For thirty years en route from Beta Hydri to Alpha Centauri A, then for thirty five years en route from Alpha Centauri A to Sol, download Guthrie is not asleep, possibly dreaming, but switched off, effectively dead. However, he also exists both as a download and as an organism in three different planetary systems. When any of these organisms approaches death, it is downloaded first so that it can function through a robot body and secondly so that its pattern can be imprinted onto the nervous system of a newly grown organic Guthrie body. If any of these Guthries meet each other, then they can also be downloaded into each other. However, they are not converging but on the contrary proliferating through interstellar space.
When the download who went to Sol returns to Beta Hydri IV, the organic Guthrie who sent him will have died and been replaced and the returned download will be downloaded into the download already there.
This is the continuity of a flame passed between candles as in the Buddhist teaching of "no soul."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And that touches on one reason why I don't believe it will be possible to copy and download personalities into robots/neural networks or new bodies. I believe the human soul simply cannot be treated like that!
Sean
Post a Comment