RE: Behold a New Servant… Or Overlord
Wow this is one of the first long articles that I really liked on here! Kudos!
I have often considered the parallel between humanity's fantasies and future science. Like you, I too see similarities between the all-knowing AI and the Godlike figure of religions.
But I see many more. How about virtual reality as a 'worldy' form of the afterlife? There are already people theorizing/working on ways to 'copy' one's conciousness into an artificial environment. Perhaps at first a cybernetic body of sorts, but eventually one might wonder why even bother with a physical body. Is this the creation of heaven where your spirit goes when your body dies?
Maybe that's a bit far fetched. How about the blockchain (or the aptly named Ethereum) as the first step in creating technological-magic? By interlinking everything in the world through the Internet of Things, we'll soon have ways of manipulating things and making them act without physical interaction. What if through the internet of things, you will soon be able to command a small army of flying quadcopters to do your bidding, all fueled by a technological 'mana' called cryptocurrency.
Hell, we protect crypto with passphrases which are 16 words long... If we improve on the word generation part and add voice recognition, we basically have invented magical spells to command the blockchain/ether.
I guess it shows.. humanity's curiosity and ability is only limited by what we can imagine, and if we can imagine it, one day we will probably be able to build it.
Maybe then, we won't have need for superficial stories anymore.
That's very interesting thought actually. I know that people are trying to upload their consciousness onto another body.. But I don't know how close they are to getting there, I don't even know if that's possible.
I expected though, alchemy before when it was considered science they tried to do the same, necromancy the same thing (although another body).. Most rulers ask their scientist to find a way to live forever or to transfer their consciousness to another body, these studies have always been funded.
If they ever get close to that it's another subject.
The question remains is if that consciousness transference is feasible? Or if it's nothing but the quest to achieve a human hope for immortality?
Thank you for the excellent comment by the way!
It depends on what consciousness turns out to be. If it's 'just' electrical signals in the brain... then I think we should be able to 'copy' that into another body of sorts. Which brings up another interesting consideration.... copying... Could you create an identical secondary consciousness?!
Personally I am of the belief that consciousness is like a piece of biological software. It doesn't really 'exist' when the switch is turned off and it's not tangible or touchable because of exists in the signals between it's parts. But if that's so I don't see how we couldn't be able to reproduce it somehow, even if that is still years away from being discovered.
I guess we should expect some things to be different. Maybe some parts of being human will be lost in the translation to a digital consciousness. Not sure if that's good or bad.. it sounds bad right now, but maybe there are advantages as well. Or maybe it's just different, or atleast not dead per se.
great comment - upvoting and following now :)
Ill be posting too!!! thanks guys
I'm loving your response @pandorasbox.
My favourite bit is your quote "if we can imagine it, one day we will probably be able to build it".