From: Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Date: Fri Dec 11 1998 - 00:04:18 MST
At 07:32 PM 12/10/98 -0800, Eric Ruud wrote:
>Supposing somewhere far in the future humanity (or possibly even some other
>intelligent life form) develops time travel.
>They might, however, be able to upload personalities into a computer at the
>moment of death, thusly not changing anything in that reality.
Damien Broderick, <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>, replied:
> Spider Robinson wrote a couple of novels based on just that premise. I
> believe DEATHKILLER was the first of the sequence. LIFEHOUSE. Maybe one
> more.
>
> My own THE DREAMING DRAGONS used a version of this notion back in 1980.
Spider Robinson's 1987 novel, Time Pressure, included this theme.
A variant was in Greg Bear's Eternity.
This is a an example of what is sometimes called "universal immortalism,"
the idea that everyone is already actually immortal. The obvious problem
is simply that there if this is true, it seems to be done in such a way
as to not give any evidence. I wouldn't rely on it.
Hal
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