PHIL: Information _is_ the new soul
Twirlip of Greymist (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Mon, 26 Aug 1996 16:57:13 -0700 (PDT)
"We at the Department of Applied Theology don't have much to do in the
absence of uberminds and Powers, so we spend our time annoying people.
Having previously noted the similarities between faith in the
Singularity, the Rapture, and the Apocalypse, we now move on to the
modern technosoul. In the past death was not considered a problem
because one's soul continued on some other plane. Then one lived on
through one's children, or occasionally through one's ideas. Now the
latter is achieving new prominence in the transhuman movement as many
claim contentment with living on through their memes, or the body of
knowledge they leave behind, or through AI children. Not that any of
this is entirely _new_ of course, but given the general materialist
views of the members of the movement and denigration of religion, such
appeal to immortality through the preservation of static bits, as
opposed to 'the childish faith in a living, immortal soul' is going to
raise at least a few eyebrows, if not some open ridicule."
Damien