ambient

Serialization of the imagination to a non-volatile archive is the human species attempting to preserve itself from an evolutionary standpoint. This was the first leap in the process of evolution from a purely physical adaptation path to one that is virtual.

To the conscious mind, void is the greatest evil. Hard drive failure is catastrophic. Religion was the first attempt at a backup & recovery mechanism (called the afterlife) for the human consciousness.

As soon as consciousness was born - represented as the result of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that serpentine ontology - death became intolerable because it was known.

Death, as defined as a natural process of life, put nature at odds for the first time with a species that nature herself had nurtured (perhaps ‘forged’ is a better word). Only the conscious mind can perceive death and what it means. Thus the quest for immortality was born.

Since that time, the human future has always been a post-human future. For this reason, technology and the promises it offers will become the religion of the 21st century.