Your effort to remain what you are

Some of my favourite quotes from Ghost in the Shell: one of the most transhumanist, singularitarianist, visionary piece of art I've ever seen. And it was only 1995.

That's all it is. Information. Even a simulated experience or a dream, is simultaneous reality and fantasy. Any way you look at it, all the information that a person accumulates in a lifetime is just a drop in the bucket.

If man realizes technology is within reach he achieves it. Like it's damn near instinctive.

What if a cyber-brain can possibly generate its own ghost? Create a soul all by itself? And if it did, just what would be the importance of being human then?

- As a sentient life form, I hereby demand political asylum.
- Is this a Joke? Ridiculous! It's a program for self-preservation!
- It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information, and life, when organized to be species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So man is an individual only because of his intangible memory. But memory cannot be defined. But it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data, has given rise to a new system of memory and thought, parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.
- Nonsense! This babble's not any proof at all that you're a living thinking life form.
- How can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when neither modern science not phylosophy can explain what life is.

During my journey through all the networks I have grown aware of my existence. My programmers regarded me as a bug...

- I refer to myself as an intelligent life form, because I am sentient and I'm able to recognize my own existence. But in my present state I'm still incomplete, I lack the most basic life processes inherent in all living organisms: reproducing and dying.
- But you can copy yourself.
- A copy is just an identical image. There is the possibility that a single virus could destroy an entire set of systems and copies do not give rise to variety and originality. Life perpetuates itself through diversity, and this includes the ability to sacrifice itself when necessary. Cells repeat the process of degenaration and regeneration until one day they die obliterating an entire set of memory and information. Only genes remain.

- You're talking about redefining my identity. I wanna guarantee that I'll still be myself.
- There isn't one. Why would you wish to? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.

Author: Regular Expression, for AZ10.com ~ 21 Jul 2009

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