Software and Life After Death

As a computer programmer, the software I create is the closest realization I will ever have of life after death.  The digital instructions executed by the computer processor become a reified representation of a thought, a wish, or a concept that once existed in my mind.  A small part of human consciousness transcends its biological origins  and instead becomes animated by microscopic circuitry.  This stream of consciousness reacquaints with the human mind as the future end-user interacts with the program and comprehends the meaning behind the symbols presented by the software.

 One may think the same phenomenon occurs with film, books or pictures, but these offerings of one-way media are lifeless artifacts that can only preserve an immutable arrangement of symbols.  Software achieves greater conveyance of sentience because software is capable of a bilateral interaction with the physical world.  Input mechanisms such as keyboards or even cameras inform the software of events in the outside world.  The software interprets the meaning of these events and decides on an appropriate response.  Of course, the computer itself is a stupid machine, it cannot decide on anything.  It is the conscious thought of the programmer embedded in the software code that provides the knowledge to achieve a desired result.  Long after the programmer's death, the software will continue to interpret reality and leave impressions on human minds.  As an organism who faces certain death and does not subscribe to metaphysical fictions like Souls and Heavens, my only chance of persisting my consciousness in an animated form is software.

Software that is useless will not likely be remembered long after the programmer's death.  To become immortal one must become desirable.  Certainly the code running PacMan, Fortran or Bash will be executed for a long time to come.

Emulation and virtualization software are allowing people of all ages to resurrect old video game classics such as Legend of Zelda, Zork, and Wolfenstein3d.  Instructions written in high-level interpreted programming languages further extend the usability of the software long after the original hardware architecture is obsolete.

Two hundred years from now, after the deaths of Shigeru Miyamoto, John Carmack, Sid Meier and Linus Torvalds, their souls may not be with Saint Peter, but their software creations will continue on.
--Jae F. Muzzin