When will it be enough? All the enhancements. All the improvements. All the advancements. When will it be enough?
There is a lure in the possibility of never having to die, isn't there? The thought of living forever; of being young forever, is so powerful that it makes my heart pound as I write this. What drives us to continuously enhance everything imaginable? I don't think it's for maximum efficiency. I also don't think it's to make the world a better place. At the heart of it all, I can't help think that we are trying to strive for none other than immortality.
But it's not because we are afraid to die. No. That's probably not it. I think it's because with every once-unimaginable new technology becoming real, we suddenly lick our lips and salivate as the idea of immortality becomes a reachable possibility. If computers can save an infinite amount of data, what's to stop them from being able to hold memories to such a degree that it feels like life had never been taken away? Our fragile bodies turned into indestructible sheets of metal and series of wiring that overtake heartbeats and the flow of our blood. After all, the changes have already begun, haven't they?
In July 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote an article called 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' Here he wrote lengthily about how the availability of massive data using the internet has altered the way our brains function. No longer are we able to sit for hours engorged in books; completely able to comprehend and make sense of all the words we're reading. Today, getting through a lengthy essay is taxing. Our brains have been modified to function in a way that suites the technology around us. We skim read. We lose focus. We only need the vital bits and pieces. Classic books have no room in our lives.
When I was seven years old, I read a book a day. Roughly 20,000 words of fiction. Every single day. This went on until I reached high school with my choice of text becoming longer and longer appropriately. Reading was a thrill. It was exciting. When I entered university, the amount of school work I had to do, my extra curricula, and expanded social life (and romantic relationship) took away my time for reading. I began to spend more time using the internet as I struggled to do a large amount of quality work all crammed into whatever time I could find to cram them into. For four full years, I didn't take time to read as much as I used to. Post university life happened and I realized I had lost my ability to read large volumes of words and comprehend them fully and quickly; something similar to what Mr. Carr struggled with.
Slowly, I've begun to think tremendously about where all this technology is really going. Maybe it started as a business; people wanting to create services never before thought of and earning hoards of money they no longer know what to do with. But where will it end? I think to that once-unimaginable possibility of playing god. Will there come a time when death was a thing of the past? What kind of world order will that bring? What kind of meaning will people seek for in life if they knew they had the option to never die? Would I want to be part of that world? Would you?
There is a lure in the possibility of never having to die, isn't there? The thought of living forever; of being young forever, is so powerful that it makes my heart pound as I write this. What drives us to continuously enhance everything imaginable? I don't think it's for maximum efficiency. I also don't think it's to make the world a better place. At the heart of it all, I can't help think that we are trying to strive for none other than immortality.
But it's not because we are afraid to die. No. That's probably not it. I think it's because with every once-unimaginable new technology becoming real, we suddenly lick our lips and salivate as the idea of immortality becomes a reachable possibility. If computers can save an infinite amount of data, what's to stop them from being able to hold memories to such a degree that it feels like life had never been taken away? Our fragile bodies turned into indestructible sheets of metal and series of wiring that overtake heartbeats and the flow of our blood. After all, the changes have already begun, haven't they?
In July 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote an article called 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' Here he wrote lengthily about how the availability of massive data using the internet has altered the way our brains function. No longer are we able to sit for hours engorged in books; completely able to comprehend and make sense of all the words we're reading. Today, getting through a lengthy essay is taxing. Our brains have been modified to function in a way that suites the technology around us. We skim read. We lose focus. We only need the vital bits and pieces. Classic books have no room in our lives.
When I was seven years old, I read a book a day. Roughly 20,000 words of fiction. Every single day. This went on until I reached high school with my choice of text becoming longer and longer appropriately. Reading was a thrill. It was exciting. When I entered university, the amount of school work I had to do, my extra curricula, and expanded social life (and romantic relationship) took away my time for reading. I began to spend more time using the internet as I struggled to do a large amount of quality work all crammed into whatever time I could find to cram them into. For four full years, I didn't take time to read as much as I used to. Post university life happened and I realized I had lost my ability to read large volumes of words and comprehend them fully and quickly; something similar to what Mr. Carr struggled with.
Slowly, I've begun to think tremendously about where all this technology is really going. Maybe it started as a business; people wanting to create services never before thought of and earning hoards of money they no longer know what to do with. But where will it end? I think to that once-unimaginable possibility of playing god. Will there come a time when death was a thing of the past? What kind of world order will that bring? What kind of meaning will people seek for in life if they knew they had the option to never die? Would I want to be part of that world? Would you?
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