Journal 4: "Clay"

In class, we watched two stories in a video series called Robot Stories. The first we saw was called "Clay," a tale set in the near future involving controversy over the use of technology to ‘secure immortality.’ In the world of "Clay," it is possible to download oneself and all of one’s thoughts and memories into a computer/the Internet before death, insuring ‘life’ eternal. By the time the story takes place, it is illegal not to be downloaded before you die. For one man, the protagonist of the story, an artist, the issue of being downloaded is very controversial. Being informed that he is dying himself, he is told that he needs to schedule an appointment to be downloaded. Although his son tells the artist that it is immoral not to be downloaded, and his wife, already living in the computer world, wants him to join her in cyberspace, the man cannot be persuaded. In the end, he allows himself to die naturally, without being uploaded into a computer. It appears the man chose this death because he realized that the self that is downloaded into the computer is not the same as the embodied self. The Internet changes the person, he thought, as evidenced by his wife’s more peaceful, loving nature while in the computer (which differs greatly from how his wife acted while embodied). Human nature seems to be perfected by this downloading, and the artist did not like this at all. ‘It’s not real,’ he appeared to believe, and he did not want to live a life without touch.
On the issue that "Clay" brings up, at the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I completely agree with the man who lets himself die naturally, although for slightly different reasons. First of all, how can anyone be sure that the uploading of his or her thoughts and memories (and even consciousness) into the computer creates oneself within the computer? The being within the computer may say, "Yes, I am _____, who just died. I now live in the computer." Yet, how can we be sure that it is the same person without actually experiencing downloading ourselves? This ‘you’ on the Internet may have your thoughts and memories, but can it really be you? Did you consciousness really slip from you when you died into the computer? Again, one could never know this until it happens to them, and at that point, there is no turning back. Obviously, this idea of downloading is not such a sure way to gain eternal life after all.
Let’s just say, though, for the sake of argument, that the downloaded self really is you, and that the changes of the self within the computer can be attributed just to the process of being downloaded. Now you are in ‘digital heaven,’ if you will. However, what does this do to religion and spirituality (which is still important to many of the world’s peoples)? If you are stuck within the Internet (which is, essentially, on earth) for the rest of eternity, how can you ever go to heaven/nirvana/etc? Is your ‘soul’ in the computer, and if so, do you become some cyber-ghost, not really living in this world or the next? Who would chose this ‘half-life’ on the Internet over eternal happiness with God(s)? I guess the uncertainty of whether or not there is a God would cause some people to chose to be downloaded. However, I believe I would chose not to spend eternity (or however long computers last) on the Internet if I had even the slightest chance of everlasting, spiritual happiness with God. Even if I am wrong and no heaven awaits, at least I will not have to stay for centuries on end on the computer, seeing but not touching, smelling, or feeling anything.