Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by
Hap Aziz
Or perhaps I should say they were the ultimate avatars until the resurrection hub was destroyed.
If you're unfamiliar with the BSG remake that began as a mini series on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2004 and wrapped up the series and the story just last night, the Cylons have taken on different forms from the robots of the original series. In fact, there is a whole new class of Cylon referred to by the humans as "skin jobs"--these are robots with complete human appearance. The interesting thing (and what makes it relevant to the discussion of avatars) is that these skin jobs cannot die. When one skin job meets an untimely end, its consciouness is immediately backed up and downloaded into a brand new body, allowing it to live again.
The process is analogous to what happens in computer games when a players character is killed in the game world--a new player character is added back to the playing environment, and the actual player has the advantage is being able to make use of newly acquired knowledge. I can see this as being a logical extension of how learners gather their information in the teaching and learning environment.
We seem to be on our way to that level of technology. How will we handle it?
- Hap Aziz