| The mechanism in the above cases is not specified. The Governor of Glubbdubdrib could conjure up historical figures "by his skill in necromancy". Bill and Ted went into a telephone booth and dialled a time and place. In Cold Lazarus, there are some special effects to depict the uploading process but no clue as to the mechanism. What is new is the hope that some limited simulation of people is becoming possible. Thus, there is a chance that the universal desire for immortality can be somewhat satisfied in its more modest form of continuing to show our home movies after we are dead. This reduces to the very concrete issues of the distribution of CD-ROMs and the mainenance of websites. Better a website than a gravesite as a memorial but we still need someone to tend it. Most of us don't want to come back, we just want to leave something behind.
My morbid interest in hanging out with dead folk can be satisfied only if someone can create for them some more sophisticated equivalent of my Siliclone. My Siliclone has become a bit more sophisticated lately. It is now on a CD-ROM with a Director interface which will link my publications to my hand and my presentations to my lips, etc. (see Figure 4). However, it still has a long, long way to go. With the help of the others at this conference, I hope to take another small, stumbling step towards an Avatar which can ask its own questions and perhaps answer some questions posed by other Avatars.
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