Saturday, April 7, 2012

Easter weekend: immortality in some form

This quote from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:
Francie came away from her first chemistry lecture in a glow. In one hour she found out that everything was made up of atoms which were in continual motion. She grasped the idea that nothing was ever lost or destroyed. Even if something was burned up or rot away, it did not disappear from the face of the earth; it changed into something else- gases, liquids, and powders. Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.
I recently got into watching the miniseries Dating Rules from My Future Self. The main character's future develops an app that sends texts to herself. At a team brainstorm meeting, Kelcy initially thought about developing an app that "creates" you (or who you wish to be) 10 years from now, who would answer your dilemma questions.


With Facebook, Twitter, and Google already gathering so much personal information on individuals, I think it would be very easy to create an immortal persona of anyone. People dying is sad partly because every knowledge they have becomes buried forever. But if a model was created of a person: ("When someone posts this status, you would respond with this sorta thing." "When this kind of picture is posted of your sister, you would comment this.") you could essentially interact with others and live forever.

This reminds me of P.S. I Love You or Incredibly Loud & Extremely Close, cases where someone who has already passed on continues to have a huge impact on someone's life.

Also, something about facebook: when someone passes away but hasn't deleted their facebook yet, their walls filling up with memorial posts? I think it's a little weird...

Heathen matters: this weekend has been delicious so far: our department threw a crawfish boil and I made a batch of delicious yellow cake fudge for N-cakes whose MCAT is next Friday.


Everyone is away for the long weekend - maybe if Rice was a Catholic institution?

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