However, there’s one thing that I think Sci Fi commonly gets very wrong. Transferring consciousness is something that happens in almost every series, and in many books. It can be the episode where everyone has their personalities swapped around in the team (and hilarity ensues), the episode where someone has their personality moved into a computer or robot (and their body falls empty to the ground, soon to die if they aren’t restored), or transporters that disassemble people into atoms and put them back together in a different place, but can’t make a copy. There are exceptions, but they are generally just that, exceptions. There are very few pieces of fiction in which copies (not transfers) are casually possible, because it’s just too hard to imagine what that would do to a society.

There are, of course, works that float around the idea. Kiln People is about a society that makes copies daily, but the copies either die in a few days or merge back in to the original. John Varley’s universe has a general rule of only one body per set of genes (sucks to be an identical twin). John C. Wright in the “The Golden Age” trilogy thinks about this in some real detail.

However, what most story lines do is transfer personalities, not copy them. In terms of real physics (not magic spells), I can’t imagine a way to transfer a personality, but I can imagine a way to copy one.

Picture a drawing on a piece of paper. Making another drawing on another piece of paper that looks like the first is something we can do, and with the right equipment do almost (but not quite) perfectly. However, we aren’t transferring the drawing, we’re coping it, and usually, the initial drawing isn’t disturbed at all. We can then destroy the original, if we chose. But if we do, we have a copy, not the original on a new piece of paper.

Using a transporter that moves you somewhere instantly is a comfortable idea. Using one that makes a copy of you somewhere else, then kills you , is not. My copy might not mind, but I’d hesitate a very long time before telling Scotty to beam me up! This already uncomfortable idea is made worse when you realize that photocopies are… imperfect. They are a lot like the original, but not identical.

I think that in time, the technologies to make copies of peoples minds will be real (probably computerized copies long before new bodies). I also think that we need to spend a lot of time thinking about this before that happens. If people can copy themselves, then a LOT of things change. Is the sanctity of life to be treasured for someone who copies themselves a thousand times as a joke? Is “one man, one vote” still fair? Is the suicide of a sick person with a copy in a healthy body bad?

I have no answers, just questions. And, of course, a challenge to science fiction authors to start moving these questions further into the public view.

A few misc notes…. I do hope to put a full length sofa eventually, but not for a while. I would love to cut a door into the ‘north’ wall that would give direct access to the garage if it wouldn’t screw things up, and I’ll probably never light a fire in the fireplace but pulling out the whole thing with all the brick seems expensive and difficult.

This is the current layout. I kind of like it, except for the TV being too far away and hard to see. I really don’t want to buy a bigger one, though some people I’ve talked too have thought that would be a great idea.

This layout brings the TV closer, but makes it awkward to see. It also leaves part of the seating a long way away.

This last layout blocks off a channel as you walk in, which I kinda don’t like, but it’s not too bad. It would also use a sofa where the recliner is now to make that walk way in more defined.

Three photos of the actual room.

A number of times through this process, my mortgage broker has asked me to write a letter explaining some detail or other about the purchase, my recent financial history, or whatever was causing concern. This has been slightly painful, but today’s letter was over the top. I needed to explain why money transfers between two banks (the recipient being the one writing the loan) required a day’s delay to transfer instead of being instant.

Since I’m still asking them for a lot of money, I tried to hide my lost temper….

Wil, Janet, Garrett, and Riley.

The visiting team, Me, Ken, and Derek.

Instead of taking the I5 route that we’ve always used when going to Blizzcon or crawfish boils in the past, I decided to take the slightly more scenic route up 101. This added about half an hour to the trip, but made it much more pleasant. Also, I can now say that I’ve ridden up from the south end of 101 to Morgan Hill.

The ride went pretty quickly and easily with no worries other than some rain that was a bit heavy in places. As I started getting close to hope, I started going through places I visited with my sister when she was in town, which made me think of her visit. It felt a bit surreal as I got closer and closer and things got more and more familiar. I really would rather keep going instead of stopping, but the real world must return.

I got home before this, but didn’t think to take a picture until after the sun had set. Everything around the house was fine, and my neighbor gave me the bucket of mail he’d saved for me while I was out of town almost right away. Easy to return to the normal pattern, but I hope I don’t go back to quite the same thing.

It looks like this trip was 9,701 miles total and 47 days. I plan to do one more post showing the cost of the trip as well, but I probably won’t get around to that for a while. I also hope to email everyone I got to visit along the way again, but since it’s late today, I probably won’t get to that for a bit.

Now to bed, and back to work tomorrow!

We came back to the house for the much more important hanging out with everyone. The day was relaxed, though Janet had the kids out to a birthday party (which did make things a bit quieter). Most of the rest of the day turned into Wow. For the people who are interested, there was a mix of things. We killed a lot of pirates to grind goblin rep, did this, that, and the other, and then ran half of Ulduar in hard mode working on the achievement for the Rusted Proto Drake. There was an unfinished tray of jello shots and quite a bit of beer involved as well.

Since we got there just a little bit late we managed to miss the big lines to check in.

After we got inside, all the people from the empty lines were waiting for us, but that’s as expected for an event like this.We wandered around looking at various things, buying t shirts, and playing a demo of Cataclysm that had serious stability problems. There was even an on-site Arena tournament in which the server appeared to crash part way through the fight.

