Will we all be reduced to ghosts someday?

Digital Escapades

A place to share my experiences with photos, digital video, and other digital media.
Monday, February 14, 2011

There is a great article at
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138-1,00.html , its about how in the year 2045, computers and many technologies will supersede humanity, but it also raises the possibility that humans will merge with such technology. The article has me considering human technological hybrids from science fiction, from the Borg of Star Trek, to the cybernetically enhanced people of Neo-Tokyo in the Japanese Anime Ghost in the Shell. I wonder weather we will become a collective, similar to the Borg, but hopefully more benign, or weather we will download our consciousness or ghost into fully cybernetic bodies, as on Ghost in the Shell. Many science fiction movies, tv shows, books, comics, and now on-line stories involve such characters. Some of our troops have artificial limbs, that actually respond to nerve impulses near their missing limb. Work is progressing on microchips embedded in people's brains, that can help them control artificial limbs, personal computers, etc. A blending of nano & genetic technologies could someday heal many injuries, like spinal cord damage, birth defects, genetic disorders, etc. Such technologies might even extend human life spans, and allow us to survive the rigors of long distance space travel. The doom and gloom folks have denounced countless technologies that have benefited humanity, from the automobile, to antibiotics, millions have benefited. People forget that at not too long ago, a child who got a fever was almost assured to die, that polio was rampant, and small pox ravaged much of the world.

People also forget how much automobiles and other motor vehicles enable those on the edge of civilization to reach vital resources, like emergency healthcare, education, etc. Also, the resources of civilization, such as technologies for filtering dirty polluted river or well water, for generating light with portable lamps with micro solar cells, etc. Its not the technology, its the misuse of that technology, and or the overuse of that technology. Its not the combustion engine, its 500 Million of them, and its using gasoline rather than a clean burning bio-fuel. Its not splitting the atom via nuclear fission, its using it for nuclear bombs, and not developing a proper means for disposing or utilizing the waste. In recent years, breeder reactors have been developed, which can utilize nuclear waste as fuel. Our government has be hesitant to use such reactors, because they can be used to make nuclear grade uranium. They are making progress with nuclear fusion, and even with containing anti-matter. The later is decades from even simple reactions, probably in some space based platform, due to the extreme power released by a matter anti-matter reaction, even on a vary small scale. If we someday isolate dark energy/dark matter, it might prove to provide reactions even more energetic than anti-matter.

Humanity has been harnessing technology since the day we began planting crops, rather than just gathering them where they grew. From here humanity developed the science of agriculture, which lead to staying in one place long enough to build permanent housing which lead to architecture, which lead to villages, towns, and then cities. People then needed to get from one of these population centers to the next, which eventually lead to carrying more and more supplies, which lead to the cart. Its true warfare advances technology, which is how we got the chariot, and many other technologies. We have moved past the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the technological revolution, the information revolution, and we are now in what I call the high tech revolution, which the article reflects. All our previous knowledge is being refined and improved upon. In antiquity, humanity knew so little of the world, that all knowledge was simply lumped together. Socrates categorized knowledge into separate categories, such as astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, etc. Today these individual areas have been researched so deeply, that knowledge from one area is bleeding over into other areas. For example bio-engineering, which combines the fields of engineering and biology. They are now even using mushrooms to grow car parts, chicken feathers cooked at 700 degrees to make carbon nano-tubes, and many other technologies from unexpected places. So, why should it be shocking that humans might augment ourselves with technology.

Scientists have been able to spontaneously encourage savant ability in people, by temporarily shutting down parts of the brain and stimulating other parts, using low level electromagnetic fields. So, someday, we may hook ourselves up to an IQ boosting machine, similar to the one seen in the movie, The Forbidden Planet. Maybe such a machine could be used to rewire the brains of Autistic individuals, or those who suffer mental illnesses like schizophrenia, etc. This technique is already in use for severe depression. So as I see it, if computers do begin to excel our abilities, we are best served in using that too our advantage to empower and improve ourselves, than to let ourselves become obsolete.