XPost: rec.arts.sf.science, alt.sci.physics.new-theories, sci.physics   
   XPost: rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: mstemper@walkabout.empros.com   
      
   In article , David   
   Dalton  writes:   
      
   >Do you think there is any chance yet that energy beings   
   >have evolved on or are visiting the Internet, or   
   >that the Internet itself might become conscious?   
      
   "Energy beings"? What, pray tell, is an "energy being", and where, in the   
   network, would this energy be physically located?   
      
   I can think of some "energy beings" in science fiction, but they lived   
   on/in stars. The Cahuitans of _The Vortex Blaster_, the "shepherds" of   
   _Sundiver_, and maybe one of the races corrupted by The Lord of the Flames   
   in _The Fall of the Towers_.   
      
   Or were all of them more plasma beings than energy beings.   
      
   It's possible that intelligence as an emergent phenomenon could "just   
   happen" on the Internet, but I kind of doubt it. It is, none the less,   
   more plausible with this as a substrate than either the phone system   
   (Clarke's 1965 "Dial 'F' for Frankenstein") or Manny's "fair dinkum   
   thinkum" (Heinlein's 1966 _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_).   
      
   But not much more.   
      
   --   
   Michael F. Stemper   
   #include    
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