Returning to Nesslabs for inspiration, we find ourselves pondering what it would mean to upload our mind to the cloud.

The merging of meerkat and machine is an intriguing, frightening, exciting prospect. Uploading is an idea explored by by the TV show Upload (which I am yet to see), and it’s basically a means of cheating death. Imagine if we could preserve our minds, and transfer them to the digital landscape. What would that feel like? Would we actually still be alive in any meaningful sense? What ramifications would this have for the concept of the human soul if we could separate our minds from our vulnerable corporeal forms?

If fiction is anything to go by, we would recreate the real world within the virtual one. Now, in cyberspace we might near-limitless potential, so what would be stopping us from conjuring up our perfect little online bubbles? Ever fancied wielding a lightsaber, or piloting the star-ship Enterprise? Now’s your chance, in the most immersive means possible.

What might this all mean for human interaction? Would the Uploaded be able to send messages to the flesh-and-blood humans running around? How would Uploaded people communicate with each other? Are we going to get some sort of Tron-style world?!

How might the human mind cope in the online realm? Would we eventually lose a sense of self, or would we actually become more insular, sticking to worlds of our own making, sheltered in our creature comforts?

Leaving side the ethical and moral dilemmas that uploading would pose, what of the technical challenges? We are far from the ability to do this. Connecting the human brain up to a computer so that you can then transfer the essence of what makes a person a person, into machinery? It might be seen as one pathway to immortality, but is it even remotely doable, and will it ever be doable?

Interesting stuff to ponder.