Apparently, over analyzing blog posts is fun, too. ;)

Nah. Watching Familly Guy or Robot Chicken is mindless entertainment. I expect science fiction and drama shows to be intellectually stimulating. :)

Besides, over analyzing TV shows is fun. :)

Seriously, dude, I think you’re thinking way too hard on this. It’s television — that is, mindless entertainment. If you want to think, get a PhD. You’re ruining the show for yourself.

Very good points – both of them.

Regarding the first issue – this is an interesting question in itself. If backup of ones consciousness was possible what would we do with “missing persons”. Do you resurrect them or not?

I guess this would be a legal matter. Most jurisdictions have some guidelines for dealing with missing persons property. After enough time elapsed, and the person is believed to be dead but no body of proof of death can be found, whoever holds the power of attorney over the estate of the missing person could make the decision about resurrection.

I like your explanations almost as much as the quantum stuff from above. :)

Also, depending on the nature of backups it could be possible to merge two personalities that became disjointed due to a premature resurrection. Then again, question is whether or not it is ethical, or if anyone would actually agree to such merge.

The other question is more difficult – can soul be digitized. Good question – it depends on how we define soul. If it is indeed some mystical, spiritual factor of consciousness that cannot be measured or quantified by science then no.

Then there is that whole thing about artificial beings having souls. Is soul a unique property of living beings? Can soul be acquired by any sentient being at the point of their awakening to consciousness? Can a fully artificial, but sentient and conscious machine have soul? Theologists and philosophers have been battling over this for ages.

Two questions:

1. Assuming a back-up process as you suggest, let’s say you’re a cylon out on a long-range solo mission. You die beyond the range of the resurrection ship. Who would know? And how would the resurrection ship or the other cylons know to put the back-up into a new body? Seems like that would only work if you died in the presence of others, and they survived as well.

2. Bigger picture is the idea of “consciousness” versus “soul.” A central part of the BSG subplot is about whether or not Cylons have a soul. If they do, it does not seem possible to keep a back-up copy of ones soul. A copy of memories, experiences, yes. But the soul? A soul indicates a connection to something beyond oneself, and therefore does not seem like it could be copied — especially since the cylons (or even humans for that matter) don’t have an understanding of what a soul really is. How do you make a back-up copy of something you can’t define, detect or understand? Perhaps they did indeed try a back-up plan, but it kept failing for that reason?

[quote post=”2405″]Basically, if the Cyclon mind is composed by ‘quantum states’ it may be physically impossible to backup them; whereas it still is possible to transfer them.[/quote]

Oh wow.. Good theory. I totally didn’t think about that. I’m pretty sure the writers didn’t think of it like that, but I’ll buy it. :)

Also, transferring quantum states is (if I remember correctly) pretty reliable and safe from background interference or other “noise” type disruption which would mean error checking would not be as necessary as I thought.

[quote post=”2405″]Perhaps being stored in RAM – active but not alive – is what is painful to the cyclons. If so then you wouldn’t want to store backups for longer than is neccersary to restore to a clone.[/quote]

Hmm… I didn’t think they would be aware of being stored this way, but perhaps you are right as the Cylon tech seems to be largely organic.

What if the transfer of the backup from the cylon mind is a destructive procedure?

That the cylon’brain cells’ are destroyed as they are being digitised.

This wouldn’t matter if the cylon is dieing since, well, they’re dieing. It would account for the cyclons not making precautionary brain dumps.

Anyway, do we know that the cylons store data, and particularly data this complicated digitaly? Could there not be a technical restriction to the cyclon backups that require them to be kept ‘active’ at all times, they can only be stored in RAM, not written to disk. Some kind of quantum, or holographic storage?

Perhaps being stored in RAM – active but not alive – is what is painful to the cyclons. If so then you wouldn’t want to store backups for longer than is neccersary to restore to a clone.

Covering for what other people consider as plot holes is a bit of a hobby of mine :). So here we go:

Could it be that the technology to read off a mind for transmission would be fatal if done while the Cyclon were alive? Hence, there goes the idea of doing backups.

There also is all kinds of funky stuff at the quantum level. Look up the ‘no cloning theorem’ at Wikipedia. Basically, if the Cyclon mind is composed by ‘quantum states’ it may be physically impossible to backup them; whereas it still is possible to transfer them.

maybe the cylons can’t make backups due to DRM?

Well it could be a religion thing. I mean, they do have that whole religious thing going on so perhaps backups are forbidden? Kinda silly, but then again, which religion doesn’t have this type of odd prohibitions that have no practical and scientific basis.