OK, I GOTTA ask about this one Ben:)
From the review, it appears that thoughts or thought patterns from the dead persist in the ether itself... actually considering what you have commented on in regards to etherspace physics so far this isn't that big a suprise. I'm presuming for the moment that we are talking about snippets of though patterns, remmnants of the memories of a person and not their personality (sort of like erasing a sophisticated program, yet having a few files from it lying about that you have to remove on your own correct)? Ignoring for the moment the profound can of worms this can imply, I'm curious as to what society does with this information (because you know SOMEONE will find a way to make money off this effect). Things that come to my mind include the following... note that they all assume for the moment that this is something you can to some degree download, display, or copy like any other etherspace data. Correct me if I'm wrong...
1) Murder Prosecutions: Probably safe to say that your dying thoughts are some of your strongest. If you can retrieve these and they are considered admissable court evidence it's going to make murder that harder to get away with to say the least... and assuming the memories can persist over time "cold cases" are going to have a new means to bring them to closure.
2) Wills: Who needs a "living will" if they can grab yours from your mememories? Mind you of course that it may be a lot easier to argue spur of the moment will changes in this case though...
3) Biographies: Who needs the book? What if you could grab the significant memories of a subject and splice together something you can experience in the ether? On the flip side if you thought copyright laws were complex and hard to enforce before...
4) Replacement Characters: And of course for the ultimate freakish experience, replacement characters for characters that have died in-game having access to the former character's memories to some degree or another. Not sure how I'd approach roleplaying this aspect... but sounds like it could be fun to try...
Any thoughts/comments on these?
Greg
I see dead people (and have bootleg copies of em' too!)
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