The idea of a digital afterlife continues to interest a number of writers. For example in the book Infinite Reality by Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson they note:
“For the first time, one can preserve large portions of identity via avatars. It may not be immortality exactly, but it is arguably the closest we can come, for now, to living forever”.
Unfortunately, like many other writers in this area, that is where they leave it. Because this book is primarily about virtual reality, and focuses heavily on ideas of computer driven “agents” and people driven “avatars”, they do not go far beyond the idea that we could create an “avatar” of ourselves that in the future could “exist “ in a computer somewhere and be called up from time to time for some form of interaction. This is a very restricting approach to the possibilities of even the “avatar” aspect of a digital presence. My thoughts about this include:
· Interactive avatars could exist now (an in fact they do) and over a period of time one could continue to build them.
· There is no need to have only one avatar as a representation of who one is. One could develop an avatar to be a representation – both in physical appearance and “level” of thinking for many stages of one’s life.
· An avatar would not be a “single” presence on one machine. Multiple copies could exist, and diversification across computer systems would ensure the computer files, making up the avatar, were not lost.
· Even given the about possibilities it may be possible to build a “virtual” avatar from selected digital material existing within a network. For example, my great great great grandson may ask his computer (or whatever he is able to use in that time) to bring up a representation of Denys For example, my great great great grandson may ask his computer (or whatever he is able to use in that time) to bring up a representation of Denys Yeo at sixteen and ask him about his sporting interests at that time. The computer will do a search of all relevant material, build a representation of me (from say photos, video) find any material on the topic that I, or others, may have commented on and make the “avatar” available to my great great great grandson as an interactive experience.
Given these possibilities it is important that we do not restrict ourselves in the material we make available in digital form. In the future there may be a lot more material about people in various networks, just because of the increasing pervasiveness of computers in the lives of people. But, we are not there yet, for a while at least we will have to take the time to put our stuff into digital form. We just need to get on with it! Blascovich and Ballenson do touch on this activity when they comment at the end of their book:
“Given what we know about people’s desire to live forever, and how much more quickly digital technology is advancing compared to biological solutions to aging, virtual identity archiving will be one of the main areas of development in the coming years”.