Some people dream with the idea of their consciousness living inside a computer after they die. Free of any physical ties, they will forever to roam the world and eventually the cosmos, learning, seeing faraway stars through camera eyes, and playing Titanfall. As Poor Drawn Lines—one of my favorite internet cartoons—shows, it may not be as cool as it sounds.
Sure, it’s silly. But I think it nails it. Would you like to live forever inside a computer?
Of course, you can argue that your consciousness would be able to feel through external sensors, thanks to software interpreting the electrical signals gathered by a multitude of sensors. After all, our very own perception of the world works like that. Reality is a construct created by our mind.
Maybe some of you imagine yourselves living “inside” an android. I imagine myself as a spaceship. Perhaps feeling the solar wind as I approach Alpha Centauri would be worth living for an eternity inside a computer.
But then again, we are forgetting about the fact that the consciousness inside the computer will not be us. Just a copy of ourselves. So the entire thing is stupid. Forget about it all, folks. Back to your mortal lives.
