The digital human
Written by Mihai Dragan on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 ( Start discussion )
Tags: brain download, digital, digital human, future, mind, robots
…and I really mean digital.
Soon we will be able to download our ego on hard drives, back-up our conscience or be a part of the network.
What will this lead to?
Immortality
Immortality is one the things humans have long been looking for. They have dreamed about it, studied it and even built religions around it.
We dream of immortality when we are kids, when we grow up and even as old people hoping our death can be a step farther from our current existence. Not an end.
What if we would break down a human being to its very core – the mind? Is this all we are? Brains connected to an outer body, helping our mind work in its way around the world. Then that should mean we will have no problem adapting to being a machine computing our thoughts, decisions, lifestyle and others.
We will live in computers, have electric arms and legs, behave almost as if we were alive.
Access to all human knowledge
The internet is not only a web of computers interconnected. It’s probably the greatest thing humans have ever constructed. It’s made of information. Information gathered by our culture in thousands and thousands of years.
All a second away for the downloaded mind. The digital human can access this information almost instant. It can stay connected with every new discovery, it can process problems at a speed we haven’t thought of, it can learn a new language in the blink of an eye.
A new race
Humans, as we are today have been like this for the last 100 000 years. Quite a long time. Something like this, a mix between biology and technology can lead to a new breed of humans. One that are what we call today robots. But with a conscience, brain and the possibility to make decisions.
How far would this race go? We, humans, are better than any species at communicating, inventing, building. At least this is what we like to think of ourselves. We are also pretty good with things like war, destroying, killing.
How far would we go if we were intellectually omnipotent? Would we understand our actions or continue to act like Earth’s plague? Would we evolve or destroy ourselves and everything around?
Lonliness
I had a short debate with one of the most interesting people I have had the pleasure of coming across. He said we are just information and we can be very well digitized.
I would say we are something else. Something we can’t yet comprehend. I say that because beyond our thoughts there are feelings, decisions we are not “aware” of. We love and hate. We are glad to see the sun and enjoy the company of friends. We are thrilled by our children. We dream, we hope.
Would a set of digitized information be able to do all this things? Would it be able to doubt itself? Would it be able to know when wrong and reprogram itself?
And if so – if it were what we are today – wouldn’t it feel anger, sorrow and hate towards the one that made it what it is? Someone imprisoning it in a computer. After all – we all treasure our freedom.
At this point – the digital human, having all the power it can access, hating it’s creators and masters – wouldn’t it rebel against it?
And this is were we should think twice before choosing immortality. For it may cost us more than we are willing to pay for.
