Not really sure how I feel about this “Transcendence” flick
(I mean the new Depp movie about being able to upload human consciousness into a computer – not a Supersoul Sunday special.) And I spout such ignorant pontifications as I’m about to with complete love.
And preconceived notions.
And 100% judging a book by it’s movie trailer before actually watching it.
But the thing is, I have read (part of) the real life books discussing such concepts anticipated in the future by neurosci-guys. And my sweet world of denial doesn’t want me to see a romanticized fantasy flick about it when it could totally happen. In the Michiko Kaku novel I started but never finished, he talks about a “brainternet” being plausible super soon – where you don’t have to use actual literary or verbal signifiers to spitball info. You’d just make the exchange directly from your dome piece.
At first I was in hate with the idea of a situation where I could accidentally slip up and have my innermost machinations machine launched to another human sans screening (assuming that’s how it works – I dunno). But another part of me thought about the benefits for someone who has to work on a laptop for more hours than the sun spends in the sky while they’re awake.
Whenever I get up from the writing seat to stretch, and a million different synovial firecrackers sound off in my body, I think about how cool it would be if that could – ya know – not happen.
The act of creating anything – art, writing, orgasms – can be pressure enough. When you’re doing it for pay (now I’m regretting that last example I just employed for comic effect) though, knowing others might see and judge it (yep, really regretting it), it’s even harder – especially on your body (zing).
F’real though – creativity aches are cunning, too. It’s like getting in an accident. It’s not until after you get up from your seat that you realize how utterly twisted every last tendon feels or that you’ve been wearing your shoulders like myosin earrings for the past – three hours?!
Jesus.
“Not sure if possessed by a bouquet of demons, or just finished an article…”
Naturally, my Mitty-esque fantasy takes off into a movie trailer with that one dude narrating it in his sexy cadence coated bombastic tone: “Thissss summerrrr… One woman can hang her body up like an overcoat while she heroically types literary drivel for the masses… Slipping into the screen and silencing somatic pain Silence of the Lambs style… MissAshleyPants IS Buffalo Bill-nary”
Yeah. It’d be nice to just put my bod on pause mode, slip into the world of 0’s and 1’s for work, and then return after for a bit of Vinyasa and green tea.
But the truth is that with a personality like mine craving constant comfort, I might not ever come back to the old flesh sack, given the chance to escape it.
Seriously – why can’t we all just be little photon clouds floating around instead?
I feel like we’d all be less assholey if we could just be that.
Then again, without bodies we wouldn’t have a few smart dudes dub the “morality” hormone, Oxytocin. Since I learned that in a Morgan Freeman docu-series (and since he’s in this flick), I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t surface as a thing in the movie when Depp dies and becomes a binary tryant barking orders about needing power and stuff.
So how soon is soon?
Well Paul Bettany, who plays in the film shared this little tidbit:
I went to see a man at Cal Tech university, one of the foremost neuroscientists in the world. He’d read the script, and I said, “Look, I’m just wondering, how far-fetched is this idea?” And he said, “30 years.” In 30 years we’ll upload a human brain into a computer. Like you would a song onto an iPod. And I went, “But that’s immortality,” and he went, “Yes.” And this guy isn’t a kook. He believes, as do most neuroscientists in the world, that our future is inextricably linked with machinery, and that is the next stage in our evolution.”
See? The math don’t lie. One consciousness plus zero body = zero hormones = zero morality hormone = zero morality.
And no more storms in your ovaries as you witness Bettany uploading extra sex into Depp’s face:
(Aw. It’s like a Hollywood prom snappy where two middle aged deities took eachother as dates. #youreboththequeentome)