RandomPokesA Life Without Dominos and Remote ControlSteve Dennie
My elders often remind me of their deprived childhoods growing up during the Depression. Or was it the Dark Ages?
I've heard all about attending one-room schools under the tyrannical tutelage of an old maid who painted targets on pupils' knuckles and strode around with a big ruler.
About milking cows something like 17 times a day, including at 3:00 in the morning while a blizzard blew through the stalls.
About enduring party phone lines.
About being so culturally deprived that the height of entertainment was gathering around the gargantuan radio listening to some show now immortalized in Trivial Pursuit.
Yes, you had it rough.
But we young whippersnappers led deprived childhoods, too.
As I meander into old age, I look forward to those times I'll be able to soak my voice in nostalgia and tell some youngster about the hardships I endured as a kid growing up in the 1960s and early 1970s.
I'll tell them, "I remember back when nobody had remote control TVs." After they gasp in astonishment, perhaps even wince at the concept, I'll continue, "If you wanted to change the channel, you had to get up, walk over to the TV, and change it by hand. Life was rough back then.
"Not only that, but nobody had color TVs, and there were only three channels to choose from, if you can believe it. CBS, NBC, and ABC. No cable or satellite. And the VCR hadn't even been dreamed about yet. That was a world with few options for a kid like me.
"Yesiree, times were rough," I'll say. "No Dominos. You want a pizza--go pick it up yourself. No microwaves. I remember using the old metal crank can-openers, back before stores began selling electric ones. My hand hurts just thinking about it.
"And cars--boy have they come a long way. You should try driving 500 miles without cruise control, or air conditioning for that matter. It's an experience you won't soon forget."
I'll tell them about the bleakness of a world without Velcro. Of watches that had to be rewound every day. Of tedious rotary dial phones without auto-redial. Of coping with manual typewriters and erasable bond, and personally witnessing the advent of Liquid Paper.
Of surviving--somehow--without Diet Pepsi, cassette players, ice-makers, electric blankets, one-hour film-processing, answering machines, freezer bags, and MasterCharge. Without electric screwdrivers, ATM outlets, direct-dial long distance, and frozen yogurt. Without instant replay, Teflon, leaf-blowers, hot air poppers, three-way lightbulbs, and ghetto blasters.
My goodness, how did I endure all that hardship and deprivation, and still grow into a semi-balanced adult?
Or did I?
Someday, scientists prophecy, people will reminisce about the days when people had bodies.
Several years ago I read The Tomorrow Makers, a fascinating book by Grant Fjermedal. It's about becoming immortal, about living forever on earth. Eternal life without any help from God.
The basic idea is to do away with the body and become a robot. A robot that thinks, experiences pleasure, and generally enjoys life. A living machine. To get there, you must create a computer copy of your mind. That's got scientists stumped, but they're working on it. "It's only a matter of time," they promise.
They hope to figure out how to "download" the brain's contents--every memory and bit of knowledge in your gray matter--into a computer. Put that computer in a mechanical body, flip a switch, and it's alive. And it's you--the awareness that inhabited flesh-and-blood a minute ago now controls a mechanical body. They see this as the next step in human evolution.
Did I mention that this isn't a Christian book?
You could make several copies of your brain's contents, and keep some in a secure place--maybe in your mattress--as a backup. Then, if you get "killed" or, more accurately, "broken," a relative can pull out a copy of your brain, load it into a new mechanical body--and you're alive again. Sort of.
Every year, body-makers would come out with the latest models. You could buy a new model body with deluxe features, and either trade in the old one or donate it to missions. Of course, you could live in your birth body as long as you wanted. But eventually you would get cancer or heart disease and decide, "It's time to make the switch." Actually, it would be very risky to remain in your birth body, since your ticker could quit at any time, and you'd be done. No immortality for you.
Or so the spiritually blind would argue.
I must admit, I see some advantages for the church.
- A denomination could elect one overseer, but have many copies of him running around. For instance, on the same Sunday, he could preach at a homecoming in Michigan, conduct a groundbreaking in Virginia, dedicate a new building in California, preach at an anniversary service in Florida, and still sit in the pews at the church where he is a member. On Monday, his weekend experiences would be merged. So the same "person" could tell about what he observed firsthand in all of those places.
- A pastor could do many things he otherwise wouldn't have time for. Like counseling. One body could do nothing but counseling, all day long. One body could preach the weekly message, while another could sit in the office preparing next week's message. No longer would parishioners gripe, "The pastor never comes to see me!", because several copies of the pastor could be out visiting every night of the week, while another copy was home with the kids. Burnout would become obsolete; when overworked, just delegate work to yourself in a different body.
- No more troubles finding volunteers. Need another Sunday school teacher? Just take the best teacher you have and make a copy.
If it were possible, would you get rid of your body? Wouldn't you like to have a shiny, low-maintenance chrome chassis? Sure, there would be some drawbacks. But if you could live forever, would you make the switch?
Personally, I'm not too crazy about the idea. Maybe it would hold more appeal if I didn't already know that I'm going to live forever. And in a much better body than science could produce. And in a much better place than Planet Earth. And without the need for a back-up copy.
Besides, scientists are forgetting once crucial component: the soul.
God made Adam--flesh and blood--from dust. But that was just Phase One. He then breathed into Adam "the breath of life." I don't know what that means. I'm sure many theologians could explain "the breath of life" with absolute certainty in terms that would send a number-crunching mainframe into deep sleep. I can't. All I know is that whatever it actually was that God breathed, it was extremely important.
I've always assumed that God breathed into Adam a soul, the part of man that is eternal. Maybe I'm all wrong on that. But whatever God did to that dust-created chassis laying there in the Garden of Eden, the scientists need to duplicate if they want their mechanical being to come truly alive. And I'm sure they can't.
Suppose they do figure out how to put the brain's information into a computer. They put the brain databank in a mechanical chassis and turn it on--and boy are they disappointed. Motors purr and joints move and lights flicker, but there's no life. That's because they left the soul back in the human body, and there's nothing they can do about it.
So much for synthetic immortality. We can play God, sometimes very convincingly. But that's as far as we can go.
Copyright 2005 Steve Dennie |
