The Future
I'm not normally one who worries about dieing. I'm don't want to die anytime soon, but I'm not afraid to die. I have a few small things I want to get done before I die, but I won't begrudge the day when it comes. It's a cycle and a process, and I'm not going to fret over it.
However, some days, I want to keep living. Maybe not in this flesh-based form, but my conscious, my pattern, could continue. Bar any great misfortune or accident, humanity seems to be on the verge of a paradigm shift. In the next 500 years, things should begin to change rapidly. Hopefully, carried by our brilliance and driven by our ambition, we'll branch out of our solar system and into the rest of the universe. Everything will change. On top of that, innovations in technology may lead to startling changes in the way the human mind works. Nanocircuitry may replace the neural wiring of our brains, creating a replacement brain that is faster, networked, and virtually immortal.
Human culture as we would know it would cease to exist in the face of brand new developments. When we one day merge our bodies with machines to the point where is neither is truly distinguishable, one benchmark in the evolution of humanity will have been reached. When the majority of human beings no longer worry about age, but instead exist indefinitely in computer nets and programs, a new benchmark will have been reached. When the first people of thought are born, people who have no flesh counterpart, humanity's physical transcendence will be done. Once me move past bodies, everything will change. Millennia of human evolution will be only a mental memory, with no organic counterpart to call out their heritage through DNA. It will be a fascinating time, though for the people born and raised in that time, it will be completely normal.
Currently, we stand near the brink of at least a few major changes. Many people in the field of technology believe that the next 80 years will bear witness to the beginnings of the merger between human body and computer technology. Downloading your brain into a computer network may be possible by the end of the century. It also may not. Ultimately, there may be hindrances to that merger, hindrances that could hold the process back by any stretch of time. There's a pretty good chance that I might just barely miss the death of natural human death, and while I don't begrudge death, the limitless possibilities that would open up for me when I'm no longer physically bound to my future withering body are limitless.
If I live to be 80 or even 100, I might live long enough to keep on living. Maybe I'll even be fortunate enough to download my neural pattern to a computer network, thus creating my own personal paradigm shifts. Without normal senses, the whole of my consciousness would change. Words, ideas, information would become the root of my conscious thought, and the only physical senses available to me would be those that are mechanically obtained. My body gone, I would no longer occupy a true physical presence, and would instead exist between networks, borrowing a little power from computers across humanity's presence. Then my mind would blossom in new and unprecedented ways.
Time would take on new meaning as my computer based mind could move at far greater speeds. Millions of years could pass for me in only a few normal years. It would be odd to the say the least. Though I would pass normal conscious human thought by billions of years in the average lifetime, there would always be something new. Moreover, all people would be made that way, and with the memory of an old world comes an even greater fascination with the new one. When human consciousness is redone, I hope I can be there to witness it. I have a few curiosities I want to attend to, and there a few challenges I look forward to dealing with. When 2 to 6 thousand years of human advancement are dropped from our genetic and cultural history only to be replaced by man-made machines, I'll be waiting (provided I'm alive).
I want to work on redefining humanity when that happens. Philosophers rarely have a chance to be useful, but it will be during those crises of identity, those years of human history where everything old is forgotten or not useful and everything new is terrifying and uncertain, that philosophers (or anyone with any intelligence, really) may find a new niche. Complex new problems will come to the forefront, metaphysical and epistemic problems that had previously only concerned academics will concern all of humanity. All things will need redefining and reconfiguring. New cultural elements and forms of expression will need to be created, and I want to be a part of it all.
I know I said it earlier, but if I can live another 80 years, I might keep on living. I turned 20 recently, and if I can make to my personal centennial, I might just be able to shed my body and move on to something else, all while retaining some shred of my consciousness. I'd love that opportunity. I'm not afraid of watching everything I know change. It will be startling, but it will be amazing, and I can't wait.
If I don't manage to live that long, or the paradigmatic technological changes don't happen anytime soon, so be it. I'll die at the end of my life happy, because I will have still lived it to the fullest possible. Or, if chance ends my life long before that, like say tomorrow or 5 years from now, I won't hate fate. Life happens, and I'll get over it. After all, I'll be dead, so it won't matter that much to my no longer thinking mind at that point. Really, if I live a full 40 to 50 years after today, enjoying a wife, children, grandchildren, and some friends, then I will be immensely satisfied and die with no regrets. And as I close my eyes each night, ending another day, I'm made aware of my mortality, of my fleshy effervescence, and though I may not want to die yet, I'm content with the way things are, dreaming of the way they could be.
