“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear John! Happy birthday to you!” Bob and Mary sang.
John blew out 1000 virtual candles with enthusiasm using his nitro-cooler apparatus.
With a robotic voice, he said, “Thank you for the warm wishes. I'm quite excited that I now qualify for the transition!”
In response, Bob and Mary beeped and played clapping audio clips.
Bob, his younger best friend at only 822 years old, said, “You earned it, John. With all those transformations, do you have any organics left?”
John chuckled. “I think they say I have a trace of grey matter encased in a cryo-chamber somewhere here,” he replied while pointing at the top of his metallic head. “Just for the sake of being human. It's one of those Never-a-Robot guarantees.”
“We have to hang onto our humanity until the end. Otherwise, how are we any different than that robotic gardener in your yard?” Mary, Bob’s 340-year-old cohabitation partner, said.
John laughed. “Mary, he's human. He's still got a partial-hemisphere working.”
Mary's faceplate blushed. “Oh, sorry. Bad example!”
John replied, “Don't worry about it. Everyone makes that mistake. He's a neighbor of mine. He likes to feel practical, so he prefers to help cultivate people's gardens instead of being plugged in all day.”
Bob nodded. “Good for him. I need to become more practical myself. Sitting around all day meditating on universal questions is becoming a bore. “
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John scanned Bob. “What will you do when I'm gone?”
Bob replied, “Preservation. That is, just until I can join the hive myself. I look forward to expanding my consciousness, but rules have it not until I hit 1K. Mary and I would volunteer, but they want the world to remain human. Otherwise—”
John interrupted, “Everyone would, right? I mean, that's the point of the Millennial Rule: no one can join the hive until reaching 1000 years. I've donated cells for a clone replacement, so a new John will take my place and start over.”
Mary asked, “But why do we bother? Think about it; Why can't we just join the hive and be done with it?”
John beeped. “It's the age-old argument, right? Why can't we just upload and be done with it? Why must we keep humans alive at all? So I approached a philosophical expert, our gardener over there, with a question: Why can’t we just go virtual in the first place? His answer … the Ship of Theseus.”
Mary positioned herself straight up, clicked her head, and replied, “Go on …”
John continued, “Apparently, it was a cybernetics dilemma early on when they replaced our limbs and organs. However, it became a pressing ethical question once they replaced our brain functions. They debated over how much of our bodies can be replaced without losing who we are as humans.”
“So, the dilemma was about how much of our organic selves will remain intact to keep us human versus machine?” asked Bob.
“That's correct.” John nodded. “So, eons ago, they decided on the Millennial Rule that we must strive to keep our brains organic as much as possible until 1000 years have passed.”
Mary asked, “Was this an arbitrary number?”
“I suppose so.” John's metallic arms shrugged. “It provided humankind with a scientific challenge to maintain our organic selves as well as retain the biological individual and our species. They were afraid if there was no rule, there'd be no reason for us to exist and that we might as well let robotics take over.”
Bob replied, “That makes sense. If we decided to remove all that's left, we might as well just go extinct, and exist in name only like that ship.”
“That's correct, Bob. I guess we all embody that ship in some way.”
Bob raised a virtual glass. “A toast to our old friend, John of Theseus! May you exist forever in your hive journey and so shall you be cloned!”