Post Human Reality - Uploading Personality

I frequently joke that I’m going to live forever, like in Futurama.  Nixon is just an immortal head in a jar.  Maybe, in another 50 years, we might have the technology to upload our personalities to the Cloud -- that nether of internet space.  I wonder what that would be like.  Tron is one of my favorite movies, but the “people” of that world seem human enough.  But is that even remotely close to what it would be like?

If you change dramatically, internally, fundamentally, are you still you?  You may have a distant memory of your former self but would how would you contemplate that?  I wanted to say how would you feel about it, but that doesn’t even have the right context anymore.  Feelings are for humans.

The Spark of Searching for Extraterrestrial Life

Charlie Stross pointed out an article and commentary that peaked my interest, dealing with SETI and the Fermi Paradox. The article was The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth by Keith Wiley. Wiley's article was to do with the likelihood of Intelligent Aliens or lack thereof. 

If you aren't familiar with the Fermi Paradox, it basically states that the likelihood of intelligent life in the galaxy is high, given the huge number of stars and therefore planets in our galaxy, that intelligent extraterrestrial life should have been to visit us by now or at least left their evidence and yet we haven't found clue one.  There are lots of theories as to why and these essays delve into those arguments.