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| At the edge of science, technology, reality and the possibilities of the future |
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Conditions for retrieval |
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| Reconstruction of a whole individual, including
his identity and memories requires an exhaustive knowledge about his
organism and his mind as well. It would be required to reconstruct
exactly his condition as it was in a specific moment of his life, before
his
death.
Nowadays such a possibility appears as an unthinkable task as far as the amount of the needed information about the dead person is nearly infinite. Perhaps it would be feasible to deduce his genetic condition after exhaustive study of his descendents DNA. But for the rest, including an exact map of all the mental and emotional processes and the complete description of the correspondent environment and biography, it is soemthing that seems impossible to conceive.
As soon as humans will reach the capacity for reading the subtle fluctuations in this field and would be able to process specific portions of this information, they will be in a position to gather all the data corresponding to the complete existence of anyone who has lived in the past. After that, the rebuilding of that person as it was in a specific moment of his life would only depend on an appropriate technology. This may seem absolutely impossible nowadays but, for Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), it would also be very difficult to admit the possibility of a vehicle launched by humans and reaching the outskirts of Saturn. Similarly, at the beginnings of the XX century, scientists would also experience similar impression in front of the possibility of the cloning of Dolly or the building of human-animal hybrids, which are currently being undertaken right now (see here). Of course, I don't know if the retrieval of dead individuals will finally be feasible, but I am sure on one thing: if one day it would be feasible, it will be done. And if it is done, it is also almost sure that retrieval chains will be formed.
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The retrieval chainsIf retrieval was finally feasible, the first ones to be retrieved will probably be some of a very exceptional individuals who had played a capital role in the humankind history. We may also reasonably expect that the first retrieval projects would require a very vast collective effort and a very large amount of resources, even for an advanced civilization. Nevertheless, retrieval projects will later be probably easier and may finally be feasible for a very small group or even, at the extreme, for a single individual. At that moment, there will be a lot of individuals who will want to retrieve someone recently lost. After the retrieved individual was reinstalled, healed and adapted to reality he/she would want to retrieve someone else, and so. Then a retrieval chain would start and propagate. Retrieval chains begin among rare individuals but quickly evolve towards larger targets and democritises. At this point, the conditions for the multiple retrieval chains formation are met and they begin to propagate very fast towards the past exponentially. My personal impression is that as soon as a common individual is allowed to retrieve someone else, it is hard to imagine that he/she would not undertake it. This is the reason why a lot of common individuals would finally be retrieved. Only two conditions have to be met:
This means that not everybody who has ever lived is going to be retrieved. Only those who would be recalled would have a chance. In other words, only those who had been loved or admired enough had a chance to come back.
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Waiting time |
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At the present time is impossible to guess anything about how much time will elapse until a retrieval chain arrives to someone who is alive right now. It may be some few decades, or perhaps some hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. In any case, for those who will be retrieved it does not matter. The waiting time would be a short instant for them. We may imagine this as something very similar to what happens every evening when we go to bed. We fall asleep and just an instant later we wake up, no matter how much time has been elapsed between these two moments.
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Consolation for those who have lost some loved person |
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Believers who accept that there is another life after death and expect resurrection, have the certitude that they will meet again their beloved ones some day. The retrieval chains hypothesis may provide a similar consolation for those who are not believers but are willing to admit some possibility from what science, technology, communication and culture may deliver in the distant future. |
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(In homage to Javier Rodriguez Blanco) |
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