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DNA is fascinating stuff. Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid is the blueprint that goes towards building you, me, monkeys, flowers, amoeba, you name it, if it's living it'll have a DNA blueprint. Human bodies are made up of around 100 million million cells, each of which contain a Genome, made up of DNA.
DNA is essentially a coded string of about 3,200,000,000 letters, (A,C,T and G), grouped into triplets. Each triplet is an instruction to the cell to do something, like make a particular protein, or to stop making a particular protein. The similarity to programming computers is uncanny.
Since the mid 1980s scientists have been mapping the human genome, starting at the first letter in the DNA sequence and going right through the 3,200,000,000 letters to get a complete picture of what kind of DNA is required to 'make' a human.
We're all different to each other, so some of the triplets of A,C,T and G will be different at parts of the DNA strand from individual to individual.
But theoretically it's possible to take a drop of blood, and have a computer analyse a cell inside that drop of blood, and store in it's memory a complete map of the particular DNA strand contained within. A complete set of instructions on how to make you. So, in theory, it's possible to store you digitally so that at a later date, you can be recreated, or cloned.
Now here's the REAL Sci-Fi part:
Imagine they could do the same for your memories in 'real time'. Take you as you are now, hook up to that part of your brain where your entire life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' itself is stored, and download it. This would leave you braindead to all intents and purposes.
Imagine that they could take your stored DNA sequence, and 'grow' a digitally stored copy of you in a memorybank, accelerate the growth to your current age, then download your life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' into it.
You'd now be in whatever digital environment existed inside the computer. You could perhaps specify your own. You could go on holiday to the Caribbean, the Moon, even Mars, aka Total Recall, you could race motorbikes aka Tron (albeit with better graphics nowadays), or you could download yourself into a ready-made Max Payne and 'play the game' for real; and when you'd had enough of that you'd just give the signal and they'd upload your current memories at the end of the experience back into your 'braindead' real-life counterpart. And you come back to life having just experienced the most amazing things.
The question is, just how far-fetched is this scenario?
The groundwork in the DNA storage part is already done, the Human Genome is nearly mapped, and the analysis and storage parts of the theory wouldn't take much more computing power and technology than is already available today.
The tricky part is finding that part of the brain which stores 'you', and interfacing with it. This will undoubtedly require some form of biological interface, but then research into both the human brain's workings AND biological computers is underway at present. We just need one breakthrough in either field to accelerate research in the other, and Bob's your Uncle, you could then be 'digitised' by a 'Digitiser'.
Digitising could be the biggest jump in human development since discovering fire, because apart from the entertainment possibilities, the simple act of being able to store yourself digitally renders you practically immortal. People suffering from terminal illnesses could be digitised and recreated once a cure was found, a much more painless experience to being cryogenically frozen.
Throwing ethical considerations aside, our greatest minds could perhaps be recreated in younger cloned bodies, to allow them to live longer. You might perhaps decide to have a complete change yourself, and select a cloned body from an 'Arbods' catalogue to digitise yourself into.
Of course we'd go through trends where 50% of the world looked like Antonio Banderas and the other half would look like Jennifer Lopez, but hey, we'd be the best looking race in the Galaxy.
Barring powercuts, that is.
DNA is essentially a coded string of about 3,200,000,000 letters, (A,C,T and G), grouped into triplets. Each triplet is an instruction to the cell to do something, like make a particular protein, or to stop making a particular protein. The similarity to programming computers is uncanny.
Since the mid 1980s scientists have been mapping the human genome, starting at the first letter in the DNA sequence and going right through the 3,200,000,000 letters to get a complete picture of what kind of DNA is required to 'make' a human.
We're all different to each other, so some of the triplets of A,C,T and G will be different at parts of the DNA strand from individual to individual.
But theoretically it's possible to take a drop of blood, and have a computer analyse a cell inside that drop of blood, and store in it's memory a complete map of the particular DNA strand contained within. A complete set of instructions on how to make you. So, in theory, it's possible to store you digitally so that at a later date, you can be recreated, or cloned.
Now here's the REAL Sci-Fi part:
Imagine they could do the same for your memories in 'real time'. Take you as you are now, hook up to that part of your brain where your entire life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' itself is stored, and download it. This would leave you braindead to all intents and purposes.
Imagine that they could take your stored DNA sequence, and 'grow' a digitally stored copy of you in a memorybank, accelerate the growth to your current age, then download your life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' into it.
