Comments on: Cliff Pickover's "The Heaven Virus" Book.

By: tray

tray — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:50:04 +0000

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 .

By: Staikos

Staikos — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:30:38 +0000

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."

By: beajerry

beajerry — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:18:57 +0000

Futurama was right: we will be heads in jars.

By: Lasse

Lasse — Sat, 12 May 2007 05:56:43 +0000

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

By: ted

ted — Sat, 12 May 2007 05:50:13 +0000

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?

By: Nora

Nora — Sat, 12 May 2007 03:17:14 +0000

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?

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 12 May 2007 02:35:10 +0000

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?

By: K

Sat, 12 May 2007 00:55:29 +0000

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.

By: Solo

Solo — Fri, 11 May 2007 23:13:11 +0000

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.

By: Aramax

Aramax — Fri, 11 May 2007 22:11:12 +0000

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.

By: Lasse

Lasse — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:48:06 +0000

"Is it filled with Zombies" LOL

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

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:32:46 +0000

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