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The Heaven Virus Appreciation Page What are ultimate spiritual technologies for the 22nd century? What would it be like to live in an Age of Electronic Gods? A novel inspired by virtual universes making headlines today! Clifford A. Pickover, Lulu, 2007, (Buy at Amazon.Com) "Pickover contemplates realms beyond our known reality." -- The New York Times "Pickover inspires a new generation of da Vincis to build unknown flying machines and create new Mona Lisas." -- Christian Science Monitor "Bucky Fuller thought big, Arthur C. Clarke thinks big, but Cliff Pickover outdoes them both." -- WIRED "A perpetual idea machine, Clifford Pickover is one of the most creative, original thinkers in the world today." -- Journal of Recreational Mathematics

Keywords: afterlife, computers, immortality, science fiction, virtual universes, virtual reality, heaven, God, religion, simulation, brain, dreams, Second Life, psychedelics, aliens, viruses, artificial life, nature of reality, future technology, DMT (dimethyltryptamine), Ray Kurzweil, Rick Strassman, consciousness, brain in a vat, transhumanism, Daniel Pinchbeck, futuristic human relationships "Reading The Heaven Virus makes our brains glow and our spirits soar. The book is sexy, funny, mysterious, and hyper-real. My friends ask me questions while reading the book: 'Can you really have sex in a computer chip? Can our brains be uploaded to computers where we can dream in a chip?' I smile. The book coaxes my friends to rush to their nearest computer terminal, warm themselves from the effluent of their computers' fans, and make love among the cables and noises from the hard drives."

[Source: "Method and Device for Reducing Secondary Brain Injury" (U.S. Patent No. 6,929,656; 2006)] [Source: "Pattern Recognition Utilizing A Nano-technology-based Neural Network" (U.S. Patent No. 7,107,252; 2006)] Heaven Virus in the news Special for all twitter users: click here for "Spirits of the Dead will Twitter from the Afterlife by 2075." I thrust The Heaven Virus book through a software book crusher that digested the book in seconds and spat out every word in the book, according to how often the word occurs.

Synthetic Heavens and Electric Dreams From one of the most original voices in imaginative nonfiction comes a stunning novel of suspense and speculation--as an ordinary New Yorker uncovers the mystery of the afterlife and finds himself in a desperate search for immortality and the existence of the human soul. Come along for the journey with acclaimed science writer Cliff Pickover as he explores the borderlands of science in a novel inspired by virtual universes making headlines today. The Heaven Virus is the hammer that shatters the ice of our unconscious, offering readers a glimpse of ultimate spiritual technologies for the 22nd century and a mystic encounter in an age of electronic gods. Downloading our minds to computers--to experience our afterlives and God in a chip! The Sweet Crunch of Sensuous Androids Exploring the vast realm of the afterlife, we encounter sex-starved holograms, taxidermic nightmares, robotic spiders, deadly blowfish, Braconid wasps, Tibetan Bön-po monks, a Biblical bronze snake, Emanuel Swedenborg, psychedelic jelly-roll nudibranchs, chrome cannibals, translinguistic cattle, and Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Thomas Pynchon in the guise of dragonflies. The Second Lives of Electric Sheep The Heaven Virus blends tragedy, humor, psychedelia, sex, fear, and hope in an unforgettable meditation on the outer limits of our culture, evolutionary destiny, death, and inner space. The Heaven Virus will not only draw science-fiction fans, but also those who have wondered about their own passage from this existence into the world to come. The Heaven Virus is mentioned at the end of this New York Times article. Cliff Pickover--futurist, explorer, and dreamer--has dozens of patents and is the author of forty books on science, mathematics, art, and religion. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University. His website, Pickover.com, has received several million visits. Contact Books Home

The Simulation Questionnaire!

In the The Heaven Virus, technology is sufficiently advanced that we can upload our minds to a virtual reality run on a computing device. Given this technology, would you personally take the ultimate plunge? In The Heaven Virus, the latest Afterlife chip has computational limitations—it can only realistically simulate a small environment like an indoor shopping mall. But the simulation is extremely accurate. Even the movement of water in the fountains is faithfully rendered. Your simulacrum would experience reality, free from disease and disability, living forever.

Would you choose to be uploaded upon your death if you could never leave the artificial mall? Could you be happy there? E-mail me your answers.

An edited selection of your answers here:

1. I would never upload myself. Death and decay are part of life, and I'd miss my physical loved ones left behind in the real world.
   Yours, Wendy

2. While in the mall simulation, could we access the Internet so we could stay in contact with friends? I'd never get bored with access to the Internet. What legal rights would I have in the mall? If my body were dead and buried, would my simulation be able to buy and sell, run companies, and so forth?
   Thanks for listening to me, Chaz, artist from Shrub Oak, NY

3. Look around you. Many people already seem to live hooked to the Internet. Thus, many people would gladly be uploaded to the mall.
   Sincerely, Isaac

4. I would upload if the mall had a Saks Fifth Avenue store and the programmers picked up the tab.
   Love, Jean

5. Some people would visit the mall's Radio Shack and build gadgets that allowed them to communicate with the outside world. -Carl

6. I wonder what pills in the drug store would be the most popular?
   Mr. Morphic

7. If the mall had 100 people, communities and local governments would form. So would wars. Could bad people be put in prison within one of the mall stores? -Homer

8. Could one dream in the mall simulation?
   Sincerely, Cliff

9. But what would happen to my soul? What about heaven and hell?
   Regards, Yeshua

10. I worry about lonlineness. Can you access the web, other "chipped" people, bridging your spaces together to form larger worlds? Eternity is far too long to spend alone. What about your virtual self, can you change the way you look, your physical prowess (among other things)? In short, I'd love to visit a place like you describe but I'd hate to be trapped there.
    Regards, Darien Fox

11. I am concerned about privacy. If there were only a few people in the mall, that would permit privacy, and I'd go there upon my death.
    James K

12. I would go there if I could have access to my Second Life account from my afterlife in the mall.
    Jake

13. "Survive heathen" is an anagram for "The Heaven Virus" -- Chuck P.

14. Some additional hot discussions on The Heaven Virus take place at Neatorama.

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