You'd now be in whatever digital environment existed inside the computer. You could perhaps specify your own. You could go on holiday to the Caribbean, the Moon, even Mars, aka Total Recall, you could race motorbikes aka Tron (albeit with better graphics nowadays), or you could download yourself into a ready-made Max Payne and 'play the game' for real; and when you'd had enough of that you'd just give the signal and they'd upload your current memories at the end of the experience back into your 'braindead' real-life counterpart. And you come back to life having just experienced the most amazing things.
The question is, just how far-fetched is this scenario?
The groundwork in the DNA storage part is already done, the Human Genome is nearly mapped, and the analysis and storage parts of the theory wouldn't take much more computing power and technology than is already available today.
The tricky part is finding that part of the brain which stores 'you', and interfacing with it. This will undoubtedly require some form of biological interface, but then research into both the human brain's workings AND biological computers is underway at present. We just need one breakthrough in either field to accelerate research in the other, and Bob's your Uncle, you could then be 'digitised' by a 'Digitiser'.
Digitising could be the biggest jump in human development since discovering fire, because apart from the entertainment possibilities, the simple act of being able to store yourself digitally renders you practically immortal. People suffering from terminal illnesses could be digitised and recreated once a cure was found, a much more painless experience to being cryogenically frozen.
Throwing ethical considerations aside, our greatest minds could perhaps be recreated in younger cloned bodies, to allow them to live longer. You might perhaps decide to have a complete change yourself, and select a cloned body from an 'Arbods' catalogue to digitise yourself into.
Of course we'd go through trends where 50% of the world looked like Antonio Banderas and the other half would look like Jennifer Lopez, but hey, we'd be the best looking race in the Galaxy.
Barring powercuts, that is.
DNA is fascinating stuff. Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid is the blueprint that goes towards building you, me, monkeys, flowers, amoeba, you name it, if it's living it'll have a DNA blueprint. Human bodies are made up of around 100 million million cells, each of which contain a Genome, made up of DNA.
DNA is essentially a coded string of about 3,200,000,000 letters, (A,C,T and G), grouped into triplets. Each triplet is an instruction to the cell to do something, like make a particular protein, or to stop making a particular protein. The similarity to programming computers is uncanny.
Since the mid 1980s scientists have been mapping the human genome, starting at the first letter in the DNA sequence and going right through the 3,200,000,000 letters to get a complete picture of what kind of DNA is required to 'make' a human.
We're all different to each other, so some of the triplets of A,C,T and G will be different at parts of the DNA strand from individual to individual.
But theoretically it's possible to take a drop of blood, and have a computer analyse a cell inside that drop of blood, and store in it's memory a complete map of the particular DNA strand contained within. A complete set of instructions on how to make you. So, in theory, it's possible to store you digitally so that at a later date, you can be recreated, or cloned.
Now here's the REAL Sci-Fi part:
Imagine they could do the same for your memories in 'real time'. Take you as you are now, hook up to that part of your brain where your entire life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' itself is stored, and download it. This would leave you braindead to all intents and purposes.
Imagine that they could take your stored DNA sequence, and 'grow' a digitally stored copy of you in a memorybank, accelerate the growth to your current age, then download your life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' into it.
You'd now be in whatever digital environment existed inside the computer. You could perhaps specify your own. You could go on holiday to the Caribbean, the Moon, even Mars, aka Total Recall, you could race motorbikes aka Tron (albeit with better graphics nowadays), or you could download yourself into a ready-made Max Payne and 'play the game' for real; and when you'd had enough of that you'd just give the signal and they'd upload your current memories at the end of the experience back into your 'braindead' real-life counterpart. And you come back to life having just experienced the most amazing things.
The question is, just how far-fetched is this scenario?
The groundwork in the DNA storage part is already done, the Human Genome is nearly mapped, and the analysis and storage parts of the theory wouldn't take much more computing power and technology than is already available today.
The tricky part is finding that part of the brain which stores 'you', and interfacing with it. This will undoubtedly require some form of biological interface, but then research into both the human brain's workings AND biological computers is underway at present. We just need one breakthrough in either field to accelerate research in the other, and Bob's your Uncle, you could then be 'digitised' by a 'Digitiser'.
Digitising could be the biggest jump in human development since discovering fire, because apart from the entertainment possibilities, the simple act of being able to store yourself digitally renders you practically immortal. People suffering from terminal illnesses could be digitised and recreated once a cure was found, a much more painless experience to being cryogenically frozen.
Throwing ethical considerations aside, our greatest minds could perhaps be recreated in younger cloned bodies, to allow them to live longer. You might perhaps decide to have a complete change yourself, and select a cloned body from an 'Arbods' catalogue to digitise yourself into.