However, some days, I want to keep living. Maybe not in this flesh-based form, but my conscious, my pattern, could continue. Bar any great misfortune or accident, humanity seems to be on the verge of a paradigm shift. In the next 500 years, things should begin to change rapidly. Hopefully, carried by our brilliance and driven by our ambition, we'll branch out of our solar system and into the rest of the universe. Everything will change. On top of that, innovations in technology may lead to startling changes in the way the human mind works. Nanocircuitry may replace the neural wiring of our brains, creating a replacement brain that is faster, networked, and virtually immortal.
Human culture as we would know it would cease to exist in the face of brand new developments. When we one day merge our bodies with machines to the point where is neither is truly distinguishable, one benchmark in the evolution of humanity will have been reached. When the majority of human beings no longer worry about age, but instead exist indefinitely in computer nets and programs, a new benchmark will have been reached. When the first people of thought are born, people who have no flesh counterpart, humanity's physical transcendence will be done. Once me move past bodies, everything will change. Millennia of human evolution will be only a mental memory, with no organic counterpart to call out their heritage through DNA. It will be a fascinating time, though for the people born and raised in that time, it will be completely normal.
Currently, we stand near the brink of at least a few major changes. Many people in the field of technology believe that the next 80 years will bear witness to the beginnings of the merger between human body and computer technology. Downloading your brain into a computer network may be possible by the end of the century. It also may not. Ultimately, there may be hindrances to that merger, hindrances that could hold the process back by any stretch of time. There's a pretty good chance that I might just barely miss the death of natural human death, and while I don't begrudge death, the limitless possibilities that would open up for me when I'm no longer physically bound to my future withering body are limitless.
If I live to be 80 or even 100, I might live long enough to keep on living. Maybe I'll even be fortunate enough to download my neural pattern to a computer network, thus creating my own personal paradigm shifts. Without normal senses, the whole of my consciousness would change. Words, ideas, information would become the root of my conscious thought, and the only physical senses available to me would be those that are mechanically obtained. My body gone, I would no longer occupy a true physical presence, and would instead exist between networks, borrowing a little power from computers across humanity's presence. Then my mind would blossom in new and unprecedented ways.
Time would take on new meaning as my computer based mind could move at far greater speeds. Millions of years could pass for me in only a few normal years. It would be odd to the say the least. Though I would pass normal conscious human thought by billions of years in the average lifetime, there would always be something new. Moreover, all people would be made that way, and with the memory of an old world comes an even greater fascination with the new one. When human consciousness is redone, I hope I can be there to witness it. I have a few curiosities I want to attend to, and there a few challenges I look forward to dealing with. When 2 to 6 thousand years of human advancement are dropped from our genetic and cultural history only to be replaced by man-made machines, I'll be waiting (provided I'm alive).
I want to work on redefining humanity when that happens. Philosophers rarely have a chance to be useful, but it will be during those crises of identity, those years of human history where everything old is forgotten or not useful and everything new is terrifying and uncertain, that philosophers (or anyone with any intelligence, really) may find a new niche. Complex new problems will come to the forefront, metaphysical and epistemic problems that had previously only concerned academics will concern all of humanity. All things will need redefining and reconfiguring. New cultural elements and forms of expression will need to be created, and I want to be a part of it all.
I know I said it earlier, but if I can live another 80 years, I might keep on living. I turned 20 recently, and if I can make to my personal centennial, I might just be able to shed my body and move on to something else, all while retaining some shred of my consciousness. I'd love that opportunity. I'm not afraid of watching everything I know change. It will be startling, but it will be amazing, and I can't wait.
If I don't manage to live that long, or the paradigmatic technological changes don't happen anytime soon, so be it. I'll die at the end of my life happy, because I will have still lived it to the fullest possible. Or, if chance ends my life long before that, like say tomorrow or 5 years from now, I won't hate fate. Life happens, and I'll get over it. After all, I'll be dead, so it won't matter that much to my no longer thinking mind at that point. Really, if I live a full 40 to 50 years after today, enjoying a wife, children, grandchildren, and some friends, then I will be immensely satisfied and die with no regrets. And as I close my eyes each night, ending another day, I'm made aware of my mortality, of my fleshy effervescence, and though I may not want to die yet, I'm content with the way things are, dreaming of the way they could be.
posted by Andrew McKenna at 10:22 PM
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