We attended a talk about design changes Cata instances and raids that sounds promising. The key thought was that instances will be chopped up into shorter and more manageable pieces. If the content is long, break it into multiple instances that can be followed in separate runs. This all sounds good.

And, of course, there were the costumes.

In mid-afternoon, after prompting from the pregnant woman, we left to get lunch and be social. This meant an excellent Mexican place followed by setting up at the house and multiple instance runs followed by an ICC run (reached the Lich King, but didn’t down him).

Over all, a good day.

Getting here was good, as has been seeing everyone. Wil, Janet, and Pye were already here when I got in, and we went to pick up Derek from the airport around 10. Janet is 5-6 months along on their third child, and the two young ones are growing too quickly (don’t they always?). Almost as soon as everything was settled, Wil wanted me to start getting a computer setup so I could raid with them while here, and even provided a faster laptop so I could.

Tomorrow is the first day of Blizzcon, so that’s exciting!

I managed to stay in cool weather under clouds for most of the day, but only had a few drops of rain. I did have to stop at a border patrol station to get inspected to see if I was carrying any illegal aliens. Fortunately it didn’t take them long to realize I wasn’t. It did feel a lot like a border crossing, except that they didn’t require a passport. I suspect that my accent was enough to keep me from having to pull out paperwork.

I did stop at some pretty rest stops, and see some lovely views.

Hum… the guy at the front desk pointed me to a bad restaurant for dinner. I think that’s the first time that’s happened this trip.

Also, this may be the day when the most important goal for the trip worked out. I’m taking time off right now to deal with burnout, and have been trying to figure out if going back to work will work out for me, and what I need to be doing to make that happen. I think I have that answer.

I’m going to get a PHD, and to quote from the facebook post I wrote over dinner….

I enjoy the visits with everyone a great deal. But the best part of the trip is still getting back on the bike to push on to somewhere new. It’s the joy of having a purpose, a goal that I selected for myself.

I’ve always maintained that if I really knew what I most wanted I could probably get it, but I think that what I most want is a goal I want to work towards.

I don’t want a phd because it’ll pay out (it won’t), or not even to have it. Instead it seems like something that I will enjoy working towards.

Work used to be about learning to be a better programmer, but it hasn’t been for a while. There’s plenty more to learn, but it mostly feels like more details, not new concepts. And since I’m working for companies, I’m working on what they need, not what’s interesting. The next natural step for people like me is to either start managing people, or projects. Neither has a huge interest for me.

I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant. I’m a very long way from being the best there is or anything, just trying to explain how it feels to me. Anyway, disinterest took over, and I was left burned out by trying to just keep doing what I’d been doing.. Now it’s time for me to pick another big goal that I want for myself. I think that’s a phd.

As for what/where, I’m not sure.

Computer Science, Astronomy, and Physics all have different appeals with CS being the most obvious choice (and perhaps Google will help pay for it).

Where is a good question, my old transcripts are … checkered. Berkley and Stanford seem like good places to try and start, if they’ll take me.

I doubt I can reasonably quit and go to school full time, so we’ll see how well I can integrate this with a real job. At least I’m at a company that seems like they are likely to be understanding… I hope.

After I did tear myself away from conversation, it was a straight forward day. I was just trying to make 500 miles before sundown. The only problem was that my allergies were in full effect. I was sneezing like crazy, and even trying to blow my nose on a hanky while going down the road at 70 mph without losing the hanky. Mild overdoses of assorted cold medicines did a lot to help keep this in check, but made it harder to stay focused on the driving.

The good news was that I was soon headed down interstate which is the easiest driving I normally do on a bike, especially since the road wasn’t crowded.

I managed almost exactly 500 of the 1545 miles I had to LA when starting in the morning with no stops to eat anything other than peanut butter crackers I already had with me. Then did the usual hotel, dinner near by, and head back to the room to write blogs. Instead of finishing the blogs, my sister called and we talked for a bit, which was good. Almost as soon as I got off the phone I fell asleep for about 11 hours.

The trip down to and past Houston went easily enough. The GPS took me down highway 59 on which I saw some traffic, but not enough to cause any problems at all along the way. In fact, I got there sooner than I said I would just because I assumed there would be some traffic issues along the way.

In the evening, Tony cooked his world famous pizza. This was not what I was expecting, and was a much better experience over all. He prepared a big batch of homemade pizza dough, and laid out big piles of various ingredients. Then, while everyone stood around the kitchen, he kept preparing small square pizzas about 12″ square with whatever ingredients seemed like a good idea at the time. Each one would be popped into the oven right (on a pizza stone) after the previous one finished cooking. They’d be cut up as soon as they came out of the oven and the small pieces grabbed by whoever wanted them. It was both very tasty, and a lot of fun.

Besides just eating, I got to sit and chat with Tony, Katie, and Keren (who drove down to come visit at the same time). It was a good night, but my allergies were going crazy which left me a bit out of it, and I’m sure they made me less pleasant to be around than I could hope for.

It was also good to see how well things seem to be going for their daughters. They both seem to be healthy, active, and well supported. It was even interesting (to bachelor me) to watch Tony and Katie negotiate over how to take care of them while maintaining their work schedules.

It was also good to sit and talk to Keren a bit since I’ve heard so little about how she’s been doing since she left California. I think she’s in a better place for now, and I hope it keeps getting better.