Saturday, October 16, 2010

Our Alternate Plane Of Existence


As members of a biological species, we are all made of organs, cells, molecules and atoms. The specificity of biological species is that they reproduce and are in constant re-arrangement of the matter that they are made of. Every second, millions of cells in our body die and are replaced by brand new ones that are made of reprocessed biological material. This never-ending (at the phylogenetic level) recycling machinery has been at work for at least 3.5 billion years on our planet.

Being in this constant re-arrangement state and spreading our molecules around us seem to have given birth to our ontogenetic desire to leave traces of our existence after our death. One could consider that artistic expression, literature, accomplishments in sports etc... are no more than a mere unconscious attempt at fulfilling our phylogenetic programming at the ontogenetic level.

Recent advances in technologies have had a profound impact on this aforementioned process. We are now all leaving traces of our existence everywhere. This is not restricted to the Elite anymore. And the most fascinating aspect of this phenomenon is that the traces we leave are not only non-biological (we don't spread dead cells around us) or static (when it comes to writing on paper in the attempt to reach literature fame), they are capable of self-reproduction. As a matter of fact, all the tweets we send are instantaneously sent to thousands of computers, stored locally or just passed on to another computer. They continue to exist on hard drives after they have disappeared from the user searchable information. Consequently, all the information that originates from us is transcended to a silicon plane of existence where it will continue a life of its own. We have to be aware that our pictures, videos, texts end up in the primordial silicon soup that is the Internet. I see in this realization a very close parallel to the primordial soup that was once the cradle of life on Earth. Could it be at the origin of a new type of life or for that matter intelligent life? Could it be at origin of a digital double of each and everyone of us?

I can't wait for my digital double to taste a digital hamburger!

1 comment:

Solitary said...

Dude, this site Rocks!

I've got the fever...

But you know what it could use?

More Hamburgers!!!