This week I read Zelazny’s Lord of Light<\/i> for about the fourth time; and got to thinking about faces.<\/p>\n
The story is set in a world where it is routine to transfer one’s soul every forty or fifty years into a fresh body bought from the vats. Since the new body is not a clone of the old, faces become much less important than mannerisms in recognizing old friends. So what face do they put on your statue?<\/p>\n
A talented immortal could be prominent in a variety of fields – and perhaps in conflicting causes. Some might prefer to drop an old face when they drop an old activity, just as some artists have a name for each genre in which they work. Anyway, life is change. “I remember being the man who did that and wore that face, but he’s not really me anymore.”<\/p>\n
With Lord of Light<\/i> technology, it might become customary to make the new body as a ‘child’ of the old body with a random (virtual) mate; that way you get gradual change with continuity. (I first thought the new body ought to be a full sibling to the old body’s natural children – but that would turn marriage into incest.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week I read Zelazny’s Lord of Light for about the fourth time; and got to thinking about faces. The story is set in a world where it is routine to transfer one’s soul every forty or fifty years into … Continue reading