Soon, it will be possible to store our thoughts and experiences in electronic memory…will it also be possible to crear consciousness in a computer? Should we find a way to dispense with outr physical bodies, can we carry on eveolution in electronic fashion?
This would solve the problem of travelling to other star systems…no need for food and air. Also, when the first brave soul who submits to electronic rebirth is downloaded…what will God think of this? Of course, we already have virtual people …in a crude way…we have what remains of William Shalkespeare’s consciousness in his plays, and Bach in his music.
Will it be possible to recreate personality from electronic memory?
First of all, its misguided to think of evolution as having “stages” and going somewhere. Darwinian Evolution is undirected and random. What you are proposing is not.
There has been extensive debate on this topic both on this messageboard and amoung people in general.
It sounds like you’re interested in transhumanism. There are a lot of sites out there about this particular subject.
If you are talking about transferring the contents of human memory and consciousness into digital form, your use of the word soon is a relative term. If this is even possible, I don’t see this happening for the next 100 years or more. But on an evolutionary scale, perhaps that could be considered “soon”.
Of course it’s possible. Human memory and consciousness is information. Information can be stored digitally. At what point (if ever) this becomes possible, though, is anybody’s guess. I hope, for purely selfish reasons, that it’s within the next 50 years, or so.
Anything is possible; perhaps I should have said unlikely. You are oversimplifying the human mind. Consciousness is much more than information, it is feelings and emotions, things which are so subjective as to defy quantification. I believe it will take a quantum leap in computer architecture and artificial intelligence before we approach that goal.
Yes, well if this becomes common, you can forget about terraforming and genetic engineering-
all these things and more could be emulated in a virtual environment.
Seems a shame- that is why I like to think many people would have spiritual reasons to reject the life of the electron-
it is easier to sympathise with a flesh and blood future human rather than a civilisation where everyone is Neo in the Matrix.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html