Sophisticated programs can duplicate themselves as they run and can even improve on the original design. Given an advanced enough biotechnology, there seems to be no reason why the human mind cannot be duplicated the same way and transferred as a living program to another, possibly artificial body.There is considerable question as to why anyone would want to create a duplicate of his or her own mind. The most frequently advanced suggestion is that personalities could be downloaded and stored in this way from time to time against the possibility of death, as a kind of emergency backup life.Of course, this would do the original personality no good; from his point of view, he would still be quitedead, while his duplicate lived on, complete with his memories of everything that had happened up to the moment of replication.—Never-Never MindDR. ANN CECIL MULGRAVEC.E. 2556What »DEVCAMERON« was attempting to do was similar in principle to what had happened to him by accident twenty-five years before, at Second Herakles.
