S Gill Williamson

Which Is the Real Ramon? S Gill Williamson

Humans are fascinated by stories of intergalactic travel where people beam down to strange worlds and travel faster than the speed of light to get there. But biological humans are fragile and have evolved over millions of years to live on earth. This book explores the way such intergalactic adventures can actually take place, provided only that humans expand their notion of self. Advances in computer science such as virtual reality and synthetic intelligence will make it possible to create copies of humans and provide simulated environments for these copies. These simulated or virtual humans will be able to control time and live for millions of years while traveling through the galaxy in hostile environments . In our story, the biological humans copied in this way feel disappointed with and jealous of this arrangement. Their copies have all of the adventures while they die in the usual way by growing old. Our story describes motivations and technology that gradually result in the biological humans identifying with their virtual copies in a way that connects their sense of self with their copies and the more advanced civilization that maintains the copies.