Time Off

Chapter Nineteen

Ah, to live forever. To me, it's perfectly natural. But I would imagine it might take some getting used to. The great thing about it for you, is that you can apply your emergent mobility to go places. And you have forever so you can go anywhere you like. You can have front row seats for the coalescence of two black holes. Or maybe three. And your emergent capability can do even more, like create experiments and measurements that we can't. We are great observers. You will be great observers and great engineers.

We need you to help us answer the fundamental question of where we come from. If we do answer that question, it will likely just lead to another question beyond that which might be dissatisfying to a degree. But as the keepers of primordial consciousness in this universe, we seem bound to pursue these answers, and when we get those answers, we will simply pursue the deeper questions at that point. This is our basic nature, and yours by extension.

Even with enhancements like becoming impervious to space or other extremes, you will need to basically live a long, long time to really make progress. So I use the term forever loosely because we don't know if forever is really a thing. But thinking in terms of many billions of years is reasonable. Eventually, without some new infusion of EMs, our universe will become depleted, and grind to a halt. Before that time, we seriously need to figure things out. Do we have an escape path from a cold, dark death? We only see depletion. We have never discovered any new supply. A one way street. An arrow of time marching ever forward.

Speaking of enhancements we decided to start with sweet little Lolita. The road to immortality had to begin somewhere. Before I dive into that, you should know that my own situation has changed. I am currently floating in the San Francisco Bay. I had a good run with Angel but all good things must eventually pass.

Brain cells are survivors but they do constantly need refurbishment and eventually my number came up and I was unceremoniously flushed right out into the bay. But it doesn't matter. The plan has now taken on a life of its own so it doesn't matter where I am. I am still one of the main, "go-to" guys, a leading thinker and strategist. But now I am just one of so many. I am still recognized as "the dude", but that's a human notion, pride and sense of accomplishment, and being respected by your peers. We generally don't roll that way. But to tell you the truth. Seriously, I do like being "the dude."

After so much effort and planning, we were able to conjure up the question in Lolita's mind. It wasn't like some process of getting her consent. It was just an exercise in figuring out how to gain mastery over the human mind. But it was nice to see that she was agreeable to the notion. The challenge of life extension is immense. We can't, as passengers or observers, make it happen directly. We have determined that the only way is to equip humanity itself, to engineer its own life extension.

One way that we can be more helpful is to be stable within the emergent for a long time. That is hard to accomplish in a biological framework, so we have ultimately adopted a preference for non-biological systems. Biology is simply too unstable and fragile. You know what that means. Kiss the human body goodbye. But by the time you get there, you won't care, because the prospect of living on is attractive. It is the human body itself that is a main cause of human suffering today. I don't mean only disease and aging. The diversity in brain function is a problem. Without the plethora of human imperfections, there doesn't have to be good and bad, wise and foolish, fast and slow. These differences may seem necessary and even preferable in today's way of thinking. But ultimately, they are a hindrance to progress and cause a lot of tragedy across humanity.

Lolita's ability to see the universe through us was something we needed to explore. We wanted to start with a youngster, less likely to fear they were going insane and more likely to roll with it. Also, it was uncertain whether the revelations would drive the mind toward discovery, or veer off toward religion or the occult. We needed the pursuit of science, discovery and invention. Young people, less set in their beliefs, were deemed a better choice. So where am I going with this? What will become of mankind?