Virtual minds

About a week ago I went to see the movie at the cinema called Transcendence. I found this fantasy movie extremely interesting as it had a stunning idea of what could happen in the future with the way people use new technology and the internet. To expand on the idea of the movie I have to summaries it for you first, so stay with me here.  

               Group of scientists created a way of scanning human’s brain in such a way that they could save one’s entire mind on the hard drive of a computer. One of the scientists gets a deadly disease and about to die in a few months. His wife who is also in the group of researchers decides to scan her husband’s brain in order to save it on numerous computers, that way his body physically will be dead but his mind will still exist in the virtual world on the computer screen. The procedure gets completed successfully and dead scientist keeps living on the screen of lab computers, however his wife takes a step further and uploads mind of her husband on-line. That’s where the most interesting part of the movie begins. A small group of people as well as some scientists do not see human’s mind uploaded on-line as a safe for others. People that are aware of this successful experiment of human’s mind are afraid that it will cause uploaded individual take the entire control over the web. In fact, virtual scientist has used his endless power on the web to hack any system in the world to get money and knowledge to develop extra ordinary advanced technologies.

               Idea of this movie made me think of the future that is ahead of us. What if uploading someone’s mind on the internet will be actually possible? What if human population that has internet access will start living their life on-line? In fact, that will be possible to live forever. This would change the world for ever in terms of communications and human existence. We would need some people physically maintain access to the internet on the planet, however once people can’t continue their life in the physical world they can be uploaded on-line and continue their existence there. Therefore heaven could really exist in eyes of atheists! However, there will be a lot of issues with that as well such as, religious and ethic problems, some people may find uploading peoples’ minds on-line unethical and against the nature that God gives us. Also new regulations and rules on the web would have to be created to keep virtual community under control; people could start abusing power given to them on-line.

               Although, novelty of virtual people is only an idea for a good fantasy movie today, I do not rule out this from an actual existence. I think as long as people are looking for eternal life and a way to get the most from the web, one day, virtual life on-line can take place in our world.