This is a (somewhat pretentious) poem I wrote about how, even when we've gone from this world, echoes of who we are continue on in the internet, old Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. All these tiny little fragments of who we were, still wandering around the world wide web.
The main source of inspiration was the Ghost In The Shell series of anime films - superb films, both in terms of their animation and the ideas they explore.
Whispering Ghosts
Become dust and bones, yet still I remain.
The heart is stilled, donated to the worms,
And the chemistry of the human soul fizzled away.
But I am not gone…
Binary immortality, a digital epitaph.
Electro-magnetic eternal life.
My fractured remnants travel the vast, infinite net.
My words and ideas reverberate in virtual cathedrals,
Bouncing back and forth forever down channels of thought.
Rumours travelling down avenues of imagination,
A sigh on the wind that swirls about the web,
Or a current in an endless sea of knowledge.
Bits and bytes of a self, digitised and undying.
Could consciousness exist in these fragments?
Is there awareness, sentience in this immortal echo?
Is that what we become when we fade from the world,
We who travel the strands of the web?
A composite of the thoughts we left behind.
Ghosts in a billion machines,
Whispering…