lives that stretches back eons. All experiencing a simulation, but a simulation that was created by a single generation that wanted to cheat death.

Once created, energy is spent. I question my mortality daily, yet I will never know the experience of death until it happens to me. I will experience death. I’m affected by that. What occurs after my death is not something that I can truly understand. I could guess, hope, or pray for a religion that I believe in the form of an afterlife, but the reality is that anyone telling me about what occurs after I die is not speaking from personal experience.

They are currently living a life. What they do with their life is their own business. Let me live mine in peace and I think we will get along just fine. I believe in myself. I could live my life with the motivation of self-improvement. Not just for my own life, but for the lives of others that live alongside me and for future generations. I could also live with the sole purpose of disturbing the peace. I choose not to, but the option is always there.

Don’t worry society. I promise not to turn into a super-villain. I’d most likely end up like Dr. Doofenshmirtz if I realistically imagined my advancement. I look forward to meeting my aquatic nemesis.

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