A story by
Isaac Asimov that touched me for life. I'll find it an
paraphrase it into this
node someday. It's not your typical
robot fairytale, it's something that will change your whole
outlook.
In brief, it starts out where a
bunch of
drunken computer scientists are
celebrating the
building of the
world's most powerful
supercomputer (
written in the
50's, remember). One of them asks the
'puter to figure out a way to
reverse entropy. The next day they all
forget about it. However, the
task runs as a
background process on the computer.
Over the years, the computer keeps getting
upgraded and eventually the effects of
evolution become visible on its
human creators... they reach out for the
stars, and take the computer (or
facsimiles
thereof) with them. Each
instance of the computer is still thinking about the final question in its
spare cycles. Eventually both humans and the computer/s
transcend their
physical forms and exist as
disembodied intelligences
floating in the cosmos... but
tragically still
subject to the slow decay of
entropy... until...
I won't
give away the ending, Mr. Asimov did it best. Stay tuned for the text of the story.