What is the worst that can happen?

I never forward videos. Ever! Until today. I received this and then forwarded it to my facebook friends.

It is not cute, or laugh out loud funny. But hopefully it will make you think.

Conversations with an Alien – part 1

Imagine, if you will, that you meet an alien from another planet.

He, she or it, can speak perfect English. (This is imaginary after all!)

What would he, she or it, take for granted? What would he, she or it find surprising, about Earth or more specifically the United Kingdom of Great Britian?

As typing ‘he, she or it’ is soon going to become monotonous, I propose that we give our alien a name and a notional sex. He will be known as ‘Fred’.

‘Stephen,’ Fred says ‘After our conversation about money the other day, I have been looking at the Stock Market. Have I got this right?’ He pauses choosing his words carefully, ‘that the value of a company can change, not because the quality, the amount or need for the product changes, but just because one person, who may be wrong, has doubts about that company?’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ I reply ‘But it does depend on who has the doubts. You might want to research Northern Rock. If I recall correctly, that started with just one reporter.’

‘Bu, Fred frowns ‘ that does not make any sense at all!’

Is this right? Would an Alien society have money? Perhaps a society that has everything that it needs would have no requirement for money. But if money exists, does the stock market necessarily follow?

Is Time Travel possible?

I am discounting the trite answer. Yes it is we are travelling into the future at the rate of a day per day.

I am also discounting travelling to the future by utilising relativistic speeds.

I am talking about the travel to the future (or past) and return type of thing.

So is it?

I can think of a number of options. I am sure that there are more.

• No – because we would be visited by people in the future.
• Yes – we are being visited by people from the future.
• Yes – but we don’t survive much longer so there is hardly anyone from the future to visit us.
• Yes – but once out of own time stream we are ghostly observers unable to interact with what we see around us.

The year 3000

“Do you think there will be humans will survive to the year 3000?” My American friend asked.

“No!” I responded.

He was shocked. And asked me to explain. So I did.

Obviously there is the chance that we will obliterate ourselves by act of war or accident. We might bomb ourselves back to the stone age. I have a feeling that if humans are to survive as recognisably human this is how we will do it. Subsistence farmers unable to improve further because we have used up all the resources.

I have often thought that if we discover a plentiful energy source (such as fusion promises to be) that we should reseed the coal mines the oil fields, so that if anything bad were to happen then our descendents would be given the same chances as we were.

But I digress…

What I have in mind is not the destruction of mankind, but its evolution.

In one phrase “Brain chip”.

It may start with glasses. A ‘heads up display’ for the world we live in. We look at some and face recognition software tells us who they are and when we met them last.

But glasses can be left at home, lost or stolen. So the next stop is an implant. The ultimate personal organiser. Dates, names, facts and figures at your finger tips. Initially this would be connected to the brain. And then later, it becomes integrated.

Imagine being able to recall in video like accuracy every conversation you ever had. (Of course this is only possible for events after the chip is added. So the next step is that they are added at birth).

The chips are compatible, so information can be shared. If I can see his face, you can too. Innocent or guilt can be proved as eyewitness evidence becomes incontrovertible. As the brain deteriorates with age, more and more information is transferred onto the chip. SO eventually the flesh and blood is replaced.

Impossible? Perhaps. But British Telecom have invested millions into a project that aims to put the entire human mind on a chip by 2025.

Once the mind is free from its body, its body can become anything.

Will there be intelligent life in the year 3000? Probably

Will we recognise it? Possibly not.