By Jim Yount

Jim Yount

I am one of the first people to have gotten a birthday card from his dead great-grandma. Growing up, even into young adulthood, I got birthday cards from my grandparents; usually with a few dollars enclosed. I don’t remember even once acknowledging any of the cards or gifts with a spoken or written thank-you. It is small wonder that none of the four now bother to send me cards, which task now falls to my great-grandma.

Great-Granny was always good to me, even though I was just one of many of her sons and daughters children’s’ children. My baby book, faithfully kept by Mom, records that "Baby" got "Rompers, and a dollar," from Great-Grandma at the baby shower held for me and my mother in the small Montana town where I spent my first few years of life. Mom recorded forty-six gifts from various friends, relatives and townspeople, which were a bountiful haul considering the scarcities of the war-time economy. Through the miracles of the information age the identities of the baby-shower magi, and their gifts, Gold, Frankincense, and War Stamps, can be ferreted out by anyone with the will and the patience be he flesh and blood or digital. After getting the card from Great-Grandma, I now fully expect to get letters of inquiry, or at least email queries, from all forty-six of the givers asking how I liked their gifts and fondly recalling circumstances of my early life.

When Great-Grandma was nearing her hundredth birthday she suffered a stroke which had a peculiar and tragic affect upon her memory. She could no longer remember me, my mother, or even my mother’s mother but still could recall people and events of her own childhood. The great-grandmother who sent me the card has no such handicap. After all, she is a construct of all the information that can be presumed to be available to a person of her time and place. Records of the town where she lived show pictures of her house, street maps, pictures of the school she attended. Events of the town, the state, and the nation during her early life are recorded by the town newspaper. Biographical information by various friends and relatives give bits of information. DNA samples can be analyzed and the findings used to predict how one with that particular genotype would react to the circumstances of life.

Presumably, anyone who is obviously dead and who sends a birthday card is a virtual personality. Is a virtual personality a virtual person? Perhaps a personality evolves into a person, as intelligence and will evolve. The ultimate in virtual personhood might be a construct that is assembled using actual memory information, rather than the secondary sources previously mentioned.

We of the Fantastic Freezer believe that cryonic suspension provides the most complete preservation of all available methods, and hence memories with the highest fidelity would come from people thus preserved. How much information may be gleaned from people treated after death in other fashion (such as embalming) is not known, but nanotechnology targeted to this information recovery will certainly be a goal, and almost certainly will eventually be an accomplishment. After that, a flesh and blood version of Great-Grandma may become a possibility.

As I write this in late June of 2005, I have not yet gotten the aforementioned birthday card. The fact of my writing, however, all but assures that it will be forthcoming. After all, what chance does this writing have of somehow escaping becoming a part of the information glut of humanity to be sifted and categorized in various ways, innumerable times? If anyone gets a birthday card from his great-grandma it is sure to be me, since I am one of the early people to have suggested that happenstance.

If I don’t get the card during my natural lifetime, one or more of my own personality information constructs is sure to get the card. I can’t complain so much of that possibility. Life as a personality construct may be rather dull, and a birthday card from my dead great grandmother may make things a bit more exciting, though I expect that Great-Grandmother is just as likely to stop by for a virtual visit and make me a batch of virtual doughnuts fried in virtual bear grease.

When I (actually a personality like mine) am a personality construct, I intend to work mightily to bring about the actualization of a flesh and blood version of me. I can think of lots of ways for my virtual self to make money, and money may well help push along the project, though keeping the money once made might be a bit of a problem.

Even though I never bothered to thank Great-Grandma, or any of my grandparents for their cards and gifts, I’m sure my virtual self will be much kinder and more thoughtful. So dead Great-Grandma will get a thank-you card from her dead great-grandson; something the flesh and blood great-grandson never found time to do.

Note: It was called to my attention by one of the people kind enough to read this article prior to submission that the reference in the second paragraph to "baby-shower magi" with gifts of "Gold, Frankincense, and War Bonds" suggests delusions of grandeur and even divinity. Please be assured that I realize that I am, in no sense, divine. While it is true that I can walk on water, I can only do so with one foot.