Borg . . . or Highlanders?
What is the "soul" anyway (or, for the non-religiously inclined, "consciousness")? Beond this plane of existence, who knows, for sure? In the here and now, however, isn't it the sum of our experiences that matters? What harm in transferring that to another body, i.e. a clone, or perhaps a cyborg, should our technology someday allow it? I don't think we're defined by the outer shell - indeed, any religion that I know of views the body as a mere vessel. It's what's inside that counts, and I see no reason why that couldn't be transferred, whole, to another vessel (well, no non-technological reason, at any rate).
Will Wise responds to Paul Kimball's response to my post on mind-uploading:
Response to Paul Kimball's Ruminations on Mac Tonnies Thoughts (Borg . . . or Highlanders?)
It should also be pointed out that Kurzweil's logic also has implications for Ufology. For one, if Kurzweil is correct and humans are only 50 years away from creating the Singularity it stands to reason that any advanced ET life traveling between stars to visit our planet will have already passed through the "singularity" phase of their evolution. As a result, they will probably NOT be biological organisms (humanoid or otherwise) but technological beings. It’s quite hard to say what this might look like although it is quite possible that they could instantiate bodies appropriate to the audience with which they are trying to communicate if they were so inclined.
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