> > (There is also the possibility of simply transferring yourself into a machine, which is a whole different can of worms.)
> Now *that* would be interesting. Personally, I wouldn't want to try it until it had been thoroughly tested. And my suspicion is that this won't be possible either.

Frederick Pohl wrote a series of science fiction novels called the Heechee Saga. I won't go into what it's all about; suffice it to say that in the second-to-last book of the series, the main character gets, as he calls it, "vastened." Basically, he dies of natural causes, and immediately after death his consciousness (or an exact duplicate of it; even he's not sure in the story) is transfered into data storage. Pohl's concept of what this would be like is quite interesting.

Gri"what, no details, you say? Go read the book, ninnies!"shny