Of course we'd go through trends where 50% of the world looked like Antonio Banderas and the other half would look like Jennifer Lopez, but hey, we'd be the best looking race in the Galaxy.
Barring powercuts, that is.
DNA is essentially a coded string of about 3,200,000,000 letters, (A,C,T and G), grouped into triplets. Each triplet is an instruction to the cell to do something, like make a particular protein, or to stop making a particular protein. The similarity to programming computers is uncanny.
Since the mid 1980s scientists have been mapping the human genome, starting at the first letter in the DNA sequence and going right through the 3,200,000,000 letters to get a complete picture of what kind of DNA is required to 'make' a human.
We're all different to each other, so some of the triplets of A,C,T and G will be different at parts of the DNA strand from individual to individual.
But theoretically it's possible to take a drop of blood, and have a computer analyse a cell inside that drop of blood, and store in it's memory a complete map of the particular DNA strand contained within. A complete set of instructions on how to make you. So, in theory, it's possible to store you digitally so that at a later date, you can be recreated, or cloned.
Now here's the REAL Sci-Fi part:
Imagine they could do the same for your memories in 'real time'. Take you as you are now, hook up to that part of your brain where your entire life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' itself is stored, and download it. This would leave you braindead to all intents and purposes.
Imagine that they could take your stored DNA sequence, and 'grow' a digitally stored copy of you in a memorybank, accelerate the growth to your current age, then download your life history, memories, current thoughts and 'life' into it.
You'd now be in whatever digital environment existed inside the computer. You could perhaps specify your own. You could go on holiday to the Caribbean, the Moon, even Mars, aka Total Recall, you could race motorbikes aka Tron (albeit with better graphics nowadays), or you could download yourself into a ready-made Max Payne and 'play the game' for real; and when you'd had enough of that you'd just give the signal and they'd upload your current memories at the end of the experience back into your 'braindead' real-life counterpart. And you come back to life having just experienced the most amazing things.
The question is, just how far-fetched is this scenario?
The groundwork in the DNA storage part is already done, the Human Genome is nearly mapped, and the analysis and storage parts of the theory wouldn't take much more computing power and technology than is already available today.
The tricky part is finding that part of the brain which stores 'you', and interfacing with it. This will undoubtedly require some form of biological interface, but then research into both the human brain's workings AND biological computers is underway at present. We just need one breakthrough in either field to accelerate research in the other, and Bob's your Uncle, you could then be 'digitised' by a 'Digitiser'.
Digitising could be the biggest jump in human development since discovering fire, because apart from the entertainment possibilities, the simple act of being able to store yourself digitally renders you practically immortal. People suffering from terminal illnesses could be digitised and recreated once a cure was found, a much more painless experience to being cryogenically frozen.
Throwing ethical considerations aside, our greatest minds could perhaps be recreated in younger cloned bodies, to allow them to live longer. You might perhaps decide to have a complete change yourself, and select a cloned body from an 'Arbods' catalogue to digitise yourself into.
Of course we'd go through trends where 50% of the world looked like Antonio Banderas and the other half would look like Jennifer Lopez, but hey, we'd be the best looking race in the Galaxy.
Barring powercuts, that is.
Do this and you'll be taking on the role of God!
AJ will not be pleased.
:)
Wacky idea FM ... I like it! I would like to be stored as world's strongest man (in all departments).
:)
Good post
AJ will not be pleased.
:)
Wacky idea FM ... I like it! I would like to be stored as world's strongest man (in all departments).
:)
Good post
Cue robots taking over the world and farming us, a la The Matrix. What you've suggested is to do exactly what happens in the Matrix - let us live in a computer generated world.
Comprehending the ramifications of such technology is mind-boggling.
~Why does my mind feel like a testicle trapped in the jaws of a nutcracker?~
Hm.
It would be cool to be placed into an existing gameworld and play the game from within the game....
~Why does my mind feel like a testicle trapped in the jaws of a nutcracker?~
Hm.
It would be cool to be placed into an existing gameworld and play the game from within the game....
F@ñ†@§¥M€!§†€® wrote:
> You might perhaps decide to have a complete change yourself,
> and select a cloned body from an 'Arbods' catalogue to digitise
> yourself into.
lol. 'Arbods' catalogue. Fascinating stuff, and just a little bit unnerving.
> You might perhaps decide to have a complete change yourself,
> and select a cloned body from an 'Arbods' catalogue to digitise
> yourself into.
lol. 'Arbods' catalogue. Fascinating stuff, and just a little bit unnerving.