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Old 05-23-2005, 07:59 AM  
Libertine
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Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 17,860
This will happen. I won't go into too much detail, but the exponential growth of science and technology makes it almost certain that in the next few decades computers (possibly using technology radically different from that being used these days, like organic - even today there are scientists working on dna-based computing) will reach capacities far exceeding those of humans, will probably become conscious (if we can't program intelligence, increased computing power creates the possibility of high-speed evolution in simulated virtual environments) and are likely to be in direct contact with our brains (Sony recently patented direct-to-brain entertainment).


2HousePlague: Human consciousness is the result of a physical process. There is no reason that such a process couldn't be virtually simulated, resulting in, essentially, the same thing. The transfer might, for example, be done by executing an advanced brainscan and inputting those into a simulation in real-time.
(ofcourse, what that would mean is that there would just be another you, and the original you would still die - but the copy would believe he was actually you, and feel he was, too)
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