Tag: post biological life
On February 21, 2011, The TIME MAGAZINE cover is titled “2045–The Year Man Becomes Immortal.”
It spotlights the work of Ray Kurzweil, a Futurist whose accurate predictions earned him the spotlight. In 2000, Kurzweil predicted that mind-uploading-scanning your brain and living after your physical death in Virtual Reality–would be a reality.
I read Kurzweil’s article on mind-uploading in Psychology Today when it first appeared in 2000. In it, he defined mind-uploading and described the research taking place. As I understood the article, mind-uploading involves scanning the memories in a living person’s brain and creating a file, then loading the file into a computer program designed to simulate the physical world.
Here is a link to the article and more about Kurzweil: http://singularityhub.com/2011/02/11/time-magazine-shines-a-spotlight-on-kurzweil-the-singularity/
2045– the year Kurzweil predicts mind-uploading technology that will enable us to live forever.
“You shimmer with doubt?” GUNTER HOLDEN asks. “Let me tell you my stories while you settle—some of them are lies of course.”
Gunter, my protagonist, is based on people I’ve known in my life. We’ve all encountered them–people who seem to live by different rules. This book is written from Gunter’s point of view. Gunter admits his charm wears thin at times. He’s intelligent, resourceful and entertaining, but, betrayal is inevitable.
Babylon Dreams takes place in the 22nd century and “post-biological destinations” are big business with companies like Joy Forever and Infinite Bliss fighting for their share of the market dominated by one giant–Virtual Enterprises Inc.
Until his suicide at age 56, Gunter Holden was CEO of VEI, the company he founded in order to create the perfect world. Gunter is now a virtual resident of Bali Hai–the program that was the ultimate in post-bio destinations. It isn’t anymore.
Mind-uploading mimics physical life ala The Matrix, except the real you isn’t stuck in a gooey pod.
The rich opt for luxury and fantasy fulfillment in”post-bio destinations” . For the middle-class they’re often financed, given as wedding and graduation presents, part of retirement plans. The poor hope to win them in state lotteries–or accept another gate with no admittance. So assuming I can afford it, I can exist in paradise– no longer wanting since all is given. There’s no death–I exist for as long as I choose unless I choose to self-delete. What would I want? After that? What then? Babylon Dreams is a place where people discover the answer to “What then?”
As he struggles to free himself from the guilt and betrayals of his past “bio” life, Gunter is caught between two religious communities–one Christian Fundamentalist and the other a ‘New Age” religion as they fight for control of the remaining computer memory.
Nano Nano
(VEI guarantees the whole you in PARADISE–our nanobots are cutting edge!)
Harvard Medical School’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute team have constructed a self-assembling nanodevice from single-stranded DNA using a design principal known as tensegrity to lash double-helix struts together with single-stranded DNA. The strands interconnect the struts and pull the entire piece into a taught shape resembling a twisting prism. The structures can further be programmed to change shape on call, as well as move of their own accord. While some nanotechnological advances are under FDA study for fears of tampering or tainting the human body, Harvard’s DNA devices are biodegradable and biocompatible. In their lives as possible drug ferries, mimicking viruses to deliver lethal drugs to targeted cells, they pose much less threat of eventual problems than solid state deliver devices such as carbon nanotubes. Once their mission is complete, the DNA machines can be safely destroyed in-vitro, leaving no troublesome refuse. Another possible use for the DNA constructs is the fine-tuning of cellular matrices to coax stem cells into becoming one type of cell or another. Stem cells differentiate their jobs in part by the the rigidity of their surrounding tissue. Stiff extracellular matrices can convince a stem cell to produce bone, while a more liquid mixture could generate neurons. Being able to fine-tune the shapes of the DNA devices could help to control the extracellular matrices, giving stem cells a preferred environment for a desirable piece of tissue growth.
http://www.dailytech.com/Harvard+Debuts+Selfassembling+Biological+Nanodevices/article18818.htm
Mind Uploading and Mind Children
There are two major questions surrounding the concept of mind uploading. There is the question of feasibility: Can we build a model of a brain complete enough to allow a conscious mind to emerge? The other question is concerned with identity. Some people argue that, if a copy of a conscious mind is identical by all measures (ignoring the fact that one is biological and the other is neuromorphic software/hardware) it should be thought of as a continuation of the mind that was mapped and uploaded. Others argue that a copy cannot be considered the same as the original, so the newly awakened consciousness must be another person.
Various attempts have been made to imagine the benefits of mind uploading. Assuming continuation of the mind, these benefits include indefinite lifespans and upgrading the mind. When your current brain no longer works well enough or not at all, you transfer your conscious mind to another (perhaps better) artificial brain. None of these benefits are tempting to those who see uploads as different people. In The Spike, Damien Broderick declared “copies are not you” and asked, “Would you be prepared to die (sacrifice your current embodiment) in order that an exact copy of yourself be reconstructed elsewhere, or on a different substrate?” He goes on to argue that this is not a procedure he would be willing to undertake. Let’s assume Broderick is right and a copy is indeed “not you.” Does it then follow that mind uploading offers no benefits?http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/virtual-reality/mind-uploading-and-mind-children
Gunter prepares to welcome the leader of the “Herd People,” a holo porn king who plans to come as a god–a cigar-smoking llama.
marjorie kaye's Babylon Dreams 