It’s no secret I want to live for as long as I possibly can swing it. I’m not unique in this, I know. But thinking about immortality I find myself at peace, even desiring my options include virtual ones.

Let’s get it right out of the way. I don’t know what happens after death. A lot of people have faith in something. Billions even. Some believe in nothing at all. Between the two lies the truth, even if it leans heavily to one side.

I’ve heard some say “don’t take a chance” and go to church. That seems like hoping with your fingers crossed, but maybe it’s like spiritual knocking on wood. Science will give the non-believer a choice as well. Imagine being given the choice to live on again virtually, creating new memories, experiencing new sensations. I’ve no idea what this fantastical, magical world looks like, but I’m keen to visit.

But if I choose to upload myself to some virtual afterlife, will it be “me?” More to the point, will it contain my soul? Like art, people know a soul when they see one and when they look at a computer they don’t see a soul. Yet philosophically if you know something is 100% the same, even if not original, does it matter? Is the difference in our own mind? Probably because when you think about it, our minds are nothing but meat with chemistry and electricity bouncing around.

The experiences are stored in this meatspace, but the meatspace isn’t the experience. It’s just the machine, the thing that plays the recording. We’re a complex, squishy mass of organs and emotional centers hooked up to a network of sensors that provide us with constant input. We store that input, including how our emotional centers feel about it. That’s why memory feels different later on, because the machine is different, older. It’s what makes us feel alive, this ability to be aware of how we feel about things.

Once copied it’s like a laser disc; tons of great data without a player to play it. Once we’ve got the player things can explode in this area. I’m not sure how we’ll code feeling, but the memory will be a lot. But even if it’s imperfect, if it feels good enough people will want it. We’ll accept the matrix if it fills a need we have, just like all tools.

I can’t wait to be there to see it.