Cliff Pickover's "The Heaven Virus" Book.

1. Tim
   May 11th, 2007 at 1:32 pm

   How big is the mall? Is it filled with Zombies?

2. Lasse
   May 11th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

   "Is it filled with Zombies" LOL

   I want to know: How much money do i start out with?

3. Aramax
   May 11th, 2007 at 5:11 pm

   I asked myself the same question after I read some article on the human brain on wikipedia... dont remember what was search about but it said that a guy ( dont remember his name ) found out that brain and computers work in a similar way and that in the near future ( 2030 ) it would be possible to litteraly download our mind into a microchip or something.

   I would be ok with it. Being downloaded into a machine would only delay death.

4. Solo
   May 11th, 2007 at 6:13 pm

   If we don't manage to kill each other senselessly with "religious" wars or other ideas, the end of humanity will probably come from ultimate entertainment like this. Virtual reality so real that real reality looks bland and faded.

   That or holodecks.

5. K
   May 11th, 2007 at 7:55 pm

   That's why I say thank goodness this stuff is only ever going to be Science-FICTION.

   Anyone who believes that one's mind & soul could go on "living" as one's actual self and personality are fools.

6. Dave
   May 11th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

   Who says that all we know is not part of a computer simulation? Or part of somebody's dream?

   What happens when the dreamer wakes, or the computer gets rebooted?

7. Nora
   May 11th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

   Wouldn't it just be a cloned computer facsimile of you?
   The "essence" of you (whatever that is) would have to be litterally "extracted" or preserved from the original "source", to be the "same" thing... you would think.

   Its not like once your mind is uploaded into a computer, the original you goes blank. You'd still be there in your body... pissed off that you're not going to cheat death, while the "virtual" you is totally stoked, because from its viewpoint, everything worked. You know?

8. ted
   May 12th, 2007 at 12:50 am

   Exactly, Nora.
   It's what creeped me out about the Star Trek transporter story "Spock Must Die" when I was a kid.

   Basically, the book said that the transporter doesn't actually transmit matter across space, but transmits the pattern of that matter. The receiving end simply assembles a new version of you, while the old version of you is destroyed at the original end. Sure, you can be reassembled, but they're not your original molecules, nor your original electrons and neurons and stuff coursing through your brains and veins. Those were destroyed.

   Ergo, you are killed while a copy lives on, identical to the original you in every way.

   Same thing. You can upload a copy, but you really ought to transfer the original, and that would be something really tricky - are your thoughts, your brain waves, your soul irrevocably tied to the physical construct which is your brain, or can you separate your "essence" into another vessel?

9. Lasse
   May 12th, 2007 at 12:56 am

   What if the upload works, and your real self dies, BUT goes to heaven (in this case heacen actually exists) or even hell?

10. beajerry
    May 15th, 2007 at 8:18 am

    Futurama was right: we will be heads in jars.

11. Staikos
    November 21st, 2007 at 8:30 am

    Darien Fox covered me with answer No10 in the Heaven Virus page: "...In short, I'd love to visit a place like you describe but I'd hate to be trapped there."

12. tray
    January 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 am

    what if a hacker made numerous copies of a person or people in the system.imagine the mischief they could wreek.a hacker come soul collector even,removable memory cards anyone?a religeous zealot creating his own computerized construct.a devastating computer virus with untold consequences.A POWER CUT .

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