Artificial Immortality, Part I

As far as I am concerned a high enough quality digital copy of any object (for some value of ‘high enough’) is indistinguishable from a ‘perfect’ analogue copy, and a ‘perfect’ analogue copy is indistinguishable from the original. Most consumer goods we use today are copies of each other – the very idea of what it means to be original has become largely conceptual. When it comes to any data living inside of a computer, our conception of copying it has become almost completely opaque. We talk of transferring data to another location or giving it to another person. We no longer think of data on computers as being copies; all instances of the data are indistinguishable from the original.

Because all digital data is assumed to be the same as any other copy of the same data and because high fidelity digital copies of analogue data is thought to be indistinguishable from the original, when we create a digital recording of a piece of music and listen to a copy of it, we assume that the sound we are hearing is the exact same sound as was recorded. Not a copy, but the same original sound. The ambiance it was recorded in does not come through; we do not assume that the experience of listening to the recording of a concert is the same as being at the concert, but this distinction is about the limits of the recording, not about the limits of the digital data. Once the recording equipment is able to take into account all aspects of the space the concert is played within to a ‘high enough’ level of detail and quality, we will assume that listening/viewing/participating in the recording is the same as having actually been there.

The same can be said for people. Currently our ability to record people is limited to what they look like and what they sound like, not anything to do with their internal systems that make them who they are (other than medical snapshots). Still, as long as the recordings we make are in ‘real time’, we feel that the voice we hear on the other end of a modern telephone (which uses digital signals) is the other persons voice (not a copy). Once our people recording equipment has a ‘high enough’ level of detail and quality we will be able to make exact copies of the entire person that we will then consider to be the same as the actual person. This recording equipment would probably need to scan a person on a cellular level (at least for some organs, such as the brain), but it is not too farfetched to assume that we will eventually have this technology. It’s really just a question of when.

The other interesting thing about digital data is that because it can be copied so easily, it effectively lasts forever. Once we make a recording of a song, as long as there is interest left to keep it, it will continue to be copied onto newer computer systems. The individual computers that the copies are on will eventually grow old and stop functioning. We do throw old computers out. But the data will still live on. Even though in truth it will be a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, we will believe that the song we hear in a thousand years time is the song that was originally recorded.

This is why I used to believe that once we gain the technology to ‘record’ a full human being, we would become effectively immortal. But I don’t believe that any more.