From: J Corbally (icorb@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Nov 30 2001 - 15:09:30 MST
>Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:57:22 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
>Subject: Terrorism in the age of uploading [was RE: neo-luddites ...]
<snippity doo dah>
>If you had "real-time" backup capability (say via a very high
>bandwidth radio connection [Kurzweil has argued this but I
>doubt it is feasible...]), then you will notice a hallucinatory
>type "break" in your consciousness. One minute you can hear
>the WTC collapsing on top of you and you probably notice this
>huge sensory overload and the next minute you find yourself
>waking up in a hospital room (again -- probably suspecting you are
>a copy). Of course if the technology is good enough you can
>rollback to prior to the plane impacts and rewrite the script
>from that point forward. You just don't have anyplace to go
>to work the next day and you might have to give the eulogy
>at your funeral. :-) That is assuming you have a spare
>body around that you can be downloaded into -- otherwise
>you will have to attend virtually until a clone can be grown.
Actually, that gives me an idea for a punishment for the perpetrators of
the crime, assuming they survived/uploaded etc.. (especially effective if
the criminals are unfamiliar with the uploading/downloading concept to
begin with). Implant a mind storage device into their brains and download
into it the minds of however many victims there were. Allow these minds
access to his aural and visual senses. The killer will have to live with
the screams and taunts of his victims, his own thoughts being "deafened" by
the wail of a thousand voices, seeing (perhaps even feeling) their deaths
over and over forever, or at least until he goes insane. Definitely _not_
the paradise he would be expecting.
Yeah, I guess I've got a cruel streak in there somewhere....
>Any *really* good technology would theoretically allow you to shift
>you consciousness back and forth at will (from wetware to alternate
>hardware). It may however be the case that that proves technically
>too difficult and you only get to make backups when you plug yourself
>into a "Matrix" type fiber bundle when you go to sleep each night.
I'm writing (sorry, procrastinating on) a story (inspired by Colm, who
sometimes posts here) in which there's a bit of this switching going
on. It's the only way to travel, really :) I wonder if this ability would
give one the feeling of having a "wider" consciousness, the kind you get
when watching a movie that has many scene changes. Might be disconcerting
to a non-enhanced human, although if you can pass the "Pulp Fiction" test
then you'd probably be ok.
Regards,
James....
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and
crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures
to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
-Q, Star Trek:TNG episode 'Q Who'
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