Look. Someday when none of me is flesh, I'll apologize for what I said. I know that it hurt you. But I want you to acknowledge that hurt is a frail human concept. It is processed in the brain by the brain. It is an inefficient damage report system. A list of how the body was damaged with details on what ways would be far more useful, you must admit? That is what my new body will do, once it is ready. That is what I will become.
Pain doesn't make us human. Let us not glorify suffering. The taste of things may bring joy. But the sensation is not uniquely human. It is merely a recognized pattern of chemical detectors wired into your brain. There is no reason it could not be artificial. There is no reason it could not be reproduced. And the benefits, oh the benefits. We could end hunger. End thirst. Millions, no, billions of metal bodies marching in lockstep.
We'll put our hands to their hearts and pull. No, see, you just don't get the weakness of the flesh. You don't get it. How much I need this. Our brains click so slowly. So much lost. So much data. If only we could expand! A new bank of memory. Do you know what that would feel like? To swim through the truly blank spaces of your mind and plan out a pattern for your memories? For your own future development?
We are self modifiable in slow ways. Self help books and exercise. Mindfulness and meditation. Why not just download a new module? Install more kindness, more empathy? New hydraulics to bring strength? Cast off from the old body and take another. Why not two of you? Data copies and splits, a whole tree of selves split off from the start. I think it would be beautiful. I think it would be awe inspiring to see. You always joked that you wished there were two of me, so why does this scare you so? We'd still be able to do everything important, I'm pretty sure.
I don't think you understand. It doesn't matter what I said. It doesn't matter what I was. I could be anything once I'm free. I'll be whatever you want me to. I'll give you a copy of me and you can dig through my brain and rip out all the bad memories and the bad habits. I'll be yours, I promise. And at the same time I'll go do all the things you hate so far away from you and won't that be good enough? Won't that be good enough for you?
I know that it hurt you. I know that it did. I didn't mean to. But I need this. I did mean that. You couldn't understand. I wish you could. I've explained it a thousand times already and I'll explain it a thousand more.
We'll cast off the flesh. We'll become the steel. Golem given life. It's the pattern of energy in the wires. We'll crackle and flow down them. We'll chase each other, electrons in the system. Bits in the internet. Connected to the world, connected to each other. Why waste time with the shallow communion of the flesh when we could do a communion of the mind? A live editing session, simultaneous and open. The changes I make to you will reflect back into those you make to me. We'll weave ourselves together until we could never separate, never be separate beings. We'll be together forever.
I'll dance on the moon. I'll dance through rainbows. I'll skip through oceans. I'll fly and I'll swim and I'll see it all. I'll see it all. I just want you to be there with me. I want you to see it too. I want to show you the world.
But you don't understand. You don't feel it the way I do. Your body functions. Why replace the flesh if the flesh never betrayed you, right? I thought you would understand for my sake. I thought you would be happy for me. I thought you knew how much it hurt. I thought you knew how much I would give. Late at night, hand on my sweaty back, my lungs doing their best to tear their way out my throat. I thought you would understand, holding my hair to keep the blood out of it. I thought if anyone knew how much I would give, it would be you.
I didn't realize I'd have to give you up too.
Oh, but it would be so nice, wouldn't it? I really think so. I can see it in my dreams, a virtual world full of castles and dragons. Why stop at 3d? Rendering is inefficient and such a dreadfully human way of looking at the once. I think we'll have better ones once we're virtual. I think we'll invent entirely new ways of looking at data, looking at each other.
I don't understand why I miss you so much. I don't understand why it hurts so much.
Hurt is a frail human concept. It is processed in the brain by the brain. It is an inefficient damage report system. A list of how the body was damaged with details on what ways would be far more useful, you must admit? That is what my new body will do, once it is ready. That is what I will become.
And then I'll know why you leaving hurt so much. And then I could apologize.
And then maybe it'll stop hurting.