5D MEMORY STORAGE OF DNA?
This is one of those stories that left my jaw on the floor, not only because it seems highly appropriate for Halloween, but also for what it says about memory storage and what its implications may be for some of my own very high octane speculations I've made over the years, in this case, specifically some speculations I advanced years ago in 2007 in my book The Cosmic War: Interplanetary Warfare, Modern Physics, and Ancient Texts. The story - for which we are deeply grateful - was shared by M.C.:
5D Memory Crystal Could Preserve Human DNA for Billions of Years
Note firstly what many scientists and technicians have long suspected: crystals are a wonderful way of storing data in a relatively secure medium capable of preserving data over long periods of time, but that this data might even be the human genome - DNA - itself:
In 2014, 5D memory crystal technology set a Guinness World Record for being the most durable data storage material – a title that it still holds.
Scientists are now exploring how 5D memory crystals, which are made from quartz glass and can endure extreme temperatures up to 1000 °C, cosmic radiation and most chemicals, could be used to preserve different types of data – including human DNA.
A team of researchers at the University of Southampton say they have now etched the full human genome onto a 5D memory crystal, which can survive for billions of years.
The proof-of-concept study was led by Dr. Peter Kazansky, a professor in optoelectronics. “We were inspired by the potential of 5D memory crystals to provide ultra-durable, high-density storage that can last billions of years,” Kazansky told Technology Networks. “With advancements in genetic research and the growing need to preserve biological data for future generations, the human genome was a perfect candidate to demonstrate the crystal's capabilities.”
And of course, all of this is serving the transhumanist agenda of a virtual immortality:
“We were also inspired by the possibility that this technology could assist in the reconstruction of a person using stored genetic information, thus providing a form of information immortality that could safeguard human identity long into the future,” Kazansky said.
Now, I submit that even if one could, let us say, restore to life the entire DNA of an individual, that this would not be the same as restoring that individual person. Here's why: let us assume that an individual, let's call her Eve-1, had all of her DNA data stored on such a crystal, where it survives for a great number of years beyond those of her living relatives, who are long since dead by the time Eve-1 is "reconstructed" or "cloned" by whatever process may be used. Let's call this "cloned" version Eve-2, identical in all respects genetically with Eve-1, like an identical twin. Are they the same person? answer: no, they are not, any more than identical twins are the same person just because their DNA is for all intents and purposes identical. Indeed, suppose a method were found to store not only Eve-1's DNA, but her entire life memories and experience, and to "clone" that. Is the resulting Eve-2 the same person? Again, even on the view that the sum total of Eve-1's memories and experiences constitute her person, such a view would mean that, as Eve-1 or EVE-2 have additional experiences, the personhood of Eve-1 (or Eve-2) would change, there being no permanent underlying "I" to have those experiences. (This distinction brings home the necessary distinction between personhood and soul, for those paying attention.)
But my intention here is not to focus on the relationship between soul and personhood nor upon its implications for the transhumanist goal of "virtual immortality" via such technological means, but rather, on the implications of this kind of long-term biometric data storage in crystals, for in my book The Cosmic War, I pointed out that the ancient Sumerican-Mesopotamian concept of the "Tablets of Destinies" were not only fearsome objects conveying rulership, sovereignty, and great powers of destruction, but that they also seemed to be both `(1) crystalline objects, and (2) biometrically activated, because they would only be wielded by "the gods" who were in close proximity or actual physical contact with them. They were, as I argued, biometrically activated. So assuming that to be the case, then this 5D crystal data storage development carries within it its own high octane speculative implications: namely, that if those ancient "Tablets of Destinies" were ever to be found, they might be able to be read, or opened, by such a biometric lock. Or to put that point slightly differently, we seem to be busily constructing, or perhaps even reverse-engineering, the very technologies to unlock those ancient crystals and the data - and the power - they allegedly contain according to those ancient texts.
See you on the flip side...
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